Home Assistant Yellow Experiences

[stevehoyt]

@asbril

Hi again. After much waiting, it looks like my home assistant yellow will be arriving toward the end of the month. 

I have been running HA now for 6+ months on a PC along with google backups.

I don't anticipate any issues moving over to the yellow, based on other earlier thread discussions.

I just thought I would checkin with you, and see what your impressions were after running  it for a number of months.

Thanks

Steve

 

[asbril]

Hi there, it has generally been rock solid, using both Zwave and Zigbee.  There have been 3 or 4 times that Zwave did not respond and I resolved that by power cycling the Yellow Box and  removing the Zooz 800 dongle for a few seconds.

In fact, I put the Yellow Box on a  Kasa Wifi plug which allows me to power cycle it when I am not at home,  through the Kasa App on my Iphone.

BTW I use the Google Drive backup integration so that I always have 2 backup locations in case anything goes wrong and I do daily backups.

Lastly, though not an absolute need, I added a ssd in the Yellow Box to future proof the memory.

Edited September 11, 2023 by asbril

[stevehoyt]

@asbril Good to hear that all has gone well and you like it. I am not using zwave or ziggbee so that won't be an issue for me.

I ordered a ssd along with it too.

So if I understand it correctly, you run the OS and user data on the main memory and in addition to the google backups also backup to the SSD?

I had heard somewhere I should move my user data to the ssd.

If you can, would you let me know what you think the preferred config might be.

Thanks

Steve

[xlurkr]

I've had one for about 6 weeks now.  I bought the POE version, and a fully loaded CM4 (8G 32G WiFi) off of eBay.  When it came in I bought a 1 TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD, installed both, and followed the setup instructions.  At step 9 I installed it all on the SSD.  One reason I did this is so I can remove it, install it in a USB adapter, and edit files on another machine - not that I've done that, but I can.

I was amazed at all the things it automatically found on my local network when it started up.  I wish I could remember if it automatically found my Polisy; maybe someone else remembers their experience.  At any rate, I do remember it was easy to start controlling my Insteon gear.  It also makes a default home page with everything on it that's quite usable, if a little disorganized.

Since the first days, all I have done is to install my old ZooZ 700 series dongle (removed from my Polisy after I upgraded to ZMatter) and add one device each to Zigbee and Z-Wave just to experiment.  Oh, and added my Elk, also just to fool around.  I'm not really using my HA Yellow for anything, but I'm really impressed and do look forward to creating some automations, but will probably do so only if I think of one I need that can't be done on my Polisy due to lack of the necessary nodeserver.  For the record, I also have a Hubitat C-8 (due to its fantastic Lutron support) that I could also create automations on, so I'm starting to get confused by all the options I now have.

Next step might be the installation of the ZooZ Z-Wave radio that lives on a header on the motherboard.  I don't need it, but it's cheap, and then I wouldn't have a dongle hanging off.  The downside is that you have to disable the connection to the onboard Bluetooth, which can be used for presence sensing and probably some other things.  Also, I can't imagine it has better reception than the external dongle.  But this is coming from someone who just admitted spending >>$500 for something he doesn't need.

-Tom

[xlurkr]

After posting this, I visited the HA Yellow blog for the first time in a long time.  Apparently, the ZooZ 800 series Z-Wave onboard radio works without disabling the onboard Bluetooth.  I'm off to waste more money!

-Tom

[asbril]

On 9/12/2023 at 5:00 PM, stevehoyt said:

I had heard somewhere I should move my user data to the ssd.

I don't remember if I moved my user data manually or if it even moved at all, but my memory shows only 2 % used. My assumption is that everything moved to the ssd,

Edited September 13, 2023 by asbril

[jzh]

Just curious to know if HA can handle all these things, is a eisy still needed? I’m now using ISY994, and considering the upgrade option if it fails someday. Thanks 

BTW I tested HA on my laptop and connected my lots of Insteon devices and zwave devices fantastically. 

[xlurkr]

Nobody supports Insteon better than UDI does, and I doubt anyone ever will.  If Insteon is an important part of your home automation, you should have UDI’s most powerful and supportable product.  This is a “‘not if but when” kind of thing.  You can stick with the 994 until it breaks or won’t do something the Eisy can.

-Tom

[paulbates]

On 12/22/2023 at 12:17 AM, xlurkr said:

Nobody supports Insteon better than UDI  ...

You can stick with the 994 until it breaks or won’t do something the Eisy can.

-Tom

For insteon installations, we've arrived at that point.. if you want the new i3 devices, and you do, it has to be an eisy

[stevehoyt]

I assume Polisy too though,  I have not tried any yet.

Am running all my Insteon via the plugin/Nodeserver and it works great. 

[brians]

On 12/21/2023 at 12:54 PM, jzh said:

Just curious to know if HA can handle all these things, is a eisy still needed? I’m now using ISY994, and considering the upgrade option if it fails someday. Thanks 

BTW I tested HA on my laptop and connected my lots of Insteon devices and zwave devices fantastically. 

What happens when you want to remove one or replace? I couldn’t get that to work maybe works better now? Also if plm isn’t  fully reset it adds old links. 

[DualBandAid]

Any thoughts on getting my HA green to see my EISY? The EISY was not auto-discovered. When I add the integration manually, no combo of anything seems to let me get past this...

 

[Geddy]

@DualBandAid you’ve already posted this issue. Please don’t double post as it’s not helpful to try to get the same help in different threads.