Choosing a smart home hub

Every smart home needs a brain, or a hub, which all your smart devices connect to and that controls your home automations.

In this video I explain why I've chosen Home Assistant to be the brains of my smart home and show you how you can get up and running with Home Assistant in your own home using a Home Assistant Yellow.

Links:

[MihaiKrieger]

I started learning home assistant in July 2022. I have invested around two months in learning, reading and experimenting before I got to a level where I could feel comfortable about using it and make it available for my family, but I feel it was worth it, because it expanded my mind and understanding on how home automation works and what happens under the hood.
It is not an understatement that Home Assistant is complex and has a steep-ish learning curve. Maybe this was because I chose to learn alone. But if you have a friend already using it, go ask for explanation. Home Assistant has some quirks and pitfalls of which once you are aware of, everything goes much, MUCH faster.

[Olson]

As someone new to smart homes and assistants. I love when I can see what people are doing, and how they set them up.

[trudy-howardmarsh]

So impressed by the way you explain all this in a simple way to us new smart home folk, just about to move home myself so taking away advice to help set up, it all started witha light bulb, literally! looking forward to following for more. Cheers!

[prince]

This is definitely making me consider the HA Yellow kit, as there are just too many hubs to buy and it will save me on energy costs with hosting HA on a PC or Server. Thanx for the great content. I cannot afford the network kit you installed, but I managed to do the exact same thing you did, by fixing up my internal network first, then starting on adding automation devices. 👍

[guyyaniv]

Alan, I must say I really enjoy your playlist. The professionalism and no-nonsense approach is great. There is a lot of noise out there on smart homes (mainly coming from America where brands differ and constraints vary). Thank you so much for taking the time uploading this. I wish there was a way to support your channel (maybe there’s is but couldn’t find it so please drop me a line if there is). G

[SeanClarke]

I just moved into a house with 3 floors and five rooms. This video was very good so you've got a new subscriber!

I plan to use Home Assistant to control 5 Gree Wifi enabled Air Conditioners, 7 ceiling fans and 6 standing fans, for sensors it will be Xiaomi temperature and humid sensors in every room and the common areas (12 sensors!), some Sonoff wifi switches and sensors, door sensors (4 or 5). Plus indoor and outdoor cameras.

[Kaymmm]

You crucially forgot to mention that the Nabi Casa has an annual subscription cost. Key bit of info.

[danielducu]

People should know that while your local network doesn’t make a smart home, you can’t have a smart home without a top notch network.

[olafschermann]

I didn‘t know HA yellow or nabu casa. Thanks for presenting them.

[therealsunnyk]

I'm really enjoying this series, and I think it's not often that someone gets a new house to be able to set up a new automation platform. That's awesome. Something about automations: A pattern I use is to set the same thing on the "trigger" and "condition". This way you can be sure that any change will trigger the automation, but the condition can check things via AND and skip the automation. It also means you can set "coincident" triggers -- triggers which might co-incide with the automation, but do not affect the condition.

The aim there is to be able to trigger an automation at any time, but it having a set of conditions which prevent it running to keep it in a safe state.

[hakaiyou]

The Homey Pro for the win! 1 Epic Hub that works with everything.

[charik]

Hi, could you please send the information regarding the Bluetooth dongle you use with HA Yellow? REgards, Great videos.

[nancypaulariel]

Like you, I've just bought a house and will be setting up a smart home. I am new to this game so ordered the yellow kit with PoE. Just wondering now if I should have bought the standard yellow kit instead. This is all so new. Hope you don't mind questions. X

[kdausu]

Can't wait to see the progress. Great videos and are very informational. Thank you!

[irfanmuneer]

Hi very good video to start home automation. Like to buy the home asssitant yellow. But on the given link will have many option which one to choose

[RahulParmar]

I started my smart home journey with HA yellow 3 months ago. It's crucial to communicate that HA doesn't always give you full access to end device functionality so buyer beware when selecting devices to purchase.

[johnwuk]

Home assistant for a beginner is an utter nightmare. I’ve wasted so many hours trying to get it working and keeping working. I feel like everyday something stops working or it needs restarting.
Going to wait for matter hubs, probably the SmartThings and go back to basics.

[jorispepijn]

Hi Home automation guy. Ther is de e problem with home assistant ZHA that still makes it necessary to have a second Hub. All low energy zigbee devices (without battery ) are not supported. Many expensive zigbee switches therefore still need another Hub. An example of a not supported switch is friend of hue. A second older deconz dongle in your home assistance hub can solve this problem but will lead to two zigbee networks in your house

[RafaelMartinez-mzns]

Love this solution but unfortunately the brain of the module the Raspberry CM4 is almost impossible to find. Suggestions.?

[ergala]

What about homey? According to their website and some reviews it's pretty similar to HA but easier, expensive, and very user-friendly. What are your thoughts?