{"id":10315,"date":"2024-03-28T04:09:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T11:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hometechhacker.com\/?p=10315"},"modified":"2024-03-25T08:22:35","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T15:22:35","slug":"the-evolution-of-my-home-assistant-setup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hometechhacker.com\/the-evolution-of-my-home-assistant-setup\/","title":{"rendered":"The Evolution Of My Home Assistant Setup"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"How<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

I’ve been happily using Home Assistant for over five years now. And, although I keep somewhat up to date on Home Assistant alternatives, I haven’t seen the need to switch platforms. However, I have evolved and improved my Home Assistant setup. Let’s discuss some of the changes I’ve made over the years. Additionally, I’ll touch on my plans for Home Assistant. I hope they are informative and inspirational for your Home Assistant setup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Home Assistant hardware changes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I started using Home Assistant in a VirtualBox VM running on the desktop computer I am currently typing this on (and it might be time for a new desktop<\/a>). I had been using VirtualBox for years, primarily to quickly spin up testing VMs and for Windows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I began to rely on Home Assistant and other virtual machines that I ran in VirtualBox more and more. Having them tied to my desktop was problematic because I had to reboot or take down my desktop to make changes from time to time, which meant my home lab was down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I eventually bought some dedicated Proxmox hardware<\/a> and migrated my home lab<\/a> to it, including Home Assistant. This has been a great move for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Vera to Z-Wave<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\"Z-Wave<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

One other significant hardware change I made was migrating my Z-Wave network from my old Veralite smart home hub to Home Assistant<\/a>. I didn’t do this initially because Home Assistant could control my Z-Wave devices through the Veralite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the veralite was moving out of support status and wasn’t stable anyway. So I purchased a Z-Wave capable USB stick, added it to Home Assistant, and migrated my Z-Wave network from the Vera to Home Assistant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zigbee and Bluetooth<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Z-Wave USB stick I purchased (which can be found in my shop<\/a>) was also capable of working with Zigbee devices. So this enabled me to add Zigbee devices<\/a> to Home Assistant as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, I added Bluetooth capabilities to Home Assistant using Proxmox Bluetooth passthrough and the Theengs Bridge BLE MQTT gateway<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Automations on steroids<\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"Home<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Home Assistant automations and scripts are the backbone of my smart home. I use automations to make the house run without needing direction from me. Some examples of these automations are safety and security lights and notifications, turning off lights when they aren’t needed, and locking doors when the alarm is armed. You can read about my favorite and most useful automations here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The number of automations I’ve written has grown tremendously since I started using Home Assistant. I’m not sure of the exact number, but I think I had around 30 automations that I ported over from my previous smart home hub. When I started tracking them in 2021, I had 110 automations. As I write this I have 185 automations.<\/p>\n\n\n