Anyone here using Home Assistant or ESP Home?

[Oldgreybeard]

Good news, I've found HA to be fairly intuitive for most things, but there are some things that need a bit of manual input to get to work, like reading data from devices that use Modbus, for example.

The box with your username (and the usernames of anyone else that is set up as a user) is really just details of your entity ID as a user, and a log of the actions that user has made in controlling automations, I think. I have a few different users set up, including a read-only one for my wife, so she can see the dashboard I set up for her but can't accidentally change any key settings.

[marshman]

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[Oldgreybeard]

Looking at the options for "monitoring and control". Quick question about HA set up. Obviously the HA server (or whatever it is called) needs a static IP address so it is easy to find but what about all the other devices it monitors/talks to, do they need setting up with static ip addresses as well?

They don't seem to. I have a few devices that popped up as being discovered and available, including a media server capability built in to our router that I knew nothing about (and which works fine when I tried it) and all of them are on dynamic IPs. I did set HA up with a static IP, but I'm not sure that's needed, as I think you can use local (i.e. not from outside your LAN) links in this form, rather than the IP address form (in code tags to make it readable here):

Code: Select all

http://homeassistant.local:8123/dashboardname/default_view

where dashboardname is whatever you have named the dashboard you've set up. Your router DNS should then handle the translation to the allocated IP address from that URL, I think. I've not actually tried this, as I opted to set a static IP for HA, but I can't see any obvious reason why it shouldn't work.

[pudding]

So I got the USB-M.2 adapter and have just gone to flash the HAOS onto the SSD, and it turns out its only 8GB rather than the 16GB as advertised! Would this be plenty to run HAOS on without issue? Hoping so, so I don't need to chase up the seller for false advertising and send it back, as annoying as it is to only get 8 rather than 16GB, as long as its enough I could live with it.

Should be OK on 8GB I think. The larger size just allows a larger database size, so allows a longer history period to be saved. I'm pretty sure that 8GB should be fine for a few years worth of data, though.

Well, unfortunately, it seems not! I'm down to just 0.7Gb free left already, and HAOS now wont let me carry out a core update due to not enough spare disk space! I've not even added all the devices in my house yet and only been running a few weeks. So, what are the options? I've changed over to use the Mariadb rather than the default sql database. Can this simply be deleted, if I can find it? And then use some settings in the config.yaml to restrict exactly whats written to the history database?

Alternative, and I'm thinking in the long run will be best, is to buy another hard drive, flash that with HAOS again, and then copy over a backup file? Would that keep everything I've set up already working ok? I've got several add-ons set up, MariaDb, DuckDns, Mosquittor broker, Samba share, Zigbee2mqtt, Daikin heat pumps, HACS so far, with heatmiser thermostats, Local Tuya, Tapo Controller? Really really dont want to spend all the time and re-find all the youtube vids I used to set it all up again if I can avoid it! Cheers.

[Oldgreybeard]

I think your best bet might be to get a 32GB SSD. There is probably a way to clone the SSD you have on to the new one. I seem to remember doing this on a Raspberry Pi SD card, using Balena Etcher, and I used Balena Etcher to put Home Assistant on to the SSD in my thin client. Sorry I can't be 100% sure of the details, but it may be tucked away in the Balena Etcher documentation, or somewhere in the Raspberry Pi stuff.

What I do remember is that you can clone a smaller SSD or SD to a larger one, and gain the additional capacity, but you can't do it the other way around without a lot of faff shrinking things, even if the space used makes it look like it will fit.

I think the process you need is to first create an image file, using your existing SSD, a suitable SSD to USB adapter and Balena Etcher, then you swap to the new, larger, SSD and use the saved image file to install everything on to the new SSD. Best check to be sure, as last time I did this was a couple of years ago.

[pudding]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, think i'll be going with a new drive. Found this 256GB so should be plenty for a looong time, which I'm about to pull the trigger on so I can get it tomorrow - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078MMBZDQ/ ... RhaWw&th=1

then as you say, figure out how to use Balena etcher to clone what ive got onto the new bigger drive.

I did do a little digging using the history logs on HA, and it seems there was a sudden jump of 1.4GB of disk use couple of days ago. No idea what it is though.

[Oldgreybeard]

Just checked, and for my 32Gb SSD in the same thin client that you have it's showing that 17.7% of the memory has been used, so a bit under 6Gb. I don't have a lot of stuff on HA though, just the data I pull from the Sofar via RS485 and MQTT, plus two ESP8266's running ESPNow and connected to DHT20 temperature and humidity sensors (one indoors, one outdoors).

256Gb should keep you going for a long time, as the standard database seems to be fairly memory efficient. It's probably adding stuff like CCTV that really takes a big hit on the memory requirements.

[pudding]

So it seems 6Gb-ish is fairly normal usage then for the HAOS and bit of history after a few weeks. Well, the new 256GB drive and another USB3-SATA cable is arriving tomorrow so I can connect them both and clone them. Next thing to play with, ESP8266's!

I've never looked into them but seen plenty of people talk about them on various forums. I've currently got 3/4 temp/humidity sensors connected via my RFXCOM dongle on my Raspi that I planned on migrating over to HAOS, but they run on batteries, can be temperamental with the signal and I'd be keen to look at low cost alternatives. So, recommended hardware/software and reading, as I'm sure this will be another rabbit hole that will suck hours out of my day!

[Oldgreybeard]

ESPNow and sensors on ESP8266s are pretty straightforward to set up. The nice thing is that once you've loaded ESPNow on to the ESP, using the USB lead, you can do any other setting up, changing sensors, etc, over the air from Home Assistant.