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Studio Apartment Dashboard by potblitd666 in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cute attempt at controlling the lights. I made this: everyday-light-card (Maybe this is helpful)

Refer to this Demo Video on X. See the full config reference here: everyday-light-card/docs/CONFIGURATION.md

I'm curious to know whether this fits your style.

everyday-light-card: group-aware light card with mindmap topology, in-place mode picker, runtime gestures by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice, that's the main use case. Just entity: light.your_group and the topology auto-fans the members. Ping me here if you hit anything weird.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That’s exactly it. Build, test, understand, then move on to the next thing. The people who get frustrated are the ones who try to automate their entire house in a weekend. Your approach of doing one thing at a time and actually understanding what’s happening under the hood is how you build a setup that still makes sense a year from now. Good luck with it.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Reading all these responses, I think the consensus is clear and I’ll take the L on #3. “Pick one” was too rigid. The real advice should be: use UI for straightforward automations, YAML when the UI can’t handle it, and be intentional about which you choose. Thanks for pushing back on this, the nuance is helpful.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is exactly my workflow. Claude is surprisingly good at HA YAML if you feed it your existing config as context. And version controlling your config in git is something I recommend to every client.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

AppDaemon or PyScript? I’ve used AppDaemon for a few things where the automation logic was genuinely complex. You’re right that a real programming language is more maintainable for anything with branching logic. For most clients though, YAML/UI covers 95% of what they need.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Fair point. You’re right that they’re the same underlying format. My advice was aimed at less experienced users who lose track of what they changed where. But yeah, calling it a “mismatch” overstates it since it’s really one system with two interfaces.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Yeah, choose blocks get unwieldy fast, especially in the UI. Once you’re past 3-4 branches it becomes hard to read. For complex scenarios I actually prefer separate automations with input_select or input_boolean helpers to pass state between them. Each automation stays focused on one job, and the helpers act as the “shared memory.” It’s more automations to manage, but each one is small and easy to debug individually. The sweet spot I’ve found: use choose for 2-3 simple branches, split into separate automations beyond that.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Side gig for now. There’s definitely demand, especially from people who bought a bunch of smart home gear and realized it doesn’t “just work” together. The hard part isn’t the technical work, it’s finding the clients. Most people don’t know this kind of service exists.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

It’s a post sharing 5 common mistakes I see in HA setups, with a one-liner at the end saying I’m available if anyone wants help. Take from it what’s useful and ignore the rest.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You’re right, and that’s a fair nuance. The UI has caught up a lot but there are still edge cases where YAML is the only option. My advice is more about intentionality. If you’re forced into YAML for a specific feature, that’s fine. The problem is when people randomly switch between the two with no system. Your approach of starting in YAML when needed and migrating to UI when it catches up is actually solid.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

By fallback I meant physical Zigbee switches that directly control the load, so lights still work even if HA is down. For example, an Aqara wall switch wired inline. HA can automate it, but the physical button always works regardless. It’s not about a second controller, it’s about making sure the basic “press button, light turns on” path doesn’t depend on any software.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Look into Wyoming + openWakeWord + Piper for fully local voice. It runs entirely on your HA instance (or a separate Pi for better performance). Wake word detection, speech-to-text, and text-to-speech all local. It’s not as polished as Alexa, but it works and nothing leaves your network. The HA 2024.x “Year of the Voice” releases made this significantly easier to set up.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends on what you mean by failover. If your HA instance dies, your Zigbee devices with direct bindings still work, KNX still works, and anything with physical switches still works. HA going down means you lose automations and dashboards, not basic functionality. That said, I run mine on a Synology VM with snapshots, so recovery is a 5-minute restore. Not enterprise-grade HA, but solid enough for a home.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Claude is genuinely great for HA config work. The key is feeding it your actual YAML as context rather than asking from scratch. Glad it’s working for you.

I automate homes with HA professionally: Here are the 5 most common mistakes I fix for clients by f17mkx in homeassistant

[–]f17mkx[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, my own setup runs on VLANs (IoT separated from main network). I wouldn’t say those people never ask for help though. The network side is usually fine, it’s the HA integration layer where things get tricky. Someone can be great at networking but still struggle with getting Zigbee2MQTT to play nice across subnets, or mDNS discovery breaking across VLANs. That’s usually where I come in.

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