Chris LamkeDec 21, 2022

I have a couple weeks off for the Christmas break and am going to try creating a smart home hub. I briefly tried Home Assistant a few years ago but got too busy to maintain it. I just looked at the available hubs and while Hubitat is interesting, I think Home Assistant is clearly the best option for those who don't mind tinkering.

#smarthome #hubitat #homeassistant
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Choosing a Hub - Revisited · Budget Smart Home https://www.budgetsmarthome.co.uk/2021/11/26/choosing-a-hub-revisited/

Choosing a Hub - Revisited

Why I've switched back to Home Assistant after using Hubitat for over a year.

Show threadLouis Mamakos

@crlamke I think that you'll find that #HomeAssistant requires less tinkering these days to get going than it did a few years ago.

In addition to general usability improvements, better UI, etc.. there's been a big improvement in Z-Wave and Zigbee device support. That used to be fiddly..

I hope you'll post an update to your last blog post with your most recent experience. I'm really curious to hear about your impression after a couple years of progress..

Dec 21, 2022 at 2:31amWeb
Show threadDannyVFilmsDec 21, 2022
@lmamakos @crlamke could be better, but even this year it has gotten much more approachable. Excited for what they have planned in the next year.
Show threadChris LamkeDec 21, 2022
@lmamakos thanks, Louis! I'm gonna try it over the next two weeks and I'll respond to this thread with how it went. I'll run it in a VM for now because my Pi a v2 and not supported and Pis are very hard to find right now. I need to buy something for Z-Wave and Zigbee support. I have a mix of Wyze and other brands cameras, switches, bulbs, etc. but all BT or WiFi. I see lots of cool devices using Z-Wave and Zigbee and would like to try them.
Show threadLouis MamakosDec 21, 2022

@crlamke That's a great way to begin. While a Pi seems like a great start, once you start really using it the micro SD card will eventually fail. This history database that #HomeAssistant uses can get a lot of write traffic and that wears hard on SD cards.

So many sad stories, so many tears shed when those SD cards eventually crap out. These days, you can boot and run from USB SSD devices that do proper wear leveling and have longer lifetimes.

Show threadJess TelfordDec 21, 2022

@lmamakos @crlamke

What about the "High Endurance" SD cards meant for dash cams; apparently they can handle loads of rapid writes?

(I just dropped a bunch of $$ on some at Black Friday sales; hopefully it wasn't just a marketing gimmick 😬)

Show threadLouis MamakosDec 21, 2022

@jesstelford @crlamke I never attempted using high-endurance SD cards. When I had mine fail the first (and only) time, it came at a time when I already wanted better I/O performance. The SD cards are slow. And by then I wanted more historical data and wanted to feed some (most) sensor data into InfluxDB. So I just bailed out at that point. ANd changed platforms. YMMV.

If you're just automating lights and don't care about historical state data, you might find SD cards just fine.

Show threadJess TelfordDec 21, 2022

@lmamakos @crlamke

Ok, sounds like the SD cards will be a starting point that I can upgrade from if I get failures or want better perf. Thanks for the info! 🎉

Show threadChris LamkeDec 23, 2022
@lmamakos thanks for mentioning the SD card issue. I definitely plan to avoid SD cards. I'll add a small SSD to whatever I end up using.