The realities of Home Assistant after using it for months.

[@Byteofgeek]

Let me know how you've found Home Assistant in the comments below and if you've enjoyed the video then don't forget to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE 🙂

[@rolandrohde]

I only started with Home Assistant a few days ago. Tried ioBroker but that was way too complicated for me... Home Assistant is a lot easier to get started with, but I also quite quickly hit some limitations that can't be overcome in the UI. Just like you say, as soon as you want to do anything even slightly complex you are immediately knee-deep in yaml files and that is where things get a bit tricky for me...🙈

[@Byteofgeek]

I've not heard of ioBroker before, seems like a similar product but with a steeper learning curve than Home Assistant 🤔

[@gzcwnk]

Big concerns, zigbee battery consumption is a concern for me. Looking at $10 a month on cr2032 cells is stupid as batteries are dead in 2months and not the expected 12+. Otherwise all your points are valid.

[@rolandrohde]

@@gzcwnk I managed to automate my Home Ventilation System with HA and a Z Wave Dimmer. It actually wasn't that hard in the end. My ventilation system has an analog input (0-10V) and I use the current state of three CO2 Sensors (Netatmo) and two humidity sensors (Homematic IP) to adjust the ventilation system between 20-80% based on various triggers (Humidity above 55-70% in Bathroom or Bedroom or CO2 above 500-1400ppm on either floor of the house) and it works pretty flawlessly. I will still have to adjust the parameters a bit once I can evaluate the real world performance a bit more but it is a joy to get something so complex to work so quickly and easily and I didn't even have to do anything in yaml after all, it was done entirely from the GUI.

[@Byteofgeek]

What devices are you seeing that kind of battery consumption?

[@donutz1]

100% man! This should be the first video anyone watches about Home Assistant. Even before they attempt to download it. I havnt seen my wife weeks 😂

[@Byteofgeek]

Maybe as part of the install process? 😂

[@MNpale]

The most expensive part of configuring a smart home and Home Assistant is the child support and alimony :D

[@MrCWoodhouse]

The basic setup, using HassOS on a Raspberry Pi is dead simple to get set up for simple controls, but the depth and breadth of what they have created allows someone with curiosity about computers and tech to spend hours and days building and tweaking. It's fun if you like it. Just make sure your automations have a high WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor).

[@Byteofgeek]

So very true 👍

[@SavvasKonstantinidis]

I totally agree with all your points mate. I'm closing 1 year of using HASS myself, and especially your last point hit the spot. This is a hobby, a project, almost an obsession at times and can be a time-pit. There's just so much you can do with it, I discover new stuff almost every day. Myself I try to be organised and disciplined as much as possible, setting priorities and contraints as to the time I spend with it. Ultimately for those of us who are tech savvy, it can bring tonnes of joy and satifcation, even with the frustrations. But I don't think it's for the lighthearted. Keep it up!

[@Byteofgeek]

Very well said 👍

[@ecotts]

100%

[@silverbackag9790]

I say KISS. I want just a few things like alarm listeners in various buildings. I would use 100% Ethernet and Wi-Fi if they actually made them. Nothing wrong with physical switches for most lighting. Why beat your head against the wall?

[@markshaz8691]

Agree completely about it, been using it for nearly 3yrs and it’s a hobby. The user interface should be getting better in the future as they are hiring people for that, but yes agree on everything you mentioned. See it as a hobby.

[@zetsubou-4042]

Great video, as for me to make it simple Homeassistant is the ultimate smart home system at the moment it sure took a lot of my time learning it but the benefits it gave me is worth it. Using custom layout would make dashboard way better (*TIP*} if you want to order you cards in dashboard w/o 3rd party cards then use Grids cards for each row (this isn't an excuse the order system's still not good), Hassio will consume so much time for people who enjoying playing with it like setup more cards very good design dashboards and tryout new stuffs. Yet I agree Homeassistant isn't for end-users but there is a tons of videos but going through it wil consume your time.

[@sidneyking11]

I total agree!, Home assistant is not for people that do not have a lot a time on their hands or the patience to learn and do research. There is a difference in getting google or Alexa to turn on a switch, then creating a true smart home. Making a smart home is a lot more work and a steep learning curve. Plug&Play is what is desired. of even have an option to call and get help over the phone.

[@WoottonRivers]

Great honest critique of HA. I agree with all your points. Yet, I can't see that I'd ever go to another platform. In my experience, power and flexibility usually come at the price of complexity. I started with SmartThings. I'd never go back. The things I can do with HA were inconceivable in ST.

[@Byteofgeek]

Yes it's very much a trade off, if you want simple then there are plenty of options out there. Home Assistant is on a different level compared to everything else just not enough hours in the day 😂

[@Jzanderm]

I think for people beginning with HA it seems difficult, but it really is a great opportunity to learn more about JavaScript and python. You can do much much more after learning more programming languages

[@PCman50]

I've been using Home Assistant for several years now, but it as you've noted, it's so very time consuming. But as many others do I love to tinker with iot devices. Esp8266, or Tasmota all so very time consuming. And everything in my home is linked and automated. But I'm retired and have the time to tinker. But I think for the average person with minimal time on their hands Home Assistant would not be usable. But for some of it's just amazing and fun.

[@ivlis32]

Awesome video. In general HA flaws can be summarized in one: lack of common sense logic and consistency in the interfaces and schemas. There is tons of stuff there, but the language HA operates in both UI and programmatic config is so heterogeneous. The same things are named differently, the different things are named the same, singles and plurals are mixed up all over the place. There is no object inheritance in any way, turning off a switch, a camera, and a light are all different commands. Integrations and domains are mixed up. People get confused, old-schoollers get frustrated and HA forums quickly become a toxic place. HA is on light speed in adding new stuff and it's a developer's paradise. But they need good PMs in place who will guide the products, not code and put some brakes on the development forwards support and streamlining things.

[@Byteofgeek]

Couldn't agree more, some of the comments in response to this video are a real reflection of some of the stuff on the forums

[@yerunski]

I agree with the critique, i've been using HA for a few years now. Started off on a thin client and not running as a VM on Proxmox. Nowadays I don't change much anymore so I don't spend much time tinkering. Pretty much have all internet connected things set up. I'm not someone who wants to automate *everything* in my house. It has to add some value.| That said, it's a great product that has become more stable and more easy to use over time. In the beginning I would spend quite some time trying to get all those yaml config files right. Now I hardly make changes.

[@Byteofgeek]

Since I last used it HA has certainly matured and the developers are definitely going in the right direction with it.

[@cooperajcpr]

I work in RPA and wanted to automate my home. Started with Philips Hue and IFTTT but quickly ran out of money buying Hue products! Got a thin client and repurposed it to a HA machine with a SONOFF zigbee stick. Thought every zigbee device would work out-of-the-box with ZHA but how wrong I was! You're so right about the endless forum and reddit posts that become obsolete so quickly

[@Byteofgeek]

Ahh I went down the Zigbee2MQTT route as I'd heard that ZHA was a bit problematic.

[@iaocasio]

What thin client you use? And How?

[@cooperajcpr]

@@iaocasio I used a 10Zig 5848qv which has a celeron J1900. Got the default password off Google, changed the bios to accept home assistant generic x86 and it just works

[@iaocasio]

Thanks

[@ecotts]

Are you using the Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus?

[@HolgerBarske]

To put it short: yes. That pretty much sums up what I found as well. The important question is: is it worth it? I think it is. Automating a home is a very individual and personal task, and with HA you can do it EXACTLY as you like it. That is, if you're willing to go down that rabbit hole. Thanks fpr your thoughts!

[@Byteofgeek]

Thanks for the feedback 👍 definitely not for everyone but does give you ultimate flexibility

[@MKA_NET]

The harshest reality for me is there's a good chance something may break after upgrading to a new Home Assistant version; especially if you haven't upgraded in a few months. However the flip side of the coin is features and functionality constantly improve.

[@Byteofgeek]

I've only had one breaking change so far so count myself lucky in that regard certainly when you consider what gets changed every month with things like bluetooth being added etc.

[@rolandtemmerman1100]

Take a look at the tutorial Samba backup HA to NAS. These automatic HA backups can save you a lot of frustration and time if your HA becomes non-functional after some fiddling because mistakes made by yourself are not easily noticed at this point. It quickly pays to have backups , just as it does for the OS of your PC. Greetings,

[@paulhyland3528]

Totally agree with your dashboard comment I originally started my home automation hobby with open hab, open hab hab panel is brilliant and so easy to make tablet panels with drop drag resize etc. Shame ha don't have somthing similar

[@Byteofgeek]

It is coming in HA and hopefully it'll be worth the wait as that type of functionality is completely expected in a UI nowadays

[@ecotts]

Agreed. Which OS do you prefer of the two though?

[@paulhyland3528]

@@ecotts i do prefer HA as theres so much support and always being updated with new features. i found Open hab harder to use with more coding needed.

[@J-D248]

One of the first things they should warn you about, is setting up a backup plan!!! I just lost all my work when the SD card died... so depressed now. 😔 lol

[@StefanUytterhoeven]

For me, the biggest frustration is all those releases. I'm a programmer myself. I don't have the luxury to release a new version in seven, eight times. The breaking changes are not always breaking, other changes are not mentioned... The first releases of the month are most of teehee time buggy. Every month those seven, eight releases are required to make the system stable again. It is advised to wait for installing a new version, till the fifth or sixth version....

[@Byteofgeek]

Likewise, I never had that luxury either, my HA setup is work in progress with lots of backups but as it matures I'll be upgrading less frequently to avoid breaking anything I can't quickly resolve.

[@Theoriginal1981]

Great video. I’m quite new to the Home Assistant world, and just thinking of swapping out my Philips hue which is stupidly expensive. What’s the Cheapest controller I can use to control HA?

[@Byteofgeek]

If you've got old hardware lying around then that's the cheapest option. Next would be a raspberry pi which is also low power consumption but maybe opt to get an nvme drive with it as well rather than using an SD card. Then you move into things like the NUC and similar small computers. If you're happy to buy used then you get can some real bargains out there, more powerful than the raspberry pi and plenty of headroom for future needs. This is the route I went.

[@martinbirrell57]

I am tangling with modbus. Took me a while but have got the basics down. You certainly are correct about burning the hours

[@Byteofgeek]

Sounds interesting, what are you planning on doing with that?

[@martinbirrell57]

@@Byteofgeek I live off the grid and have Victron equipment. I use Home Assistant to monitor the system along with home automation gear. It is, a very bumpy road to the uncertain end goal. I had my inside lights fitted with Shellies but never used them for that purpose. Now I turn on and off outside lights and pumps.

[@Byteofgeek]

ok that's a pretty cool use case 👍

[@athgt6630]

I have HA for months in two houses and I agree 100% with your findings. I would also add the poor integrations with major players like Tuya. Thumbs-up

[@Byteofgeek]

What issues have you had with Tuya?

[@athgt6630]

@@Byteofgeek I have several devices (thermostats, cameras, switches) and you have to rely on a community-developed integration with limited functionality and very short list of supported devices. Cameras don't even work. It's sad as there are thousands of tuya-managed devices in the market and tuya is a well developed IoT platform, but it hasn't got the attention it deserves from the HA dev team.

[@ivlis32]

That's not really HA's fault, it's hard to support a closed platform. But they managed to break Tasmota, esphome, and mysql a few times lol. Mysql was especially bad because it wasn't fixed for a month or so.

[@J-D248]

Yup, I realized this after I had spent 7 hours trying to get a stupid Wemo plug to behave like a light! I'm back playing with it again because I'm tired of Alexa always forgetting to run routines properly with the same Wemo plugs, also that I can have automations work w/o the need of internet access..

[@Byteofgeek]

Making devices work without internet access is one of the areas I'm focussing on at the moment, not easy, but slowly closing off access.

[@HATipsByLarry]

I think because of the wide variety of device types (zigbee, z-wave, wifi, home kit, aqara, broadlink, MQTT, google, alexa and so many others) that your going to have to take some time to learn how to integrate these into home assistant. I have 15 different manufactures hardware all working together. And almost all of it using local automation's. Not to many free smart home platforms that can do this and keep it simple. 😃

[@Byteofgeek]

I'm trying to keep my setup limited to zigbee and WiFi, leaning more towards zigbee but I've found all of that really straightforward to get set up even working across devices from multiple vendors mainly because of the integrations available through HA. 😊

[@ecotts]

Agreed, but not too many manufacturers software fails as much as HA either. Top tip, don't update your home assistant during winter months or you'll be left in the cold and dark when you can't turn your lights and heating on.

[@dylan_00]

@@Byteofgeek Agreed, I'm trying to keep everything Zigbee (and some WiFi) as well. I got into Hue years ago before I found the world of Home Assistant, and I'm quite glad to not have it clogging up my home network!

[@wapphigh5250]

I used to have Control4, but hated that an end user couldn't config it, so slowly I have got rid of Control4 from my life ( I still have an old HC800 controlling an Alarm, a few light loads and some zigbee switches) and moved most of my HA to separated systems: Spotify connect for music, Kodi NUC for HTPC and Alexa with several no brand zigbee smart plugs and a few Hue light bulbs for everything else. I couldn't be happier with that as I actually don't mind swapping between apps etc to control different subsystems. I now want to delve into smart home energy management with something like Smappee - which is really why I am investigating HA. Thanks for the heads up on HA complexity. Is it for me? Cheers

[@Byteofgeek]

Is it for you? I'd say the only way is to try it out, this is my second time of using it and I'm enjoying more than previously but you've certainly got a lot to get your teeth into with what you've got there 😊

[@thomas8954]

yes, true , its a big toy for big boys,, to use HA depends on your requirements ofcourse and how much time you want invest but finally you get it faster to do with a vendor app like aqara

[@KeyBored101]

I like home assistant but this is the third time it disappeared from my network, twice on Raspberry pi 3b and now on my Synology NAS. That's why I still have Smarthtings in place, I can'[t get home assistant reliable for some reason.

[@Byteofgeek]

Well that's a new one to me 🙂 are you just not able to find the server? Could it be ip address related? 🤔

[@sham126]

Take a step back... This is a learning experience that hopefully has many takeaways direct and indirect; you'll learn values such as persistence and patience, as well as some hard skills for software development. Priceless skills that hopefully let you develop a passion in software or something or whatever/wherever your curiosity takes you.

[@Byteofgeek]

Thanks but just so you know I have 30+ years experience as a software engineer from back in the days of C in DOS all the way up to full stack development with C# so I'm extremely well versed in the frustrations and skills of software development, trust me 🤣

[@sham126]

@@Byteofgeek I can tell ;) i'm 15 years going strong but always wished I started earlier, and I wish so many more people did/do. Comment was meant for any newbies happening to be reading comments... Don't lose faith people; nothing ventured, nothing gained :)

[@edgar9651]

I watch until the info about moving the dashboard parts up and down. Is that really the most important thing you have to say? Or why else do you put it at the beginning?

[@Byteofgeek]

No specific order in what I said, but thanks for watching

[@ppi57]

Point 1 - yup, still waiting for a way to adjust the size of cards (and let the content scale automatically)

[@Byteofgeek]

One day 😂

[@SteveMiddleton]

Biggest bugbear: core updates break integrations. No way to know which one, without upgrading first. Spend a lot of time rolling back updates.

[@Byteofgeek]

Ah, I've had a couple like that mainly because of deprecated functions 🙄

[@MrSupersidewinder]

This gets even worse if you do a docker based install like I did... There is not a community add on store so anything you want to add is a major issue. I just kept it as simple as possible... It has been solid though... I find it really lacking that media players (kodi for me) have no stop button... Also I still use X-10 stuff and it's still being manufactured but there is no support in HA...

[@Byteofgeek]

I didn't know that about the docker install 👍

[@StuTubed]

The add-ons in HA are basically Docker containers themselves. You can still have those add-ons, but you need to set them up as Docker containers manually. It's extra steps, but it does mean that HA becomes a disposable link in the chain, and can be swapped out for something like Node-Red without losing all of your MQTT configuration etc.

[@MrSupersidewinder]

@@StuTubed True, I am not displeased with my docker-compose setup... Learned a lot too...😁 And you are surely correct, for example I could control things directly from z2m if HA failed...

[@rudolphyustian6414]

Time wise, yes. Indeed. But it all comes back to time management in the end. Think of it as a hobby. Positive one.

[@Byteofgeek]

I think once you've got everything set up then it's becomes an enjoyable hobby, something to play around with and try new things - just got to get there!

[@rudolphyustian6414]

@@Byteofgeek my point exactly. And also if possible, try to setup using the gui as much as possible, and plan ahead before buying certain kind of device. Make sure first by googling or joining a local HA community regarding the device they are using. Look for review and compatibility. Better spend more time getting the right ones rather than spending useless time and/or money over random device that you bought without thinking/planning.

[@xisop]

+1 on the last part. The wife was seriously not amused during the migration from another platform to HA. One of my automations only works in NodeRed but it has to be run as an addon in HA. Tried docker container without success (no trigger on srate-change). Took me about a week to figure it out, it was a really unpleasant experience

[@Byteofgeek]

I find what should be the simplest of things take ages in HA but that sounds like a painful experience you had.

[@enerbot283]

Nice to hear finally a non biased honest criticism of HA. To me the biggest unacceptable flaw is the lack of free remote access to HA, at least the dashboards. So you needto pay a subscription monthly fee to get it. Even a ripoff company such as Apple provides a free remote app access to its homekit...

[@Byteofgeek]

Thanks for the feedback 👍 You can have free remote access but you have to do the leg work yourself. I've chosen, for now, to pay for the remote access for a number of reasons - my time is worth more than the subscription costs, the subscription remote access worked first time and works flawlessly and finally its supporting the developers which I think is one of the biggest issue with open source/free software. But everyone is different, I think at some point it would be nice to have an easier free option though.

[@enerbot283]

@@Byteofgeek Yes I have found videos explaining how to workaround the "non-free" remote access. But my god, it is horribly complicated, involving installing and configuring two third party software and/or other cloud services (such as cloudflare). You have to be an IT expert or have a PHD in computer science to understand it and make it work. In my opinion the Home assistant's developpers chosen strategy to make people pay to get a remote access plays against home assistant in the long run : most people will orient themselves to easier and free apps which are now proposed by device manufacturers, such as for example the Aqara home app. And I also find that claiming to be "free and opensource" as the first and biggest phrase on home assistant's web page when it is not really "free" (remote access is a monthly subscription) is kind of contradictory.

[@Runehorn]

There is no flaw with home assistant that can even come close to negating the benefit of controled privacy.

[@coedshowers]

Use a small pc or nuc, Raspberry pi suck and cause a lot of problems with HA. Pi are great for a lot of projects but for the price get something else.

[@Byteofgeek]

Although my NUC is used, it wasn't anymore expensive that a Pi and it's considerably more powerful

[@DaleLefflerCLC]

what device can verbally "welcome" me home when my cell phone connects to my WiFi?

[@Byteofgeek]

Although I haven't done this myself I believe you can use an echo possibly Google as well to do it via home assistant and its text to speach functionality

[@chrisangus1964]

Ah yes the well rounded and configured home automation system......just no wife or children left to enjoy it with you! 😅

[@Byteofgeek]

Surely we do it for ourselves? 😂

[@chrisangus1964]

@@Byteofgeek until we buy that $800 vacuum cleaner.. ....then it's for the wife 😀

[@David-bl1bt]

@@chrisangus1964 😂🤣😂👍

[@sygys]

Don't say the interface sucks because you don't know how to use it. With a grid card you have total control of where to put other cards.

[@Byteofgeek]

I know exactly how to use it and I know for a fact the grid card isn't set on the default dashboard, I also know that there are HACS addons to enable you to create more flexible dashboards but come on this is 2022 web based software has come along way otherwise why else would drag and drop functionality be coming soon? 🤔

[@EbrahimHasan]

I have been using it for a few months. Haven't touched yaml yet. And I have a very large and extensive list of hardware on the system, bigger than anything I've seen online.

[@magnus33john]

Drag/drop is coming and the though the forums can be confusing at times it has been vastly improving. As for it consuming our lives that's all us as it seems to be part of our nature lol.

[@Byteofgeek]

The editor changes will make a huge difference I think.

[@magnus33john]

@@Byteofgeek It will make things quite abit easier and save a lot of cursing lol. The forums do need to have older post solutions archived to clean things up and make it less time consuming to find fixes to problems. Given the way things are going though improvements are happing in most of these areas quite quickly now.

[@ecotts]

He's 100% right, I agree with everything he mentioned. Home Assistant is more of a tinkerer platform in my opinion, its far from being defined as solid, secure or reliable platform yet. You certainly wouldn't want to install this in any kind of enterprise level deployment unless you were a glutton for punishment. Its definitely cool, but you'll find simple things like pushing an update button can be like playing a game of Russian roulette with your server and all those weeks of work you've put in to it. That whole GUI issue drives me mad too. You push up or down and your boxes literally go where they want on the screen, what's that all about? Madness!

[@John0155]

actually setting up home assistant is easy but god dam half the integrations simply don't work and the toxic fan club is insane actually rest the blame on a failure at home assistant and they go in to full blown denial and threat mode

[@Byteofgeek]

Going through some integration pain at the moment 😕

[@thegabormate]

So fundamentally, it took you ten minutes to tell people that learning new things takes time and effort. Thank you very much for sharing. I'd like to add - and this will spare you an awful lot of time on the long run - that this is the same with everything in life not just with HA, learning new things takes time whether we're talking about learning how to play golf, how to cook, math, riding a horse and bricklaying. I remember I was separated from my loved ones every day for years and they called it school...

[@Byteofgeek]

I guess you didn't watch the whole video then?

[@thegabormate]

@@Byteofgeek Actually I did, twice as first time I've thought I missed something. But there were no five reasons but just one dressed in different clothes.

[@Byteofgeek]

Well we will both have to disagree on this but your feedback is welcome nonetheless 🙂

[@parabag1]

I am using Home Assistant literally since years, miles away from where it is now from the UI, integrations and ease of use points of you. It is impossible to disagree with your comments but at the same time if you would have done this video just one year ago probably the points raised by you would have been 50 and not 5… So I really do not see the point of this video… I hope not just to catch attention… HA is not a commercial product off the shelf right now… that’s it… but is keeping improving at a tremendous pace (I also see people complaining about the rate of updates???!!!! Really???…) and your video in a matter of 1 month is probably going to be completely old. Furthermore HA is trying to do something that NO “official” software is doing (and incredibly better than the rest of the free tools of this kind): to integrate devices that 99.9% of producers would like to keep separate in order to create a closed environment with all sorts of stupid clouds and proprietary protocols or APIs. Last comment: if you are going to lose your wife because of HA is probably because you wanted to!!! 😂

[@rickz6006]

I started trying things in Yaml and then found Node-Red and started using it more. Then the automations got better so I did a few things there. What a mess. My biggest issue is not knowing what language to use where, Yaml, JavaScript, python, Jinja, none of which I have ever had to learn in my life as an industrial programmer. Be nice if I just had to learn 1 new language and was clear on which was needed where, lol.

[@Byteofgeek]

I've just managed to compare two dates extracted from a website. Even though I've got there in the end it was so much effort for such a simple task compared to any other programming language lol

[@sonicloud3149]

I’ll be honest with you, your angle is pretty negative. I’m not an expert, but don’t find your comments totally accurate as I find it mostly quite intuitive. I don’t spend hours on mine. I set it up once and have not touched it for over 2 years.

[@Byteofgeek]

Everyone has their own opinion so thanks for sharing yours. I don't think the video is negative I think it's realistic and it seems the video has touched a nerve with some however the overwhelming majority have expressed the same frustrations. Like I said in the video, HA is a fantastic system but it does have issues that, depending on what you want to achieve, aren't immediately obvious.

[@odhiambo0]

After all the soft rants,you should have suggested the alternative that's easy and free.

[@Byteofgeek]

Fair point, I guess a lot of people will use smartthings, ewelink, smartlife, alexa, etc. Not directly comparable but certainly enough to get all the standard basic automations working.

[@odhiambo0]

@@Byteofgeek we all know that Home Assistant is NOT for the faint hearted. You must be competent enough to know how to INSTALL it and configure it. There is a minimum skill/competency level that is required for running Home Assistant. There is even a minimum skill level required for someone to wade into home automation (smart home). There is even a minimum skill level required for someone to know what a smart home is! I therefore think your video was an unnecessary rant.

[@Byteofgeek]

Valid points even though HA doesn't publicise that however in the video I DO say that the barrier for entry is quite low and you can have it running albeit in a basic manner quite easily. I also state multiple times that it's NOT about bashing HA but more about some simple realities that users might find off putting as can be seen in some of the comments in response to this video. Everyone has their own opinion on this and nobody is going to agree with everyone or everything.

[@odhiambo0]

@@Byteofgeek HA is not for dummies. I am a very competent ICT practitioner, but I am still challenged by HA. If you want a very honest view about HA, watch that crazy guy named Paul Hibbert and how he reacts whever he mentions HA 🙂 Looking at HA installation guide is in itself overwhelming to say the least. HA doesn't have to publicise that because that guide itself does.

[@Byteofgeek]

Yeah I'm 30+ years as a software engineer and that's probably what irks me the most about the UI (amongst other things) on HA. I watch Paul and the reactions he's had to his HA videos, I get that people are passionate about something but that shouldn't blind you to it's faults - same thing happened when TESLA launched but let's not go there 🙂Anyway, I'm off to spend a day of automating the cat flap to let the toaster know to turn on 5 minutes after I've made my coffee 👍

[@DEVAXTATOR-1]

the zigbee sucks zha sucks if you are in a apartment with 50 routers good luck it needs to be more zigbeetomqtt with more options and logs zwave sucks exactky for the same reasons the integrations keep getting better but you need hacs integration or else you got the short end of the stick and the forums sometimes have a glimpse of what i am searching but it is from 1 year ago and it does not work... i searched one thing it was 2 months old and the fix did not work...

[@DEVAXTATOR-1]

and i have more than 100 devices sonoff tuya ikea etc... zha sucks!!! everyday some ikea lamp stops working... migrated from conbee ii to zha bad call!!!

[@Byteofgeek]

I went straight to Zigbee2MQTT so I seem to avoided the pain others have had with ZHA