home-assistant

My first attempt at running a home automation system was a Shelly device integrated to HomeKit - worked nicely. Then I fiddled around with running https://homebridge.io/ on my Raspberry 4, moved over to https://hoobs.org/ and realized that there must be something better. Luckily I found Home Assistant.

This file is intended for me to document the quirks I had during setup and for others to learn and avoid them.

My setup

• Router Fritz!Box 7490
• an old EliteDesk 800 G3 Mini PC, running Proxmox and Home Assistant inside a VM
• a solar roof system managed by EVCC
• Conbee USB stick to manage ZigBee network
• a Tesla Gen 3 Wall Connector to charge my Tesla
• a Buderus Logamax Plus GB192i heating controlled with EMS-ESP
• a Cyble pulse sensor that reads my gas meter with an ESP
• an ESP8266 that reads my power meter
• a Shelly device that counts how many espressos I pulled from my Rancilio Silvia.
• Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) air conditioner
  • SRK25ZS-W controlled with ESP (https://github.com/ginkage/MHI-AC-Ctrl-ESPHome)
  • SRK20ZS-W controlled with ESP (https://github.com/ginkage/MHI-AC-Ctrl-ESPHome)
  • SRK50ZS-WF controlled with ESP (https://github.com/ginkage/MHI-AC-Ctrl-ESPHome)
  • Note to myself: compile the yaml file first, then connect the device to the USB port of the ThinkPad X1 to flash it
• A doorbell/intercom Auerswald TFS-Universal plus directly hooked up to the Fritzbox
  • additionally the Mini PC has a USB modem attached (phone line connected to Fritzbox) and the Phone Modem integration signals HA when the door button was pressed
  • nice to say "Hey Siri! open the front door" and the door buzzes
• two fans to keep my basement dry (sort of), controlled by dew point
• an Amazon Echo dot to announce things and play stuff from Spotify (described below)
• Shelly 2.5 devices control my roller shutters
• Shelly 1 device controls my garage door
• two Velux solar roller shutters (SSL SK08 0000S)
  • one Velux App Control KIG 300 controls the two roller shutters and provides an Apple HomeKit controller (which in turn provides access to HA)
• Aqara door/windows sensors, connected thru Zigbee
• Aqara temp/humidity/pressure sensors, connected thru Zigbee
• a Wifi Pool Kit from Atlas Scientific to show pool data (see https://atlas-scientific.com/kits/wi-fi-pool-kit/)
  • Note to myself for calibration
    • flash the arduino image from the X1 Thinkpad, only change Wifi credentials in the code
      • open serial monitor on COM4 and do the calibration
      • reflash with ESPHome
• a Reolink E1 pro camera (described below)
• a Reolink RLC-511WA camera (described below)
• Regular updates to git (described below)
• I run a bunch of add-ons, described in the following sections.

DSS VoIP Notifier

• using my Fritzbox as a SIP server (HA can initiate calls and play audio stuff using tts)
• install https://github.com/sdesalve/hassio-addons/tree/master/dss_voip as a simple add-on (Supervisor | Add-on Store | ... (top right) | Repositories | add https://github.com/sdesalve/hassio-addons)
• enable tts like https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/google_translate

tts:
  - platform: google_translate
    language: 'de'
    service_name: google_translate_say
    --base_url: https://xxx.duckdns.org-- # deprecated since 2022.5‚

• configuration (note that 192.168.178.1 is the IP address of my Fritzbox, and 192.168.178.83 is the IP address of my Raspberry

sip_parameters:
  caller_id_uri: 'sip:homeassistant@192.168.178.1:5060'
  realm: '*'
  username: homeassistant
  password: '<replace-me-with-digits-only>'
pjsua_custom_options: '--ip-addr=192.168.178.83'

• steps to do on Fritzbox:, see https://superuser.com/questions/829824/android-wont-register-sip-on-Fritzbox-router
  • log on to your Fritzbox
  • select Telefoniegeräte (phone | devices)
  • Add Phone
  • LAN/WLAN (IP Phone), named 'homeassistant'
  • enter username homeassistant, passwort ONLY digits
  • pick a number (any number will do)
  • don't accept any outside calls (not required in my case)
  • my Fritzbox registered a new device with internal number *622
• start the "DSS VoIP Notifier" add-on and check the logs
• now try calling the service like (e.g. from the "Developer Tools" section in HA)

- service: hassio.addon_stdin
  data_template:
	addon: 89275b70_dss_voip
	input: {"call_sip_uri":"sip:**614@192.168.178.1:5060","message_tts":"Hallo Stefan"}

• in the above case **614 is my internal office number
• for playing audio files (or DTMF tones), use something like

{"call_sip_uri":"sip:**1@192.168.178.1:5060","audio_file_url":"https://xxx.duckdns.org/local/open_door_short.mp3", "call_duration":"6"}

and store mp3 files in folder \config\www. Note that the call is automagically ended after six seconds.

Samba share

• to be able to access and edit files on the Raspberry from a Windows machine

workgroup: WORKGROUP
username: ##replaceme##
password: ##replaceme##
interface: ''
allow_hosts:
  - 10.0.0.0/8
  - 172.16.0.0/12
  - 192.168.0.0/16
  - 'fe80::/10'
veto_files:
  - ._*
  - .DS_Store
  - Thumbs.db
  - icon?
  - .Trashes
compatibility_mode: false

Amazon Echo Dot and Spotify

• see above for the Alexa Media Player stuff
• to connect Spotify, I followed the stock description at https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/spotify/
• I could not connect to Spotify using https as Redirect URI, my Redirect URI is http://192.168.178.83:8123/auth/external/callback and I also added one user under Users and Access (my spotify login).
• Before using the Echo Dot as a device for spotify, you have to run

alias: Spotify setup
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: homeassistant
    event: start
condition: []
action:
  - service: media_player.select_source
    target:
      entity_id: media_player.spotify_swa72
    data:
      source: Stefans Echo Dot
mode: single

Note that spotify_swa72 is my media player. You can simply add another media player to lovelace. Or use a script to play a certain playlist

alias: Spotify play playlist
sequence:
  - service: media_player.play_media
    data:
      media_content_id: >-
        https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DXaIrEwuQ3hyy?si=887717bbbc1f46e9
      media_content_type: playlist
    target:
      entity_id: media_player.spotify_swa72
mode: single

motionEye

• an old iPhone serving as a guinea pig camera
• for motionEye's webhooks I had to install NGINX as add-on (see https://community.home-assistant.io/t/motioneye-integration/194350/42)
• triggers action if motion is detected

Reolink E1 pro camera

• on IP 192.168.178.75; access to the internet normally blocked by the router

• motionEye add-on

  motion_webcontrol: true
  ssl: true
  certfile: fullchain.pem
  keyfile: privkey.pem
  action_buttons: []
  

• Now to the tricky part: the latency. To avoid that, I integrate the Reolink camera with the normal camera integration like that

  - platform: mjpeg
    name: melivingroom
    still_image_url: !secret melivingroom_still_image_url
    mjpeg_url: "http://homeassistant:8082/mjpeg"
  

• The stream is in turn provided by motionEye (see configuration of the camera, section "Video Streaming")

• to get the PTZ controls of the camera to work, I integrated the camera also thru the ONVIF integration

• snapshots are located under \\192.168.178.83\share\motioneye\Camera2

Reolink RLC-511WA camera

• on IP 192.168.178.32; access to the internet normally blocked by the router

• integrated using https://github.com/fwestenberg/reolink_dev/

  • provides switches to turn functions on and off
  • the key for me to get motion detection running, was to make sure that I could access HA locally with HTTP
  • make sure that the camera has a normal user (not just admin)
  • make sure that http and ONVIF are enabled in network settings

• processing the image is done thru motioneye like above

  • the camera has two streams
    • Clear (high-res) at 2560x1920, 20 fps, 4096, 2
    • Fluent (low-res) at 640x480, 10fps, 256, 4
  • motioneye is configured
    • rtsp://192.168.178.32:554/h264Preview_01_sub at 640x480, 10fps
    • section "Video streaming" at 10fps, 100%, Off, 8083, disabled, off

ftp add-on

• to receive images and movies from the RLC-511WA camera, I've setup the ftp add-on

port: 21
data_port: 20
banner: Welcome to the Hass.io FTP service.
pasv: true
pasv_min_port: 30000
pasv_max_port: 30010
pasv_address: ''
ssl: false
certfile: fullchain.pem
keyfile: privkey.pem
implicit_ssl: false
max_clients: 5
users:
  - username: camera
    password: ## some password ##
    allow_chmod: false
    allow_download: false
    allow_upload: true
    allow_dirlist: true
    addons: false
    backup: false
    config: false
    media: true
    share: true
    ssl: false
log_level: debug

Fritzbox smart home

• add the integration "AVM FRITZ!SmartHome"
• use the user and password combination of the Fritzbox istelf to authenticate

Fritzbox Tools

• no entries anymore in yaml files, all setup with the integrations UI
• enabled entities switch.<ipad-xyz> to monitor kids WIFI

Fritzbox call monitor

• see https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/fritzbox_callmonitor/
• Host: 192.168.178.1
• Port 1012
• Username hacallmon (using user hacallmon on Fritzbox)
• Passwort of user XXX
• you may need to enable the call monitor after a restart of the Fritzbox using "To activate the call monitor on your FRITZ!Box, dial #965 from any phone connected to it."
• hacallmon has rights to ...
  • FRITZ!Box Einstellungen
    • Sprachnachrichten, Faxnachrichten, FRITZ!App Fon und Anrufliste
    • Smart Home

Influxdb

• installed with default settings

auth: true
reporting: true
ssl: true
certfile: fullchain.pem
keyfile: privkey.pem
envvars: []

Grafana

• installed with configuration (note the plugin to visualize discrete values)

plugins:
  - natel-discrete-panel
env_vars: []
ssl: true
certfile: fullchain.pem
keyfile: privkey.pem

Useful stuff

Template

• Prints out all entities

{% for state in states %}
{{ state.entity_id }}
{%- endfor -%}

or

{% for state in states %}
{{ state.entity_id }}, {{ states(state.entity_id) }}
{%- endfor -%}

• export all entities to Excel (see https://community.home-assistant.io/t/export-entity-names/206262/17)
  • Open the file \config.storage\core.entity_registry
  • Copy all the text and pasted in this random json to table converter (https://www.convertjson.com/json-to-html-table.htm)
  • works with devices, too

Push automation to github

• an automation to regularly update my config to github (see https://github.com/swa72/home-assistant/blob/main/automations.yaml), credit: https://peyanski.com/automatic-home-assistant-backup-to-github/
• note that hassio.addon_stdin no longer works for this use case

- id: l1k3
  alias: push HA configuration to GitHub repo
  trigger:
    - at: '23:23'
      platform: time
  action:
    - service: shell_command.push_to_github
  mode: single

And there is an entry in my configuration.yaml file with

shell_command:
  push_to_github: /config/gitpush.sh

• note to myself: check your .gitignore files if something doesn't get pushed. Images need to be added manually with git add -f foo.jpg

notepad++ tips

• Editing files with Notepad++
  • Change tab with to 2 using Settings > Preferences > Language > Tab Settings
• find and replace across files: Select Search > Find in Files from the menu. If you like keyboard shortcuts better, use Ctrl-Shift-F to open the search window instead.
• filter lines: mark lines (with Search | Mark), click on "bookmark line", remove other lines with Search | Bookmark | Remove Bookmarkes lines
  • or use https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21641810/remove-all-lines-except-lines-with-a-specific-word-notepad/52845652

Garage

• Garage has one Shelly 1
  • http://s2/
  • Name in Shelly: shelly1_garage
  • Timer: Auto-off after 1s
  • Detached Switch - Set Shelly device to be in "Detached" switch mode - switch is separated from the relays.
• in HA
  • Device shelly1_garage
  • Entities
    • switch.shelly1_garage (opens or closes the garage)
    • binary_sensor.shelly1_garage_input (had to enable the entity manually; indicates whether garage is open or closed)
      • cover.garage_door, see covers.yaml

Naming conventions for shelly devices

• The shelly device itself has a name (set in the UI of the shelly)
  • <device-type>_<location>
  • The same name is given to the device for the static ip adress in the fritzbox
    • <device-type>-<location>
• Naming conventions for the channels
  • <device-type>_<location>_switch (for the shelly1 and plugs)
  • <device-type>_<location>_<function> (for the shelly25)
  • note: haven't done this consistently :-/
• How to add a new shelly?
  • wire the shelly
  • connect to shelly's hotspot
  • for roller-shutter, select roller shutter
  • calibrate
  • connect to local WIFI
  • set DNS in fritzbox
  • update firmware of shelly using http://archive.shelly-tools.de
  • add device name
• I had a mess of devices and entities ...
  • delete all shelly integrations one by one .. (after having completed the renaming orgy)
  • restarted HA
  • HA discovers new shelly devices and shows them with "shellyswitch25-XXX". As soon as you click on "Configure" it replaces the device name with the one set in the shelly directly. Pick the right area and you're done.
  • watch out: if you have changed the channel names for a shelly25, the entities are named after the channel names!

Too many homekit bridges

• I noticed two homekit bridges in my HA and, upon any restart, HA discovered yet another one.
• Removed all bridges from HA
• Deleted all bridges on the iPad
• Restartet HA
• Paired the bridge
• All configuring now thru yaml
• Re-doing the stuff is actually pretty quick

Using MQTT explorer

• install it on a Windows machhine
• connect to the broker with
  • username swamq
  • passwort
  • host homeassistant-eth
  • port 1883