HA for Beginners: You NEED to know this before trying Home Assistant! (the basics)

Clear! Thanks.

Thank you for the video. I just had a tiny, basic question, I downloaded home assistant, I have a few WiFi devices. Home assistant asks me for a server address, I stopped there. Do I have to set up a virtual server, or need a dedicated machine for this? If I have zigbee hub, would I be able to use that as a server?

You give really interesting ideas for home automation, once I get past the initial stumbling blocks, I’ll definitely expand and share. I find that home assistant is super useful for elderly people. Do you know if there is a sensor that can detect if a person falls in the bathroom/room? Or someone has been in a room or bathroom for too long and should check on them?

Exactly the primer I needed after struggling with the basics for some time. Thank you!

2nd vid that you produced that I've watched (the first was a basic dashboard howto). You do a great job at explaining some of these basic concepts. You need to do another dashboard howto though :-)

Wrong! Home Assistant has the worst user interface I have ever seen over my 50 years in IT. Confusing, obtuse and impossible for the reasonably astute user to figure out how to perform the basic functions. They make it worse by inventing their own terminology which is not clear and compounds the confusion. Its usability is suited for experienced programmers. And NOT explained well here.

Great video!
I was confused with all the different home assistant functionalities so this was very useful.

Excellent. Thank you.

I’m trying to learn about how I’d accomplish the setup I want but there doesn’t seem to be a similar setup. I have a HTPC with Kodi for watching all my ripped movies. All I want to do is to be able to press play on my Harmony One remote and the Sylvania smart lights turn off in my movie room and when I press stop or pause I want the lights to come on.

really like your dashboard would like mine to look like yours

You can't just gloss over that "single keypress on the keyboard triggers a scene and changes your background", we're going to need some details on that.

first

Hi Aaron, I am trying to set up smart home within next 12 months. With Matter rolling out, do you think it is still necessary to learn erverything about HA? Thanks!

Great video and all but why is it never mentioned that using home assistant requires the users to pay a monthly fee?
In other words, do you know if there's any way I can integrate WLED with Google home without having to pay for it every month?

I can’t figure out how to integrate Aqara devices. Any advice or tutorial you can share?

I’ve used Node-RED for many years, and have hundreds of custom programmed flows / automations etc. I have installed HA many times over the years (usually in virtual machines on my hyper-v server) but just never really “got on” with the software. The main reason was that I didn’t really understand the concepts. This is the first time I have bothered to find out more about the concepts, and your video was really excellent at making these things clear! Thank you so much for the time and effort you put in to making this video. I think I’m going to try to get back in to Home Assistant now.

good selling vid but put your money where thy mouth is. make a vid of a newbie (non programmer) setting up and using it. and make a device bought and built do something .

What was that "smart button" thingy you have setup with your projector~?
Thank you for the lovely video!

Your videos are amazing! Good job.
I need a Step by Step guide for Dummies on how to setup HA. I tried once before and found it very challenging : ( I think a step by step would help me to follow and try again : ).

Almost nothing here told is true. I had a little experience before with php html raspberry and arduino. By my experience in HA you definitely need coding skills if u want anything to work. And yes - for new user this WILL be overwhelming. Most horrible, horrible thing is customize those customizable dashboards. I can guarantee to everyone who starts with HA weeks - probably months with sleepless nights depending how many gadgets u have in your house. If you can make it work it would definitely be a great thing, but for that u MUST be a computer geek.

HA just seems overwhelming. It always seems that it is discussed as a easy to setup and use program. Unfortunately we then see a video, like this one, that then shows lines of programming language that we are supposed to somehow understand. While I consider myself fairly capable, as an example Im radio operator and run digital formats, have raspberry pi that handle various functions, and yet the HA seems to be very in-depth which makes it confusing for those of us that dont have significant computer programming background

Great intro thank you. Always difficult to avoid tech-talk. How about a beginners guide to HA Bluetooth? Must be one of the most confusing setups in HA. Still haven’t managed to get my HA to see any Bluetooth devices - and I have many. Running on a Mac which has Bluetooth as standard and even bought recommended USB Bluetooth dongle but still no luck 😤

Thanks!

This was great...new subscriber here...thank you for the overview....well done...:)

Home assistant is biggest scam ever - lack of real security, HACKS is full of security free integrations not to mention lack of stability. "Developers" are another problem If you mentions about issues on forum Petro or Zack will bann you without warrning. Also - they banning russian developers :))) Also seems like platform will be monetized soon that is why "developers" constantly avoiding security and stability discussion not to mention their "political" inclinations.

Not a newbie anymore, but always entertaining to watch your videos!

Thank you for this great overview. I have heard great things about the ConBee II & HA amd an wondering if you have by chance tested it. It seems to be great when you use different brands of sensors and light

I like the design of your dashboard! Can you show us how you created some of your dashboards?!!!

I can't seem to figure out how to add the HA community store. I went to Integrations, but it's not there. I even went to the web site as prompted, and no dice. Any help someone can provide?

How did you create the clock card? It looks cool. Would you mind to share the codes?
Thanks

one thing i have noticed is there is harldy information on what are helpers in homeassitant and its uses. can you cover in future video

Let’s see that dashboard! I have a mounted tablet, but admittedly not the best at making a nice looking dashboard, so it’s a bit empty right now..

Nice introductory overview of the HA areas and a very smart looking wall tablet!...what card are you using for the time/date on the tablet ?

Great timing on this video. I just discoverd HA this morning!

Yes more dashboard tutorials please :)

What is that tablet you are using with the HA dashboard?