Posted: 9/9/2026 2:57:37 PM EDT
[Last Edit: Firestarter123][Edited]
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I've never really understood why I'd want it, however, Honeywell pissed me off with their leak detectors bricking after switching thermostats since we had to get a new HVAC so I bought some Shelly sensors and hooked them up. I've gone down the rabbit hole now. The Climate, Power, and Leak sensors are all created dynamically based off of labels so I can add/remote sensors by applying a label to the entity. The bucket full automation for the dehumidifers is awesome. Climate (Honeywell's API is down right now for their thermostat of course but it's really cool when it's working): Attached File Power: Attached File Leak: Attached File OPNsense: Attached File Automations: Attached File |
| Nice! I retired (sort of) a few years ago so now I have time to get into a tech hobby (networks, automation, monitoring, media server). Hope you don’t mind a few questions. How are you running your Home Assistant? Are you using a NAS? Old computer? Used enterprise level computer? How are you monitoring your internet usage? Do you have a preference as far as manufacturer for sensors? Feel free to not answer some or all of these questions. |
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Originally Posted By ScubaDachshund: Nice! I retired (sort of) a few years ago so now I have time to get into a tech hobby (networks, automation, monitoring, media server). Hope you don’t mind a few questions. How are you running your Home Assistant? Are you using a NAS? Old computer? Used enterprise level computer? How are you monitoring your internet usage? Do you have a preference as far as manufacturer for sensors? Feel free to not answer some or all of these questions. I have a 2-node (with QDevice VM running on my NAS) HA (high-availability) Proxmox cluster that runs on older Xeon E5-26XX V4 server hardware at home. I do have an UnRAID NAS, however, Home Assistant isn't running on it and instead runs in a VM on the Proxmox cluster. All of my infrastructure hardware has ECC RAM, redundant power supplies, redundant networking, RAID arrays (ZFS for Proxmox), etc. A retired home PC would work fine too but I like the failover, backups, etc that the Proxmox cluster provides since I'm relying on Home Assistant now for my leak sensors. I use OPNsense for my router/firewall which has an integration for Home Assistant. You can install a plugin within OPNsense called vstat that gives more counters as well. I went the Zigbee route at first but it was a monumental PITA as buying coordinators sucked and their signal was crap. I have sensors out in my shop as well and Home Assistant doesn't play well with multiple coordinators. It was just extremely unreliable so I ditched the entire system and have gone to Shelly WiFi enabled devices which have proven to be excellent and I have no regrets. Honestly, if you're wanting to set something like this up a subscription to ChatGPT or something equivalent is totally worth the cost unless you want to spend hours and hours Googling to figure something out and you enjoy writing yaml for templates, helpers, automations, etc (as a programmer I don't enjoy writing yaml). It's saved me soooooo much time I couldn't even put a number on it but it's at least 24 hours of beating my head against a wall. |
| Fireatarter123 thanks for the info! I’m just getting started. Have a Synology NAS for computer backups and media server using Emby. I have a couple of old desktop computers I need to dig out and see if they’re usable for anything. Already have the ChatGPT subscription. Sometimes it’s helpful. Sometimes it’s a pain in the ass. |
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Hello, fellow Home Assistant Enthusiasts Attached File This is my main Power setup. I've got solar on the house and have an Emporia Vue 3 installed in my main breaker panel outside. I flashed its firmware a couple weekends ago so I could have local access. I do wish it refreshed a bit quicker. My solar is a SolarEdge system. I've got that connected to my WiFi and I'm talking to it with ModBus TCP. It's been pretty stable and fast. Under my desk, I have an Anker C1000 that I use as a UPS. I plugged it into an Ikea smart plug to turn it off. I set up an automation to monitor how much solar surplus power I have, then switch it on to charge the battery up, and switch it off when the surplus is low. My desk (computers, monitor, etc) run off of that. The Ikea Matter stuff has been really good. I set them up through my AppleTV first, then connected to HA. I've got about a dozen smart outlets (they are great, and provide power statistics, but they don't have a dimmer. They are on/off, and handle up to 1800W), three wireless button things, a couple wireless thermometers and a wireless motion sensor in the kitchen. They've all been really solid except for the motion sensor. Every couple weeks it stops responding, so I have to pull the batteries and restart it. I have some zwave switches set up through my previous system, a Universal Devices EISY. I used to be a heavy Insteon user, but their shit is expensive, tends to die after about 5 years and is pretty limited. UD wants the ISY to be capable.. but Home Assistant is FAR more capable. As soon as HA could connect to my eISY, I switched. Anyway, I'm really digging Home Assistant. I've got a lot of stuff set up in it. I love seeing people's consoles and getting good ideas from them. I've got HA running on a VM on VirtualBox on my Mac mini right now. I'm going to move it to my Ubuntu laptop at some point. It's worked really well, and it's easy to set up. |
Now she's making $15 an hour as a 'tard wrangler with a degree in women's studies... - tommytrauma
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Originally Posted By Firestarter123: I have a 2-node (with QDevice VM running on my NAS) HA (high-availability) Proxmox cluster that runs on older Xeon E5-26XX V4 server hardware at home. I do have an UnRAID NAS, however, Home Assistant isn't running on it and instead runs in a VM on the Proxmox cluster. All of my infrastructure hardware has ECC RAM, redundant power supplies, redundant networking, RAID arrays (ZFS for Proxmox), etc. A retired home PC would work fine too but I like the failover, backups, etc that the Proxmox cluster provides since I'm relying on Home Assistant now for my leak sensors. I use OPNsense for my router/firewall which has an integration for Home Assistant. You can install a plugin within OPNsense called vstat that gives more counters as well. I went the Zigbee route at first but it was a monumental PITA as buying coordinators sucked and their signal was crap. I have sensors out in my shop as well and Home Assistant doesn't play well with multiple coordinators. It was just extremely unreliable so I ditched the entire system and have gone to Shelly WiFi enabled devices which have proven to be excellent and I have no regrets. Honestly, if you're wanting to set something like this up a subscription to ChatGPT or something equivalent is totally worth the cost unless you want to spend hours and hours Googling to figure something out and you enjoy writing yaml for templates, helpers, automations, etc (as a programmer I don't enjoy writing yaml). It's saved me soooooo much time I couldn't even put a number on it but it's at least 24 hours of beating my head against a wall. I never used any Zigbee, though the little dongle radio on my eISY supports Zwave, Zigbee and Thread. Since the AppleTV supports Matter over Thread, I set it up as my border router, and all the Ikea stuff is Matter over Thread. I do not want to have 234 devices on my WiFi, so keeping them on their own radio network is nice. I do have a RATGDO (garage door opener) and an Apollo MSR2 (motion detector, mmWave) on WiFi, because nothing exists like those that are on Thread. AI is great for updating or creating consoles. I tell it what I want and what I want it to look like and it spits out YAML which usually works the first time. I use YAML with Ansible a lot, so I'm familiar with it, but I just don't know all the HA options, so asking AI fills in that knowledge. It's great for troubleshooting, too. One thing I want to figure out in the not-too-distant future is how to control a 240V outlet, so I can control when my car charges. Right now, it's on one of those Ikea smart outlets, so I only have it turn on when my solar is producing above a certain amount. Eventually I'll add battery storage to the house, too. That will be fun! I'll have everything set up in HA and manage it all there. I'm also thinking about picking up a cheap Android tablet to put in kiosk mode in the kitchen, so the wife can control things. I set up a Dashboard for her, and she can get to it on her phone, if she remembers she has it. LOL |
Now she's making $15 an hour as a 'tard wrangler with a degree in women's studies... - tommytrauma
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Originally Posted By ScubaDachshund: Fireatarter123 thanks for the info! I’m just getting started. Have a Synology NAS for computer backups and media server using Emby. I have a couple of old desktop computers I need to dig out and see if they’re usable for anything. Already have the ChatGPT subscription. Sometimes it’s helpful. Sometimes it’s a pain in the ass. If you go the VM route, VirtualBox works well. They have a disk image you download and attach to a VM, fire it up and go through configuration. IMO, it is worth it to pay for the Nabu Casa service so you can connect from anywhere and use the mobile app as well. If you have your own domain, you can set up a custom URL, too. |
Now she's making $15 an hour as a 'tard wrangler with a degree in women's studies... - tommytrauma