MUST HAVE Home Assistant Add-ons to make my smart home work.

[@michaelthompson657]

Definitely have my vote for HACS add ons

[@MatthewN8OHU]

Yes to a video on HACS.

[@tensiondriven]

I haven’t read all the comments yet, but I think HA added network storage to Core, so Samba Backup might not be needed anymore. Glad you mentioned backup to Google Drive, that’s the low hanging fruit for most

[@rodneysmith1750]

You've got my vote for a JACS version, thanks for everything you do for all of us!

[@dretwav]

Mine are similar except that I don't have Z-wave. Over a 100 zigbee devices though. I do all my automations in node-red because my background is as a NodeJS architect. I use google drive for backup and also some cron jobs to copy the backup files to my NAS. Would be dead in the water without an mqtt broker. I actually run mqtt, node-red and zegbee2mqtt on separate vm's rather than as HA addons because I don't want them shutting down when HA updates. I would also add Frigate and nginx as critical. While perhaps not critical, life is certainly easier with Uptime Kuma.

[@sploders1019]

Home Assistant OS actually has a built-in system for mounting samba shares now, and I created an automation to initiate a backup at regular intervals to my Ceph cluster

[@bob76451]

I spent about a month trying to get any zwave device working on my HA. Come to find out, the Nortel zwave/zigbee combo dongle that I was using was garbage, so I switched over to a zooz 800 zwave dongle, and I still couldn’t get diddly to work right. Devices would disconnect and disappear off the network, and even pinging them didn’t always bring them back to life. I ended up giving up on zwave and switched over to 100% zigbee devices and have been so much happier. Zigbee devices just work. There’s none of the canoodling I had to do with zwave, especially if the devices weren’t brand new. I salute you for investing that deeply into zwave. I just couldn’t do it and stay, mostly, sane.

[@zyghom]

all my TRVs are zigbee and because they are scattered over the house I had to buy some repeaters: bulbs and sockets. So now my zigbee network grew up, plus door and motion sensors. Regarding NodeRed: I don't have ANY HA automation in HA - all are in NodeRed, kind of 25 pages full of flows. Mosquitto I find a bit slow so I went with EMQX - much faster. Since HA allowed mounting storage I use Samba Backup with my NAS drive mounted on HA. And btw everything (all my addons) are on separated Virtual Machine (HA is another machine).

[@mostlychris]

Sounds like you have a good handle on how to set things up and you've tailored it to your specific needs. Shows how versatile all of it is. Not locked into one configuration.

[@demorez5]

love how differently can you approach the same problems in HA - i managed to go 4+ years without any of those critical addons

[@mostlychris]

Yeah. Really depends on how you set things up and what your overall environment is.

[@whitebeard2407]

Does a full backup of HA also back up the Node Red flows? If not how do you backup Node Red?

[@oscargraveland]

Definitely hope so. Spent so much time figuring out the syntax of function nodes etc.

[@oscargraveland]

Is there (and what is) the difference between using "Samba-backup" and using "system/backups" ? I have the "samba-share" add-on, but my add-on store does not have a "Samba-backup"

[@gnospanker]

Great video as always Chris. I'm running Zwave JS (not Zwave JS UI) and I have looked at upgrading to Zwave JS UI but I haven't found a great video (or text) tutorial that I have confidence in to get me through it successfully. Like you, I have so much running in Zwave that it would be a huge headache to have to rework some/all of my Zwave network. I would love if you would do a dedicated video on Zwave JS UI (what it is, how is it better, how to install if you're already using Zwave JS, etc.).

[@danfitzpatrick4112]

Z-WAV.. interesting.. I'm a Zigbee hooked H.A. automated home. Rock solid and absolutely love it!, but I know one day even Zigbee will be outdated. Until that, My favorite. It just works.

[@mostlychris]

Glad to hear you are having success with Zigbee. I haven't had any issues with it so far. The devices are smaller and last forever on battery so that's a plus.

[@fearthesmeag]

HACs would be good, Chris!

[@toolate6971]

I have some Z-wave but my home is too large. The extenders didnt work well enough for me. I used aeotec z-stick 7.

[@manukalias]

Thanks for sharing 👍🏻👍🏻 Samba Backup should be worth trying at lease for me.

[@mosalarun]

Count me in for HACs many thanks

[@patrickjoseph3412]

am digging the clouldflare tunnel addon

[@mostlychris]

Absolutely

[@harryp_privat]

I would appreciate a video about HASC-add-ons very much!

[@mostlychris]

You got it!

[@garyphillips7993]

Node Red made me feel thick, so I removed it & my headaches cleared up…

[@plankton9864]

For zwave, I have a addon card to yellow so its all internal. Its on amazon

[@mostlychris]

Nice.

[@pilotbum]

Do you find z-wave to mqtt works better than z-wave JS direct to HA? Is that why you use the mqtt? Or is it just because that’s how you’re always done it?

[@mostlychris]

There was some support issues for some of the devices. z2m sometimes has bleeding edge support for new devices. Since installing it for that reason, haven't had a reason to migrate everything off of it so I just keep it.

[@f2f.photography]

Your video didnt show how to install these. Do you have a video on that? Thanks.

[@Adi-S]

Just installed a new HA green. My Store looks different than the one you have. I do not have a Zigbee add-on?!?

[@Justdigit2]

Zwave Js UI gives me problems. With the Fibaro Eye. All the zwave items goes out of the house. Zigbee is my way to go.

[@mostlychris]

Pick what works best for you. I know those that run only zigbee and never touch zwave. I just started the other way around.

[@-vermin-]

Chris, did you give up on EMQX and go back to Mosquitto?

[@rsfp6819]

Wondering the same thing! (It was a "Top HA Add-On" in 2023: kzbin.info/www/bejne/b37El6GopNKhjtU )

[@djweso]

HACs please

[@plproductions8887]

I cant find zigbee2mqtt has it been removed?

[@robertofleitas2612]

Hello, I'm trying to install addon for kasa camera, since there are no hacs for it. I tried the JoshGetter addon, but it doesn't work Does anyone have a way to make the Kasa camera work in HA?

[@Sherbibv]

"So that is the fuc..top five home automations" 😂 nice video man

[@LordXaosa]

Why do you need samba backup as addon if there is built in samba backups already? Just check out /config/storage page

[@ml02873]

Exactly what I thought. I believe the sambabackup add on is no longer present in the store

[@oscargraveland]

@@ml02873I couldn't find it either. I think I changed my backup from using the HA drive itself to using a shared folder on my NAS. (Did that a few months ago, when it became available) I believe that goes though a Samba-share.

[@mostlychris]

Hmmm.. I haven't had to change anything since I installed it long ago. I need to go and check that again. Samba backup allowed me to set the number of local and remote backup copies. I store them on my NAS remotely via the share.

[@shanebekker]

@mostlychris Which version of HA do you have installed?

[@mostlychris]

Supervised on an HA Blue.

[@stevetrapp1095]

should be MY Must Have Add-ons

[@TheCowboysdude]

I always appreciate your videos..... you offer a LOT to the HA community but this video was well didn't offer much. These things are basic things you install when you install HA like when I say install I mean within day 1 these things are installed and running.......so not really seeing the point to this...