Tag: step

Step 2: Setup

The installation of Home Assistant has many options depending on where and how you would like to run it!

The main options are:

  • directly on your home linux computer
  • through docker on a home computer
  • directly on a Raspberry Pi 3 or above

Home Assistant doesn’t actually help itself here with all the options and there are some varying documentation that is not always applicable to all installation methods.

The easiest and most common is Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi – which will be described in this guide. The official instructions are well documented on their site.

Put simply, installation is as easy as:

  1. download the image from home-assistant.io/hassio/installation
  2. write the image to SD card via disk imaging software
  3. plug the SD card into the device – in this case Raspberry Pi 3
  4. power up and wait about 20 mins
  5. visit ‘http://hassio.local:8123’ in a browser

As part of the first time running of the Home Assistant software, Home Assistant will ask you to create an Administrator account for you to manage and operate your home automation.

Home Assistant will also ask you for a system name, location and allow you to add any smart objects immediately discovered. All of which can be changed or setup at any point.

Next: Step 3: Using

Step 1: Engine

Lets begin with working out what the best underlying engine to build our cloud free automation on. This decision (at time of writing) won’t be too difficult as there are not that many cloud free options.

The main contenders are:

All the above options allow you to integrate with cloud services, if you wish, depending on how cloud free you would like to be.

They all have tons of integrations and huge communities with loads of resources and example setups.

Decided upon Home Assistant as the underlying system for home automation. However, will look into openHAB in the near future.

Opted against Homeseer due to the upfront cost of the software and against openHAB mainly due to its interface.

One big draw to Home Assistant was the flexibility of the front end user interface to operate the home automation.

Next: Step 2: Setup