Home Assistant

Overview:

I have been a licensed user of Homeseer for years, probably over 20. It worked ok, I have figured out the quirks.

In summer 2020, I was finally getting tired of the X10 stuff not being quite reliable, and an unacknowledged protocol. I decided to more to Z-Wave, I already had some Z-Wave, but a major sticking point was my 16 unit relay board I use for sprinklers. There were also som issues with compatibility with certain Z-Wave products, and I found that HomeSeer intentionally locked out certain manufacturers' products so they could sell their own. Disgusting. I was not liking this especially if I was going to get more Z-Wave units, and they are significantly more expensive than my old X10.

The feces hit the rotary impeller when I bought a new setup to make a 16 port relay board with Z-Wave. The unit just worked crazy, and it pointed to a program error. The manufacturer pointed at HomeSeer, and HomeSeer pointed at the manufacturer. I then did something an engineer would do, I got a Z-Wave "sniffer" so I could see the protocol and commands. Indeed HomeSeer was not sending the right data. So that was it, I was determined to ditch HomeSeer.

So I looked at alternatives, and found Home Assistant. The relay board now worked, and many more Z-Wave units worked, even with my ancient Z-Wave controller.

My configuration:

• The system runs on Ubuntu on a Hyper-V server on my Windows Server 2012 R2.
• The serial ports used by the Z-Wave and X10 interfaces are virtualized with Digi One serial to Ethernet units. This allows placement anywhere on my network, and most importantly, serves to virtualize the com ports since Hyper-V will not pass through the actual com ports on the host.
• Z-Wave commands are handled by a Ztroller
• X10 commands are handled by a CM11.

Detailed operation link HERE

Home Assistant Yellow:

I'm using Home Assistant and want to go from a virtual machine on my windows server to a dedicated device.

A group makes these and uses their own operating system. The first piece of hardware was the Home Assistant Blue, which was ok, but not really modular and not good with all interfaces.

I ordered the successor, Home Assistant Yellow (used to be call HA Amber). After ordering in July 2022 and promised in August, I got mine in November.

This uses the new Raspberry PI CM4 which is a stripped down RPI but with bus connectors to expand ports, so you buy a CM4 and plug it into the HA Yellow.

details on HA Yellow HERE