Home Assistant Poll

[FlyingDiver]

I did a quick port of the two Home Assistant related plugins to Python 3, and so far they seem to be working OK. I'm trying to get an idea of how many people use these Plugins, or Home Assistant in general, to see if it's worth spending any more time on them.

"Home Assistant" is the plugin that pulls (imports) HA devices into Indigo. Useful if you have devices that are supported by HA, but not by Indigo. Currently works by polling HA for the status of each device, so it's not very efficient and there's a delay from device status change to showing up in Indigo. It looks like it's possible to update this to a websocket connection to HA, which would be more efficient with faster response.

"HassBridge" is the plugin that lets you push (export) Indigo devices to HA. Useful if you want to use these devices in an HA dashboard. But it's device support is VERY limited, basically Insteon and Z-Wave and not much else. Use MQTT for bi-directional communication to HA, so device commands from HA do get relayed to Indigo, as well as device status changes from Indigo to HA.

[Colly]

For me the Home Assistant plugin is what I believe I’m most likely to use. My initial use case is to bring a remote location into my Indigo setup. This has been pretty easy to get going in a test environment and hope to get it working in next few days for my actual setup.

During my testing and setting up my first HA instance I’ve realised how there’s other missing bits and pieces that I can get working in HA and would like to bring them into Indigo, e.g. my TV’s so I see a future for HA in the short term at least.

[Different Computers]

I don’t use it because my time is valuable and Indigo is good.

But HA would enable me to use some old Zigbee stuff I have lying around. Also Atomi lights, and all sorts of junk that isn’t z-wave or supported by a plugin.
So it’s tempting.

If I’m tempted, and I try it, maybe I find that HA could do everything I need for free, forever, if I’m willing to go through the pain of transitioning.

The main thing is, by using HA in any capacity I get familiar with HA and that’s a long way down the road to embracing it.

[jltnol]

But DO use the HomekitLink Siri plugin!

[FlyingDiver]

But DO use the HomekitLink Siri plugin!

Which has absolutely nothing to do with Home Assistant.

[juntta]

I’ve been planning to try these plugins for a while to see if there is something useful for my setup

My setup has several Minut noise/alarm sensors (https://www.minut.com) and HA has plugin for them and I currently use MQTT plugin integrating them to Indigo.

However, Minut plugin in HA sometimes freezes and HA needs restart from HA UI to recover. Since Indigo doesnt have plugin for Minut (at the moment ), I’ve been planning to take care of this issue with triggers monitoring sensor updating and doing restart via SSH connection to HA server.

So I would have use for plugin with some basic HA admin controls (start/stop/restart etc) from Indigo!

[hwitten]

I use a couple of embedded Python scripts to poll HA for Davis Airlink, EV battery data, Dyson and IoTaWatts data.

I tried the HA plugins but couldn't get them going. Probably didn't spend enough time trying.

Note that I use HA primarily as a source to get data into Indigo, not controlling any HA devices with Indigo.

[FlyingDiver]

I use a couple of embedded Python scripts to poll HA for Davis Airlink, EV battery data, Dyson and IoTaWatts data.

I tried the HA plugins but couldn't get them going. Probably didn't spend enough time trying.

Note that I use HA primarily as a source to get data into Indigo, not controlling any HA devices with Indigo.

You could use the Davis WeatherLink plugin for the AirLink, it supports both.

I'd give the new Home Assistant Agent plugin a try. I think you'll like it.

[hwitten]

You could use the Davis WeatherLink plugin for the AirLink, it supports both.

Duh, had already switched to that some time back. Forgot to delete from my script.

I'd give the new Home Assistant Agent plugin a try. I think you'll like it.

Thank you. Will give that a shot.

[norcoscia]

No Category above for just curious so wanted to say, watching HA with some interest- seems like it might be a possible near term Matter interface with future firmware updates (via SkyConnect). It might be a good workaround until Jay and Matt think Matter is matured enough for possible Indigo integration.

I'm surprised more people here (with more energy than me) are not using / talking about your HA/Indigo plug-in -- it seems to be a way to pull in devices that Indigo does not directly support. Anyway, as always -- thanks for all you do with your programming skills.....

And happy holidays to all .

[siclark]

I use it to pull some devices into indigo that don’t have support.
Interestingly my non zwave devices ie alarm, heating aren’t as well supported in HA as the are here.
I wouldn’t move everything to HA even if I learnt it more than I know today

Might consider using the plugin the other way for HA dashboards but realistically I’m not going to have time and just use the Apple Home app to control devices.

[Different Computers]

right out of the gate I'll mention I'm running Home Assistant CORE on an ubuntu machine which means that "main" support from the HASS community won't touch me, and many things are much harder.

But even with what seem to be absolutely expert advice, I find HASS to be very difficult. The moment you get beyond the absolute basics, any instructions for fixing an issue instantly assume you are an expert at Linux-fu and don't need a step by step guide.

I tried installing Node Red and connecting it to HASS, and found that to be a complete showstopper. I'll never move to HASS as an actual automation platform.