Home automation dashboard tutorial using Home Assistant, InfluxdB (2021 Update)

[@wantafastz28]

Once again, explained it to be understandable where others have failed. Thank you for this.

[@wantafastz28]

Also for alerts, is there a way to send to the home assistant app? If so, can you show an example?

[@geektoolkit]

Oooh that’s a good idea…honestly I think for alerts on values home assistant would be where I’d put that since it has the entity data already. Basically an automation that uses call notify service. I’ll have to look into that and can add that to either the grafana follow up or possibly a “tricks with graphs” follow up. Also Thankyou for the kind comment. I worry sometimes about creating “yet another video on xyz” but sometimes I just want to explain it in the way I would’ve wanted it explained, and so I love hearing that that’s helpful and valuable as it means I added value to help others, which is why I’m here. Thankyou for that :)

[@wantafastz28]

@@geektoolkit What makes your tutorials stand out is you find the happy medium between, click here click here click here, done. And the other side where people will explain every single part enough to lose attention or they go off ranting, and the whole purpose of what needs to be done gets forgotten.

[@Aroma_of_a_Roamer]

Great video definitely useful.I have a few questions I was hoping that you would be able to cover in your next Grafana video.1) How can you view/access your grafanna graphs from outside (I'm using Nabu casa).2) what are the benefits of Grafana vs InfluxDB(Chronograf) from a graphing and alerting standpoint.Thanks keep up the great work.

[@geektoolkit]

Perfect I'll do what I can, I think I can address both of those! Thankyou for the feedback

[@Aroma_of_a_Roamer]

@@geektoolkit thanks heaps.youre a champion 🏆

[@karamrtbjk]

great video, thanks. I have a question about video at 2:40, there are 2 graphs named 'humidity' and 'untitled graph' on the right side of the dashboard. Would you please tell me where you find the graphs? hacs or something else card?thanks in advance.

[@geektoolkit]

Oh this was a bit ago...but I believe those were from HACs (basically that's where I get any fancy cards is from HACS)

[@ParkStreetLights]

Thank you for this.

[@ZA26]

In the year 2023.. how do we downsample data in influxDB?

[@mrxmry3264]

Unless I'm mistaken, influxDB just keeps growing as you add new entries. How do you keep it from filling your HD and crashing your computer? Does the add-on take care of that or do you have to run a script or something?

[@mrxmry3264]

at 4:20 you show several addons (plugins?) including node red, influxDB and MQTT. are they interfaces to those services, or are they the actual services?

[@geektoolkit]

They are links to the actual services hosted in docker containers on my hime assistant machine. I’ve “pinned” them but clicking on those will bring up the web UI for those and the full service we UI. Is that what you’re asking? I should do a node red tutorial at some point again

[@mrxmry3264]

@@geektoolkit well, my question was more along the lines of if i want to use node red and home assistant, do i actually have to install node red separately or is it enough to install the plugin?

[@geektoolkit]

Oh! Installing the addon is enough! The addons take care of the install for you and also help with comfiguration

[@mrxmry3264]

@@geektoolkit cool! that saves some work when setting up a new system :-)

[@geektoolkit]

@@mrxmry3264 OMG it saves so much work that I won't consider the docker version of Home Assistant (called 'core' which doesn't have addons) just because it is SO useful. Not only does it provision the container, configure it, and set things up but it also lets you do specific configs in the web UI (Like the SSL one I show in this). AND they're typically made to point to home assistant also and integrate things like auth (Mosquito is a good example of this). It's incredibly time saving and a brilliant design. I love that part :)

[@74357175]

Very cool, straightforward tutorial! Any thoughts on the pros and cons of chronograph vs grafana? Is it really just being able to integrate into Lovelace, or are there other feature differences too?

[@geektoolkit]

I need to check out grafana again. Both have changed a bunch so I’ll have to see how they compare

[@ParkStreetLights]

Thank you for the video it is helpful I have a question for you I am running home assistant on a Unraid Docker in a container. I am trying to install influxDB and Grafana. I have them installed I have home assistant talking to influx DB when I try linking Grafana with influx DB the only way I can get them to communicate is through Query Flux. I don't have a clue on how to write the query Flux. When I choose query language influxQL. I get error message influxDB returns error: error reading influx DB Do you have any suggestions. I need help greatly appreciated I am new at this and learning but right now extremely frustrated

[@geektoolkit]

I don’t know honestly the last time I set this up influx had come so far that its visualizations were powerful enough for me to use directly. That simplified everything.

[@seanmckeown4323]

Having a problem at 8:50. No database is showing up. The message "No Database selected" is being displayed. What am I doing wrong?

[@geektoolkit]

Under DB.Retentionpolicy you should have 2 or 3 options..one of which is homeassistant.autogen..have you selected that?

[@seanmckeown4323]

@@geektoolkit The problem is I have no choices to select. The field below DB.RetentionPolicy is blank. I have setup 2 databases and two users, homeassistant and homeassistant2. After re-booting with no InfluxDB errors the databases are not present in the Explore tab. The contents of my .yaml file are: influxdb: host: a0d7b954-influxdb port: 8086 database: homeassistant username: homeassistant password: password max_retries: 3 default_measurement: state The contents of my configurationare: auth: true reporting: true ssl: false certfile: '' keyfile: '' envvars: [] Is there any further info I can give you?

[@geektoolkit]

@@seanmckeown4323 hmm. I hate to say it, but I'd remove the addon, restart home assistant, and then readd it just to see. Even without the homeassistant database I believe there should be one other there, and it doesn't appear that it was created. That makes me think something is very wrong, and since you're just setting it up, starting over may be the best way forward. I didn't hit that, and I'd had to set it up three times for the tutorial, so not sure what it could be unless something in the addon got screwed up. Hoping a redo fixes it. I really don't know anything else. The home assistant yaml shouldn't matter for the database creation...I really feel like influx is where the issue is at at this time. The yaml you showed all looks good, and with no errors that would tell me home assistant is sending data happily to influx which doesn't make sense since you can't see it...

[@seanmckeown4323]

@@geektoolkit This is getting weird!! I uninstalled and re-installed twice with no joy. My main interface is from my PC with homeassistant running on a Raspberry Pi. Everything I have been talking about nbabove is in reference to the work! I have done on my PC. In another part of the house I have a Raspberry Pi 400 running and have the homeassistant UI displayed there as well. I happened to look at it tonight and there are the two databases, _internal.monitor and homeassistant.autogen so now I am at a total loss!!!! For the time being I will follow the rest of your video using the Raspberry Pi 400 and then try and figure out what is happening. Thanks for all your help and if you think of any reason thius mshould be happening please let me know. Again thanks.

[@geektoolkit]

@@seanmckeown4323 That's...crazy! Wow....let's see...one thing I'd check is trying to go to the home assistant via an ip address (ip:8123 or whatever). See if you're using http or https. try in different browsers maybe? I dunno. those are all guesses, and honestly if any of them resulted in a change in behavior it'd be just as wierd as what you're experiencing now :) I ran the tutorial from chrome with windows, but just confirmed I can see it on another machine in Edge. I'm at a loss, but please let me know if you figure it out to help others. That's a really unique situation that I hope you're able to figure out.