Another addiction

[sebastiantombs]

@prsmith777 Out of curiosity why do you say the HS4 isn't ready for primetime yet? To be honest that is the model I was looking at if I go with Home Seer. I'll have to get my feet wet with a Pi is I do Home Assistant. There's a limit to how many PCs I want running 24/7.

 

[Justin Blackburn]

You don’t have to dabble with a pi. Home assistant will run in virtual box on the same pc you run blue iris if you want to give it a go. I run mine on a home assistant blue now, but I used to run it in virtual box.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I don't want to load the BI machine with yet another 24/7 task. It's an older i7-6700 and has been running for years, 24/7. A Pi is a pretty low power device or I may go with a blue. I will be testing with a VM on the BI machine, but for a permanent solution I want a stand alone device.

 

[concord]

When first starting out with HA, I used a Pi 2/3 and I found it too slow, especially when you had to reboot it to get HA to take a change, so I switched to to a Dell/Wyze thin client, been using that since. Although HA has improved greatly over the last 4 years (lovelace interface, etc.), such that you don't need to reboot on changes often. Be aware that with HA updates may break some things, so read the changes before hand and make a backup before updating.

If you are planing on using battery operated Zwave devices, I would recommend keeping a calendar reminder to change out the batteries, as some devices may not show battery usage. Most of my devices use CR123A and last about a year.

 

[bp2008]

I've had a lot of trouble with z-wave.

I used to run Vera Z-wave controllers, but the first one's z-wave module crapped out, and the newer model proved to be unstable (it would crash periodically and need power cycled). So when I moved to a bigger house last year, I decided to start running Home Assistant as the controller, with an Aeotec Z-stick 7 (USB z-wave dongle). This setup has been a nightmare.

I started Home Assistant on a raspberry pi 3b, but this was slow. Mainly the problem was z-wave communication was not reliable. I would tell it to turn on 4 lights via one button press, and it would be a small miracle if the 4 lights all turned on. Best case scenario, they would all turn on within 1 second. More commonly it took 3+ seconds or some of the lights wouldn't turn on at all. They never all turned on at the same time. Something about the system is really stupid and unable to perform more than one z-wave job at a time. After I found the z-wave event log, I saw it would send the command to turn on a light. Wait for an acknowledgement from the dimmer switch. The acknowledgement would either arrive (eventually) or the request would time out and the controller would retry the command, I think up to 3 times, waiting for an acknowledgement packet each time. After that song and dance was done for the first light, then the controller would send the command to turn on the next light, and so on. Meanwhile if I pushed any more buttons those actions would just get queued up and would not execute until after all the queued commands had sent and either gotten acknowledgement packets or timed out.

This was simply unacceptable. So I moved Home Assistant to a VM on a proper modern server and the web interface became drastically faster to load pages, but the z-wave communication was even less reliable. Because the z-wave dongle was now in a worse position relative to the other devices. So I moved the USB dongle using a couple of active USB extension cables to a more central location. That brought reliability up to the best it has been, but it still experiences delays (sometimes awful delays) 10-20% of the time. I even updated the firmware on the z-wave dongle, which is its own nightmare of a process because Aeotec didn't bother to build a simple firmware update tool. Instead you have to install a complex software development environment (ironically named Simplicity Studio) and follow basically the same process that their own engineers would have used during device development to upload a standard z-wave chip firmware to the z-stick.

 

[prsmith777]

There are a lot of complaints about bugs in HS4 from many users. It really depends on what you want and what you add to your system. A lot of it is people not liking the new UI over the old. HS has been doing a better job last several months fixing HS4. I have a lot of custom scripts for my system that would need rewriting and I have no time for that right now. I would search on the forum. There are plenty of threads complaining about HS4.

If you run HS on a pi, there are limitations on the number of plugins you can run... at least with HS3 (not sure about HS4). I'm not a Linux guy, so I've stuck with windows solutions over the years. I've had low powered setups in the past, but always ran into issues down the road with needing more computing power. A couple of years ago I migrated to an Intel NUC i5 and have had no further issues. Remember, home automation is addictive. Your starting system will grow quickly. I have over 20 plugins currently. I have integration using plugins for Ambient weather station, Google calendar, Ecobee thermostats, Unifi platform , Iphone location, Sonos with whole home announcements, Caller ID with announcemets, etc etc. Scripting is where the real power of HS is, where you can do just about anything you want. I have no background in computer programming, but taught myself enough of VB.net to write scripts that do whole house announcements and control my Hunter Douglas shades, for example.

I use the homeseer Z-Nets which are just pi units running HS software. These can connect via wifi or ethernet. When I first set things up, I only had a few devices and as I grew I kept adding more devices on the same network. I eventually had nearly 200 devices on one large spread out network that had issues with delays and connectivity. Solution was to add more Z-Nets on independent networks (which took several days of down time switching things around and rebuilding). Other issue was the wifi connectivity could be spotty with disconnects, so I ended up running cat 5 (we are good at that, right?) to the Z-Nets. Zwave is now rock solid. I have lots (20+) of Aeotec motion sensors in the ceiling that will turn on lights as I walk about the house. If they don't turn on instantly, I will know. Only rarely, say once a week, is there a few second delay. As far as batteries going bad... there is a free plugin (of course) for monitoring battery life that alerts you when they run down. That being said, I have a new project where I am converting my motion sensors from battery to power using 12v power. I have done this for a dozen so far and it works far better.

 

[TVille]

First, how did I miss this thread?

You youngsters. I've had home automation for 35+ years, starting with various versions of X-10, now with Hubitat, Z-Wave and a few Zigbees, BI and cameras, Google Assistants (or whatever they are called), myQ garage door openers, an Ecobee thermostat and a couple of door locks, Schlage and U-Tec. I'm no expert at it, having had the Hubitat only about a year or so, replacing SmartThings.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I did start with X10 years ago so I've already gotten my home automation "feet" wet.

I was pretty satisfied with ZWave on the ISY994i. I have about 25 devices at the moment and may add another ten or so over time. Our house is relatively small but is on a big lot, over an acre, so reaching the sheds may be a challenge. Although I already have cameras linked with a Nano Loco M5 and there are ports open on the switch out there. I'm not looking for voice operation at all, the Mrs and I are both happy with remotes although if I can do voice without a cloud service backend it is an option. I wrote a bunch of scripts in the ISY to handle all the stuff I wanted automated. Groups turned on sequentially with no problem and shut down the same way. The schedules were very reliable and always worked, too. I was impressed with the range of the Fibaro Key Fob versus the old X10 key fob. I guess since everything is ZWave+ it makes a difference at least in terms of range. I never had a problem until the ISY went south, then it all went right down the drain instantly.

I did think about using an ethernet/ZWave extender rather than a USB stick, the Aeotec will be here Friday, but decided on the USB solution just for trial purposes. I'll probably use an extension cable to get it up on the top shelf of the wall shelves right over my desk and desktop for testing purposes. I will undoubtedly be adding the ethernet style device though because I tend to overdo things and robust is better than marginal.

If I go with Home Assistant, and I'm starting to lean that way, I'll get a Pi4 and see how it goes. A little delay doesn't bother us but if it's too much delay that's another story. Both the Yellow and Blue Home Assistant kits are on long term back order which is disappointing. If I do go with Home Seer it'll be with one of their controllers rather than running on a PC. I just don't want to have too much running on the BI box.

 

[bp2008]

By the way, for anyone who wants some NON-ZWAVE smart devices that are also NOT CLOUD BASED, I found a couple of sources.

Products – Kaufman Home Automation -- I got 4 of their smart plugs. They work great with Home Assistant and they also have basic self-hosted web interfaces.

Powered by ATHOM | Tasmota | ESPHome | Home Assistant | ESP8266 ESP32 |Smart Home -- I got 1 wifi switch from here which I use basically just as a remote control button for the 4 smart plugs. I didn't even hook up the "load" wire of the switch, so its only practical function is to send events to Home Assistant, which triggers an Automation that toggles the smart plugs to match the on/off state of the switch.

 

[BORIStheBLADE]

Some options for Home assistant.

Home Assistant Blue!

Where style and performance meet privacy

www.home-assistant.io

Home Assistant Yellow

Take control of your home as never before.

www.crowdsupply.com

 

[Justin Blackburn]

Bundles for Home Assistant

Please scroll down to see what each variant includes. Product images are for illustration purposes only. Is Home Assistant Blue truly gone, find our answer here. Why Home Assistant? Compatibility: Home Assistant is designed to work with a wide range of devices and services, which includes...

ameridroid.com

This is the hardware equivalent of the blue just in a different case. I ordered my blue from them and had no issues. It has home assistant pre loaded. If you end up going the pi route, I’ve heard using a ssd for storage makes a huge difference. If you go with the odroid, eMMC is fast and that’s what it comes with.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Shipping dates are a killer anything but the "standard" for both the ODROID and Blue. The Yellow isn't even shipping. I'll be fooling with Home Assistant in a VM and see how that works out. If it doesn't add too much more onto the CPU I'll use that until the upgraded units become available.

 

[BORIStheBLADE]

Shipping dates are a killer anything but the "standard" for both the ODROID and Blue. The Yellow isn't even shipping. I'll be fooling with Home Assistant in a VM and see how that works out. If it doesn't add too much more onto the CPU I'll use that until the upgraded units become available.

If you have a old PC sitting around you can even run it with full OS install. Generic x86-64

 

[Old Timer]

If you go with the home seer, do not go with the Pi. I have had 2 of them and both the SD card died.
They don't want to sell a new card, so gave up on them. I should have made a copy of it.

I need to dig into Home Assistant and see if I can get things set up with it.
Running on a VM makes since, I have plenty of room, I just need to get time.
I would like to link up several buildings again so I have control of lights in the barns shop, etc.

 

[JeffCharger]

While I consider myself an infant with Blue Iris, I've been running Homeseer for about 20 years. In past year I converted one of my Homeseer systems from HS 1.7 to HS 4. It was a bit of a "jump" since I too had a lot of custom scripts I had written over the years. It took me a couple of weeks of focused effort to get things converted. It's been almost a year now, and it's running like clockwork. I run both HS and BI on the same machine. They work well together on the same machine.

I wouldn't worry about bugs or problems with HS 4. In my experience it's pretty solid. There's a learning curve, and there are many areas that I liked HS 1.7 better, but I recognize that I've been running it for years so of course it's going to be tough to change. I track how long my PC runs without a reboot. It just ran 104 days.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I made some progress this evening.

I installed Virtual Box and got Home Assistant running in a VM. Keep in mind I'm not a Linux guy and have never fooled with VMs before. The VM was easy to get going once I watched a video and Home Assistant loaded right up. I had tried using Windows VM, and yes I had the right images for both, but Home Assistant kept failing with an error message about power management. Maybe I missed something obvious, beats me.

The CPU doesn't seem to be seriously effected with it running and memory seems fine as well. I set the virtual drive to 50GB and memory to 4GB, I've got 32GB in the machine. That should make it "snappy", I hope.

Now I'm anxious for the USB/ZWave dongle to get here. Hopefully it'll be here Friday. The only thing that shows up in Home Assistant, so far, is the printer and the weather.

 

[sebastiantombs]

So after getting the ZWave/USB dongle more problems. I bought the Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5. It got here late yesterday afternoon. I installed ZWave JS on the HA VM and it saw the dongle right away. Then things went south.

When I tried pairing, I got no results. So, read the instructions. I read the manual from Aeotec and it says to just use the pairing feature of the software you're using, but it also says it can pair when unplugged as well. When unplugged just press the "action" button on the front and the blue LED will come on to indicate it's in pairing mode. Pressed the button and no LED at all, dead display, which actually mimics the result in HA.

Next step was to try a hard reset of the dongle by holding the reset button for 20 seconds. I tried 20, 30, then 40 seconds. The red LED is supposed to flash rapidly to indicate successful reset. Again, dead display and no changes in getting to discovery mode.

I'm waiting for an answer from Aeotec. I've had good support from them, friendly and informative, but I didn't open the ticket until about 2200 last night so I'm stuck waiting for Monday for now.

To say Home Assistant has a steep learning curve is being generous. I've got three books on the way, two for yaml and another for Linux. I feel like I've got a blindfold on and am trying to find a needle in a haystack.

 

[BORIStheBLADE]

So after getting the ZWave/USB dongle more problems. I bought the Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5. It got here late yesterday afternoon. I installed ZWave JS on the HA VM and it saw the dongle right away. Then things went south.

When I tried pairing, I got no results. So, read the instructions. I read the manual from Aeotec and it says to just use the pairing feature of the software you're using, but it also says it can pair when unplugged as well. When unplugged just press the "action" button on the front and the blue LED will come on to indicate it's in pairing mode. Pressed the button and no LED at all, dead display, which actually mimics the result in HA.

Next step was to try a hard reset of the dongle by holding the reset button for 20 seconds. I tried 20, 30, then 40 seconds. The red LED is supposed to flash rapidly to indicate successful reset. Again, dead display and no changes in getting to discovery mode.

I'm waiting for an answer from Aeotec. I've had good support from them, friendly and informative, but I didn't open the ticket until about 2200 last night so I'm stuck waiting for Monday for now.

To say Home Assistant has a steep learning curve is being generous. I've got three books on the way, two for yaml and another for Linux. I feel like I've got a blindfold on and am trying to find a needle in a haystack.

When you're talking about pairing are you talking about pairing your z-wave devices to this stick? If so they need to be unpaired from the prior z-wave hub. I also found out when I removed a z-wave device from my old hubs they still wouldnt pair with the new one. I had to factory reset all my z-wave devices before they would pair with the new z-wave hub.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Yes, pairing the devices with the dongle or HA. I factory reset every damn ZWave device in the house on Wednesday, again on Thursday and yet again on Friday just to make sure they were all reset and ready to go. The problem isn't the devices, the dongle just won't go into discovery mode, at least according to HA and the lack of the blue LED on the dongle when it's unplugged from USB. It does have it's own battery and that should be well charged, by now, and it still won't factory reset or go into discovery mode.

So far my luck with ZWave hasn't been very good at all and I've already plowed a bunch of bucks into it. This is starting to piss me off royally. I'll be patient and wait until I hear back from Aeotec though. If all else fails I just return the dongle to Amazon and try the Z-Net that JNDATHP mentioned.

@JNDATHP How was configuring the Z-Net with ZWave JS in HA? Any gotchas to look for? Oh well, that seems to integrate with HomeSeer.

 

[Mike A.]

You may have less hair by then but Z-wave should be good once you get things set up. You’re at the hardest part now… getting things up and running. Just like cams and BI, likely some struggles along the way especially trying to pair a bunch of different things that have been paired to other devices.