15 Home Assistant Tips You MUST Do

In todays video I give you my 15 tips I always do when installing a new Home Assistant server, from settings and zones, to security and storage! These are my go to first steps for getting Home Assistant setup the right way!
Remote Access videos:
Cloudflare - • The Easiest Free Way T...
Wireguard - • Home Assistant WireGua...
Tailscale - • The EASIEST VPN for Ho...
Traditional - • Home Assistant Remote ...
HACS: hacs.xyz
Backups: • Never Lose Your Home A...
Watchman: • Keep Your Home Assista...
Tablet I use for wallpanels:
UK - amzn.to/3JHNhyN
UK (newer) - amzn.to/3XPpV05
International - amzn.to/3NYXQ33
International (newer) - amzn.to/4335fTa
Patreon:
/ everythingsmarthome
Buy Me a Coffee:
www.buymeacoffee.com/EverySma...
Written Article:
everythingsmarthome.co.uk
EVERYWHERE YOU CAN FIND ME:
Everything Smart Home Community Discord:
discord.everythingsmarthome.c...
Twitter: / everysmarthome (@EverySmartHome)
Instagram: / everythingsmarthome
Facebook: / everythingsmarthomeoff...
#homeassistant #smarthome
________________________
Some of the links above are affiliate links, where I earn a small commission if you click on the link and purchase an item. You are not obligated to do so, but it does help fund these videos in hopes of bringing value to you!

[@christianhinkel9251]

0:22 General Settings 0:58 Zones 1:16 Dairy Liquid 1:43 Advanced Mode 2:03 Static IP 4:06 Enable SSH 5:15 Enable 2FA 6:12 Install Apps 6:57 Backup 7:31 File Editor 8:22 Create Areas 9:27 NAS Media Storage 10:10 HACS 11:10 Watchman 11:42 Remote Access 12:52 Enable Analytics

[@checkedshorts]

Appreciate the liquid timestamp

[@dablet]

my hero!

[@rolliseventeen]

weiss nicht warum die das nicht selber hinbekommen.... ist doch sein job..

[@qfina]

Thanks, the video should have had this

[@Alex090]

Thank you!

[@CaptZenPetabyte]

I have been watching your channel for the last year and I have learned quite a lot; in fact I am currently working on an Automation system for a special project car I am working on and youre videos on home assistant have helped me 'customise' for this project, thank you.

[@citizenq01]

Just getting back into HA. This was very helpful to remind me of a few things, plus some new stuff. Thank you.

[@NotRubyTuesday13]

Thanks for sharing. Very much education to soak in.

[@PatrickBulteel]

Can you (or have you) describe what is the recommended way to name your devices, sensor, automation, scripts, etc? If you don't do this right, it tends to get hard to find the right one, or you have several named similarly that makes it hard to distinguish what it is. Do you include the name of the location in the device? What if you then move it? Bedroom lamp now becomes sits in the living room. Temperature sensors, etc. How do you name automations/scripts? Without folders all automations are in the same screen.

[@tolisl5013]

That's a great question. I would like to hear Lewis' opinion on this

[@MrLakridsbat]

I am trying to decide a scheme to rename all my devices.

[@tolisl5013]

@MrLakridsbat I am not consistent here, too. I would like to revise device naming some time

[@MrLakridsbat]

@tolisl5013 I'm still in the process of setting it up, so most things still have their default names. I'm also just testing out a small number of devices, but when I go all in I want to have a solid plan.

[@elpeterson]

I've sent a four character abbreviation for all my areas. Living room for example is, LVNG. Then a summary of what the entity is. Then it's purpose. So a button to turn on the main bedroom fan would be ”mbdr_fan_button”. The ZigBee outlet I use purely as a repeater downstairs is set in my downstairs area (vs a specific room) so it's dnst_repeater. Similarly I have upst_thermostat, offc_multisensor_humidity, offc_multisensor_temperature, offc_multisenzor_battery. That last one is important because every week I have an automation that fetches all my *_battery entities and if they are

[@kombicruiser2658]

Awesome Lewis. Thanks again for taking the time to produce such an informative video.

[@bennylloyd-willner9667]

Great video, I'm about to restart my HA journey during this winter (been off it for over a year), and this is perfect for a smooth installation👌

[@wscottfunk]

Thanks Lewis! I always look forward to and appreciate your advice and tips.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

That's very kind, thanks 🙏🏻

[@LaneLarson]

Great video! I've been using home assistant for years and didn't know about Watchman.

[@KimmoJaskari]

Tailscale seems to me like the sweet spot for accessing this from outside the home. You don't have to open any ports and you leave your firewall guarding your home network, while still having full access to the HA. But thanks for this video, as a guy just starting out with HA there were several great tips in here I implemented right away. Now if someone could just explain to me why changing your home zone radius is borderline impossible, whereas you can easily do so on added zones, I'd be thrilled. Sometimes, the open-sourciness of the whole thing slaps you in the face, with inexplicable weirdness.

[@igorburilo3937]

Very informative video. Thanks!

[@twizshiz]

Watchman, loving it. I really appreciate this plugin. Thanks for sharing it.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

No worries, enjoy!

[@W0Ndr3y]

I am using argon one case for my rpi 4. Amazing thing for cooling and storage on rpi4 I just found integration that allows control of the integrated fan based on cpu temp while using HA. I do recommend

[@WoottonRivers]

Great video. All your items are good choices for a newbie list

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Appreciate that! 🙏🏻

[@brianoneill3244]

great video, fab explanations

[@fredarmstrong6418]

Great Video as always Lewis. Thanks for all your work here on this channel. Well timed for me as I am moving from a container install to full vm install of HA. There were one or two that I had missed. :-)

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Thanks for watching - hope the moves goes OK! 😅

[@junkins]

Thank you so much Lewis! I always look forward to your videos. 😊Nice Shirt!!

[@EverythingSmartHome]

And I always look forward to your comments Jamie! 🙏🏻

[@diedrichguenther401]

Thanks for the Watchman suggestion, I hadn't heard of it until I recently saw a video from Mostly Chris and he walks through the setup. Watchman is exactly what I needed after a recent OS migration and addition & removal of some devices!

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Glad it helped!

[@toddtitson6734]

Can you go into more details about the back door entry possibilities in future videos, please? Thanks, Lewis!

[@halooche]

Great tips, thanks.

[@gerryf7015]

Perfect timing, I'm about to go down the HA rabbit hole. Thanks Lewis.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

It's deep and dark down here 😂 enjoy!

[@ArmyMarine1995]

​@@EverythingSmartHome Synology (apps, Dockers, etc), then Unifi/Ubiquity (bc the NAS needs a secure environment), and now HomeAssistant (bc it's 2024, so why not? ) + a separate rabbit hole for each category of smart devices. Seems they never end. haha

[@hhbadarin]

Super helpful, TY!

[@user-rd9kb6ox1v]

Great tips!👍

[@carlarmstrong1563]

Thanks for the watchman info :)

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Glad it helped!

[@bfitz58]

Lewis, great video! I wasn't aware of Watchman - very useful! Is there any chance you can do a video explaining the benefits of Frank's SSH? I've now got both installed and working, but having read Frank's readme, I don't know what Mosh, or ZSH are, never mind their benefits!

[@adammourad1873]

Thank you Lewis! for the information, Great video! well done i have some media issues and CCTV that i don't know they don't work for me is it possible to get you to have look at for me please much appreciated

[@SmartLifeEnthusiast]

It's safer to setup a static DHCP reservation on your router versus setting static IP on a client. DHCP reservation will ensure the router doesn't give the IP to another device. Static IPs on clients can cause issues if you change your network topology or move the device to a different network.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Read other comments, discussed in great length at this point. I don't agree with you personally but as I said in the video, either is fine and it's not a big deal

[@-Gadget-]

​@@EverythingSmartHome Always set static for devices like HA. Not only because I enjoy micro-managing everything, but because, in the past, on a few occasions, I've had one router fail, one after the other, and when these cheap chinesium routers fall over, I still have access. So I totally agree with static ip's on items I couldn't be bothered trying to locate on the network when I'm in a hurry 🤔🤷‍♂️

[@djjiff4234]

You could amend your starting and ending range that is handed out by DHCP, then manually set Static adresses on your IOT network devices outside of that range. best of both worlds :)

[@rpg1663]

Not sure what kind of router you're using, but it's pretty common that many vendors allow to bind a mac address to an IP address, know as Static ARP/NDP neighbour entry. DHCP adds a lot of trash packets in your network

[@Artropos]

Or best of both world Give the device a static ip and set a reservation in your dhcp on that ip and bind it to the macaddress

[@jaap7374]

I love these kind of videos ❤

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Appreciate you watching and commenting ♥️

[@josiahspackman8754]

Very cool, and some great tips. Have you tried any of the M5Stack gear? I know you've made the Ep1 with an ESP32 base, but I'd love to see a video on things like their M5Core (Or PM2.5 Air Quality Kit) and some of the nifty creations you could come up with for the built-in display etc!

[@EverythingSmartHome]

M5Stack stuff is pretty cool!

[@TheUnofficialMaker]

Excellent

[@petersu2441]

great video thank you - do you know if it is possible to share a dashboard with some sensors for an extern user? so he can not see other things on his screen (sidepanel and other sensors and other dashboards)?

[@ReaperSilently]

Great video! well covered! You mentioned backups, well, I can attest to that!!! I made a catastrophic failure in my proxmox nodes about a month ago, and due to that failure, the only way forward was reinstalling proxmox on my 3 nodes again, redo all the vm's, litterally everything. Now, when it came to home assistant, I had my backups, however, they where on one of the servers that bricked, so I had no choice but to completely redo HA from scratch. My own stupid mistake, and it took me from 7Pm till 4AM in the morning to get the house back up to a "working", but basic state. It was a nightmare to do, and even today I still clean up due to that disaster. I wouldn't have had any problem, if i just kept the backup off site, like all the others. Worst part, I had my zigbee network backed up, and it was off site, but it was the wrong zigbee config. It was the one from my apartment, not my house..... Anyhow, BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP PEOPLE, and next to that, keep at least 1, if possible 2 backup's off site, and reachable at any given time! I do now, but it was a very bitter pill to swallow...... Al always, great tips, great video, keep it up!

[@AshleyGittins]

Oh man that sounds like a nightmare! I'm assuming it was a "over-wrote the disk array" or something sort of event 😞

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Arg, sometimes you learn the hard way, but as long as lessons are learned, that's the main thing 😅

[@-Gadget-]

I found the Addon someone created for backing up automatically to Google drive recently, needless to say, that has saved my bacon on more than one occasion, messing around where I shouldn't be 😂😅

[@craignixon4468]

My instance seems to use the time from the browser. As an example my Tesla browser shows HA 8 hours behind the UK for the energy dashboard and i recall most, but not all, history graphs.

[@juan11perez]

Thank you for the video. With regards to two factor authentication, do 'manual' integrations for alexa or google home continue to work?. Im guessing the end point will be blocked, and these will stop working?

[@gerryf7015]

Nice Lewis! Is you HA static IP on an IOT VLAN with other IOT devices or how is the general network setup, for Nabu Casa or other external communicatio - remote access, voise, etc. A video topic? Right in your wheelhouse!! A No. 16, might be defining a area/device/entity naming convention. It can get messy later if you don't initially think it through. No. 17 Documentation. Lots of new stuff all going on all at once. Days or weeks later, hard to remember what you decided or what all these similarly named automations do!!

[@FredSchmitthammer]

Which addon can be used to clean the configuration of invalid or replaced devices?

[@psylenced]

One extra thing for Areas. I noticed you use Outside (which I do too) for things like weather. I also have another area called "admin" or "ha" which I use to assign home assistant addons that arent related to a room (zigbee coord, hacs, servers, etc). And I also have a area called "phone" which I add phones to.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Thanks for sharing!

[@nate_river_]

I do the same, it's quite useful to have a few "virtual areas" for things. Right now I have an Outside, Internet, and an Admin area. The Internet one has a bunch of stuff all dotted around the house, but it's all network-related (WiFi, switches, servers...) that logically makes sense together.

[@ChristianBlueChimp]

Thanks for the information. If you could add timestamps it would be great for further reference. I really enjoy these videos.

[@74357175]

Timestamps would make this 10x more useful. Now it's just a curiosity, but with timestamps it's a reference video

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Thanks! Will add

[@gozirraizroose]

Backups are super super important. Sometimes it isn't even me that screws things up. Recently the zwave/zigbee maintainer changed SOMETHING and it completely screwed up all my wall switches. Not just me either, there were others in the same boat. Fortunately restoring the previous backup got everything working again, until the maintainer figures out what he did and undoes it.

[@philippeantonietti]

awesome thanks 😊

[@Jaw0lf]

I have found adding a second zigbee stick to be very beneficial as I have found the different branches support devices to different levels. Adding a stick for Zigbee2MQTT enabled extra features hidden by ZHA

[@GertStalpaert]

I found adding another zigbee stick drops the signal level quite a lot. I might use another frequency: don't know if that should solve it?

[@EverythingSmartHome]

You miss out on the benefit of ZigBee though - the mesh which gets stronger as you add more routing capable devices. Splitting a ZigBee network like that means more interference and more difficult to manage. But having both is handy for some things for sure

[@davidmaye3580]

Thank you

[@user-gn2ll7ds9s]

I think a very useful video. Having a System location allows for separating system life support devices. I run 8 different HA hardware configurations . 2 local (dev and release) and the 6 remote. My concern for the future is the re-installing or upgrading to new hardware. Since moving away from YAML configurations I am wondering if there is anyway to do an auto installation. eg: using ansible or the like. At least to get the base installation to a leave where I can make the custom configurations needed for the individual sites. Any suggestions as I don't believe using a backup will allow me to restore the same backup to differing hardware. Thankyou for all the work and guidance you provide. Always appreciated.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

You can indeed restore a backup to different hardware :) Ansible install would be interesting!

[@tonict2302]

Awesome video

[@krisclem8290]

The .local method might use a different naming protocol than DNS like NetBIOS, if I'm not mistaken the DNS system involves storing the records on a central system while NetBIOS allows each host to advertise their own name.

[@bearhntr928]

Another great video. When setting STATIC IP, can only one DNS be set?

[@EverythingSmartHome]

You can separate them by commas

[@littlekools]

Could you show us how to set up a UI adjustable timer? I want to set up a dashboard in the kitchen but I'm told that there has to be a kitchen timer for baking, I'm also told all receipts have different times they have to cook so just set automations for recipes doesn't work.

[@GabrielOfGore]

Regarding HA Areas: If you've got a pre-configured HUE environment, you can just add this and it'll create the areas corresponding to your HUE environment. So you don't necessarily have to go the long way of actually typing it out.

[@gedgicat2063]

Great video, i've definitely got a few things to tick of this list. Perhaps install, next, next, next is not they way to do things😂

[@EverythingSmartHome]

😂

[@kicksejaapie]

Nice.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

😆

[@davideyres955]

I always use .254 downwards for static addresses and .1 for starting point for dhcp. That way if you need more static addresses you can reduce your dhcp range to give you more space. If you use early addresses for static you don’t have as simpler way to expand addresses. Using 1-10 you could run out then you’d have to do more faffing. Not saying you can’t do it that way I just find it more flexible.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

It's not a bad way :)

[@tin2001]

Use a shorter lease time and it's not a big deal... If I'm making a relatively major change to how my network is set up, I don't mind waiting an hour for DHCP leases to expire and devices get told to use a different address.

[@harrybeechey7960]

I prefer to leave the server IP addressing on automatic after configuring the IP on my router, this way if for whatever reason the IP you selected becomes unavailable the server will fail to another one rather just go offline and be uncontactable

[@fjrichman]

I do 1-99 as my static space and 100-254 for DHCP. If I somehow needed more than 154 devices I can always lower the starting number of the space. Though that's unlikely.

[@nottabandaid]

thanks this video helped me to get a qr code for my gust uploaded to my ha wich i added to the mobile dashboard tot oral you did. now if someone comes over and needs access to my hidden guest network i just pull out my phone and say "here you go".

[@DumbMuscle]

Going through this as I'd just got HA set up with a basic configuration and was ready to poke at some more advanced things - I made an note to do the SSH and backup setup, and somewhere in the process of uninstalling the basic terminal and installing the advanced one, something goes wrong and hoses my setup (couldn't even restart it, and it didn't come back up after a hard reset). Don't be like me, set up your backups and troubleshooting tools *first*!

[@joolz7890]

Awesome video, set up a few things based on this video. Unfortunately VS code add-on isn't supported by ARM based systems like the Raspberry PI which is what I am using

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Thanks! VSCode is supported on ARM, just not the 32bit version of Home Assistant OS I believe. Not sure about Pi 3B either, but definitely works on Pi 4

[@joolz7890]

@@EverythingSmartHome so I just did a bit of digging. The raspberry PI 4 is indeed 64 bit, but apparently the default Raspberry Pi OS reports itself as 32bit. I used the official home assistant setup guide which installed Home assistant OS, so it would seem that whoever set that up used the 32bit version. Annoying!

[@jeremyohara6513]

Greate video Lewis, when are you going to do a video on DIY ESP voice assistant?

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Thanks! Most likely when the features are more complete, a video at the moment would become invalidated as things change so fast right now

[@jeremyohara6513]

@@EverythingSmartHome Can't wait for it. i would like to get away from Alexa, etc

[@jddominguez]

Again a great video! Very useful for beginners but also intermediate users. The one thing I would recommend is the following: Nobody in the community is talking about how to get your home assistant “neat”. You are talking about watchman but this only gives statistics and doesn’t “clean” unused sensors. I am not sure it exists as an application but this is something where a lot of people are struggling with, me included. Is this something you could help us with in a next video? You would be the first to post a solution for this pollution 😉

[@EverythingSmartHome]

I'm not sure what you mean sorry?

[@jddominguez]

@@EverythingSmartHome basically I mean a “flush entities” or “cleanup” button/way to remove unused entities that have been unavailable for some time inside HA somewhere. The do’s and dont’s etc

[@ihomewiz]

Hello @jddominguez, I would like to add my 2 cents here, I don't think you can clean your home assistant using a single command or by clicking a button. You have to remove those unused sensors manually.

[@gerardschepers3744]

You mention it, backup, backup, backup. But what is (or are) the tool of preference ?

[@domsuyang]

Hey Lewis, Could you do a video on best HASS compatible smart locks given the recent industry price drops?

[@B-a_s-H]

Fwiw, I've been using Loqed smart locks for a while now, they're pretty solid.

[@stebradbury6275]

Can a install image be made of HA with these 15 configs/add-on's ?

[@frankvet1]

Well, i tried to change address to static, i dont know what happened but tried to revert back to dynamic (where things were working perfectly at least for the 18 hours since i first started using HA), and now my ipad opens the app to a blank screen!? Will unplugging for a minute "reset" the razpie and HA? thank you

[@tonymathew5618]

Can you do a video on huskylens integration?

[@edwardhsieh4644]

HA is stable enough that you would install for other people?

[@ArmyMarine1995]

@6:50 There are "extra automation capabilities" with the MacOS vs all others (iOS, Synology, etc) or in comparison to only Windows? So maybe it would be better to use a Mac Mini (Core i5 $170) as the primary source for setting things up?

[@RNMSC]

Be nice if that elevation option was placed after the measurement choice selection, and I didn't have to convert from feet to meters to enter that information. But that's probably just me showing that I understand that meters isn't part of the imperial measurement scheme except as an afterthought.

[@novafurry]

Hi, I run homeassistant docker on a pi4, it also runs my other services (nodered, bubbleupnp server etc), is it possible to migrate to home assistant supervised and keep these running, as on the website it says it should only run homeassistant and not anything else. Thanks in advance

[@elmonte7834]

Besides watchman, is there anything else you suggest to help diagnose why when HA crash? (HA is crashing on me randomly from time to time)

[@EverythingSmartHome]

It's a difficult one as so many variables - logs are usually your best bet if you can get access to them. Look for patterns e.g certain times of day or certain amount of runtime like every 60 minutes. Check basic things like you haven't ran out of storage and think back if you changed anything or installed something new when it first started happening. Good luck!

[@steffie.morris]

What is a reasonable straightforward way to get the vscode addon on home assistant that is running in a docker container?

[@B-a_s-H]

Just deploy the vscode server docker image.

[@mk808android2]

Hi ! I don't know if this the proper way to ask for help...so I am sorry for that. But : I try to build "a temperature sensors for Home Assistant - Wemos D1 Mini with DS18B20". Everything went well up to a point: I followed all the steps in the tutorial, I have information about the temperature in the console, I installed the latest version of Home Assistant... and, further, what do I do? Where can I see the address for Home Assistant?? I kept trying the data from the console... but I always get the message "Server or proxy hostname lookup failed..." so I don't know what to do next. I would really appreciate a helping hand! Thank you !

[@MrDead1975]

i can tell I've been following your guides for some time 14 out of 15 ticked, everything except the analytics. i think I'd add node red to the list for those that like to visualise automation creation.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Appreciate the long term following my friend! 🙏🏻

[@MrSupersidewinder]

14 out of 15 for me too... I hate 2FA... 😂

[@WarpedFlayme]

I like using NodeRed just for the organizational aspect. Instead of having a list of named automation to search through, I can have them grouped by categorical tabs and everything is laid out in front of me.

[@MrSupersidewinder]

@@WarpedFlayme I really wanted to use node red... I'm on a docker setup and never could get it setup...😪

[@B-a_s-H]

@@MrSupersidewinder Google 'hass node red docker' and you should find a nice write-up. Edit: my comment keeps getting deleted when I try to hint the url, but you're looking for a blog post from 2022 titled: 'Home Assistant Container Part 5: Node-Red'.

[@42_universe]

how does this change if you go the docker route for something like say a CasaOS install? sadly, you do not have access to supevisor or addons in the CasaOS mode. It would be incredibly useful if you could cover that.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

CasaOS has its own app store, maybe you can get them through there instead?

[@danjones3956]

Where did you get your area card pictures from please? Is there an easy resource ?

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Googled the rooms and picked like the first ones 😂

[@DragonSilverSky]

Mint is my favorite flavor.

[@kevinhenryviii]

Assigning static ip address on HA or reserving ip address on the router. There is so much conflicting advice as to what way is the best. Any thought? Great info by the way 👍🏻

[@WarpedFlayme]

Both will accomplish the same thing, but if you're going to have more than one device you want to have a static IP, it's definitely better to do it via DHCP address reservation. Then you have just one ventral place to manage it, making it much less likely you'll accidentally double-assign an address.

[@kevinhenryviii]

@@WarpedFlaymemakes sense. Thanks for the advice.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Both are fine, I prefer static slightly as if your router goes down you can connect a network cable from a laptop directly into HA (or another device) and get access to it without reconfiguring anything

[@WarpedFlayme]

@@EverythingSmartHome That's true, but if my router is out, connecting to HA probably isn't a very high priority... It's also a much less common scenario than adding a new device to my network and assigning it an address. I can't imagine setting static IPs on devices without documenting it somewhere to have a reference, which is just adding extra work compared to using DHCP reservation (which is essentially self-documenting).

[@kevinhenryviii]

@@EverythingSmartHome Thanks Lewis. 2 reply’s and 2 different points of view😂🤷🏻 Some more weighing up to do I think. 🤔 Thanks for all the replies👍🏻

[@GREGreg1]

Hi. I am wondering if Home Assistance have anything that would help me with design of my new house. I want to run as much of cables that I can and don’t want to miss anything. Please advise if any one knows smart home design software/app.??? Thank you.

[@sandmaster4444]

Add-ons aren't available if you are running in docker :(

[@TheLostLT]

Has anyone worked with wyze cameras? I would love to get the cameras streaming but i have read conflicting information. I just got HA installed earlier today so if I do figure it out I will comment here.

[@wpisdu]

Nice!

[@EverythingSmartHome]

🙏🏻

[@emmgeevideo]

I've worked in the networking industry for 40 years. I consider myself a very sophisticated network user. I'm very experienced with Windows and Mac and a little bit with Unix. But somehow Home Assistant really intimidates me. I have no clue how the Average Joe installs HA and all of the devices and gets it to work without a huge amount of effort. It is so cool overall but it has to be the niche-iest of platforms around.

[@paulgifford7317]

I like that shirt. Where did you get it?

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Haha thanks, it was just a one-off one that Sarah made as a joke 😂

[@leehenderson7804]

I'm a windows user and get "corrupted MAC in input" as an error when trying to use the terminal. How do I resolve this?

[@craigmcgowan1984]

Are you wearing new merch? Nice.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Hahaha!

[@ANDREz69]

Corrupted MAC on input. ssh_dispatch_run_fatal: Connection to XXX port 22: message authentication code incorrect can you please help me out?

[@shanebekker]

Which HA server to you install most?

[@EverythingSmartHome]

OS for most people!

[@bigbagofreeses]

This video could really use some chapter markers!

[@PatrickDickey52761]

One thing to note is you want to get more than one "Request Timed Out" especially if you're running a network through Cisco switches. Some routers/switches have automatic port disabling when they're not in use. So, the first "Request Timed Out" is actually turning the port back on.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

True but I think the number of people who have Cisco switches and who are watching a beginner video and need help on how to ping is probably extremely small (if they exist) 😜

[@PatrickDickey52761]

@@EverythingSmartHome Good point. I guess I meant some other brands of home routers might do the same thing. Who knows what goes through the minds of manufacturers... I mean, I've had a Belkin router that bricked if you changed the Administrator password and enabled remote access before.

[@Danielo515]

Isn’t watchman already an oficial add on?

[@tomjones2860]

Great list... #16 Your first automation should be a Historian/Recorder DB purge/prune. The one built-in to HA will let the DB grow to well over 3G at which point it will become randomly unstable and will self corrupt and will crash the system. A simple automation that runs daily to purge history items older than 10 days (or so) will keep the HA database under 1G, backups will be WAY faster and the system will be considerably more reliable. Not sure why this isn't built into the base HA system.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Thanks! Hmmm, that number seems way off, but also it will be different for everyone, depends on how many sensors you have and their reporting time - there isn't a way to give a blanket statement of how large someone's DB will be. The default is to prune already after 10 days I believe unless it's changed

[@tomjones2860]

@@EverythingSmartHome Yes, the HA documentation says that the Historian DB should self purge "Around 10 days" . However Without a nightly automation to force a 10 day prune my DB grew to almost 4G. I would bet the real purge is closer to 10 months not 10 days. Took me about 3 months to figure out what was going on. First weekly backups would sometimes crash the system. Then last June the system would just crash and "lock up" every day. Now with the 10 Day "forced" purge my DB is stable at just over a 100 Meg. and the System has been rock solid.. Also according to the HA forum this is a common problem.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Never seen that before in all my years to be honest so can only assume it was a very temporary bug - documentation says 10 days is the default (not around just "10 days") and that's always been the case for the many installs I've done personally

[@AshleyGittins]

@@tomjones2860 Are you storing to HDD or SSD? What you are experiencing sounds like what a lot of people encounter when running on SD cards (in which case, your strategy sounds pretty solid) but on a reasonable storage backend it should be happy for quite a few gigs. I changed to using postgres and timeseriesdb for my history and it's currently slugging around 90GB of history(!) but it was quite happy with 20 to 40GB or so back when I just used the default sqlite setup. (this is running on a VM in a server, not a Pi). If you're on non-Pi hardware and having these issues it might point to something else going on 😕

[@tomjones2860]

@@AshleyGittins My Pi 4 uses a 1TB Samsung SSD 980 PRO NVMe drive to hold the HA system (total over kill but I got it at work for free). It boots to this drive too.. NO SD card. It took weeks and weeks of frustration to figure out the problem. I turned off backups... figured I had a bad addon.. a bad automation,. bad hardware, cooling, power, Zwave Dongles, etc. I could not figure it out. Then I got lucky. Normally when HA crashed, the Pi was totally dead. Then one of the crashes. only crashed the front end and I could SSH into the system and see the logs... There were some cryptic messages about unable to recover a corrupted historian DB. Deleted the DB and it booted fast and was fine for weeks and weeks... Then I found in some old and obscure forum posts warnings about crashes triggered by >4GB historian DB sizes and the base DBMS. They recommend a "force prune" (or an better DBMS) and all was good.

[@eugsmiley]

I find Zones useless unless one has paid for Nabu Casa. All my "Person" entities display 'Home' even when they are not. All the various presence trackers have issues, most related to battery drain.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

I've never used Nabu Casa for remote access (do sub to support) and zones work every single time without fail

[@eugsmiley]

@@EverythingSmartHome I stuck on how. I've tried many of the remote access options, but found them mostly lacking. I've had the best results with Tailscale, but I don't have unlimited data or unlimited battery, and of course there is SAF to contend with when the wife complains that her phone is suddenly dead 'for no reason'.

[@demorez5]

too bad network storage is not available on docker installations... i don't see a technical limitation why it should not work, given that my home assistant docker installation runs on a separate hardware from my HA instance

[@AshleyGittins]

If you're running your own docker containers then just mount the storage location in yourself - that's all it's doing in HAOS, afaik. Mounting a share from inside a container is tricky, so it's more easily done from the OS outside of it.

[@DaHaiZhu]

1) Its unfortunate that HA does not support Multiple Time zones for correct date/time logging of those devices in different (time) zones. 2) DHCP Reservation are much better than setting static IPs in the device: You can see ALL devices and their IP addresses in one location (your DHCP Server) and can change them without having to edit each device individually 3) It is also unfortunate that Areas cannot be linked to specific Zones.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Why would you have a device in a different time zone? Trying to think of a situation where that would exist. Disagree regarding reservations - see other comments, discussed it in detail already

[@philip_fletcher]

@@EverythingSmartHome I think a fairly recent release introduced having a different time zone on your mobile device.

[@testbox3201]

On servers you never change ip addresses. Never use dhcp for servers. Surprisingly some other people wrote the same in the comments. Can't get it at all. It's just totally wrong practice.

[@blakadders]

You didn't mention backups enough ;)

[@JasperWaale]

Never Never Enable SSH at Boot, unless your on a local ( No internet ) network

[@edgar9651]

About the Terminal, 4:30. If I search for "Terminal" I don't see the advanced version. I have to search for "Advanced", then I see it.

[@tin2001]

Im going to have to rewatch this one... Apparently my brain had trouble with the whole thing. I literally can only remember you saying "static IP address". I don't think I'm fully functional today.

[@BrianRoy86]

I don't find zones useful for the simple fact that you can't have a device is multiple zones. If I want to for example turn off all my lights when I leave the house, I would have to call the service light.turn_off on all my zones, and then keep track of where they're used if I were to add a new one. As opposed to a light group, I can just update that as I go, target the group light.all_lights and turn them all off at once, and I only have one place to update it.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Do you mean areas, not zones? That's only one way in which areas are useful though

[@BrianRoy86]

@@EverythingSmartHome I do, my mistake. I haven't found a use for areas yet, although just in case I do someday, I tend to add all my devices to an area. I also don't use assist which seems to be the other thing you mentioned because I already have my alexas tied in with HA. I would love to ditch alexa for a completely local solution, but I won't be able to until multi room audio with assist is a thing.

[@JeremyCobb]

This is spurious logic for a single ‘all’ case. What about lounge lights but not dining room. Or all ground floor, or all bathroom sensors. It’s just easier to call up by rooms

[@georgewilliams8228]

Windows computers no longer respond to ping by default. It is blocked by the firewall that is on by default.

[@pedropinto1778]

You have a nice shirt... I'll... I'll see myself out.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

😂

[@ollierinko9387]

Ping isn't a foolproof way to find an unused IP, though. Some devices are set up to not reply to PINGs at all.

[@EverythingSmartHome]

Literally mentioned that in the video where I said "pretty much all devices will respond to ping but occasionally you will get one that won't"..

[@ollierinko9387]

@@EverythingSmartHome Must've missed that, sorry. I blame distractions!

[@EverythingSmartHome]

All good! 👌

[@Jluseluse]

@@EverythingSmartHome when tyring ping, should you see output like "Request timeout for icmp_seq 0" meaning the IP is able to be utilized for static?

[@some______guy]

Do the most basic of setup. Quite the tip...

[@EverythingSmartHome]

It's a beginner video..

[@johnhedge1429]

Ooops! No Add-on in settings 😞

[@Raymond.Jansen]

Do you have advanced mode enabled?

[@johnhedge1429]

@@Raymond.Jansen Yes. I've done some more research since my post. I think it may have something to do with the type of HA I've installed. I don't understand why there are two different installations and why they have different capabilities though.