Home assistant integration (HE > HA)

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Hi, I've read lots of posts regards home assistant, however for a non teccy with no mentor, I'm really struggling to grasp matters.

I'm Really happy with my C7 and have plenty automations which I'm happy with. That said, there have been a few things I've considered over the last few years which I understand would work better in HA. The Aqara FP2 presence sensor for example.

Taking the above into account, assuming I bought a HA green, how do I integrate this into HE so that HE is the primary hub which controls the rules, however HA may be the hub with certain devices connected. Is there an integration which mirrors Hue Bridge Integration but for Home assistant?

I.e can HE be the master hub but with HA being the slave with some devices connected?

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Yes, you can use the Home Assistant Device Bridge integration to do exactly that.

I have an Aqara FP2 connected to my Home Assistant Yellow using HA’s “HomeKit Device” integration. Once that is working, it is really pretty easy to set up HADB on your HE hub, to pull in the FP2 motion “Zones” from HA.

The HA Green would be an ideal platform to get started with Home Assistant for this use case.

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+1

It works well. I also have my FP2's setup this way. I just need to find time to include them in my rules... :slight_smile:

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+1 +1,
It works well....... easy enough for me to set up (and I used a docker install on an old Rpi)

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Brilliant, thanks for this guys, I already feel a bit more enlightened.

Also, just a further question. Does the integration communicate either way. For example, if HE controls the rules and most devices, can HA integrate and understand device information from
devices which are only connected to HE.

I.e. I can i set up HA dashboards which can access device information which is contained within HE?

Final example, if a thermostat is connected to HE, can I plot a graph on a dashboard in Home assistant?

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A further question guys and thanks for your help thus far. Is the primary difference between HA green/yellow the fact that yellow will support matter? If I'm going to buy a HA hub what's your future proof advice as theres a significant price difference between yellow and green. The HA web site isn't strictly clear for us non Tech guys :slight_smile:

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My understanding is the HADB is HA -> HE, but there is also an add-on for HA that can read in HE device details from a Maker API instance.
EDIT - See @ogiewon 's clarification below

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I use that one extensively as all my dashboards are in HA.

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One significant difference is that Yellow comes with zigbee radio built in. Green has no radios onboard.

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From what I saw you can still purchase external radios for Green if you want to...

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True -- I was under the impression stuey was looking at a box-to-box capes/price comparison. The SkyNet dongle is something like $30 IIRC.

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At least virtual switches created in HA and exposed to HE via HADB are bidirectional.

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Oh wow guys, this short thread has pretty much cemented my questions.

So go with yellow because it has a ZigBee radio and also I can create dashboards in HA from HE data
. Big thanks to @sburke781 and @JasonJoel for clarity.

Appreciated as ever and thank you

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If you get HA Yellow and want Z-Wave too, you can get an Aeotec Z-Pi 7 or Zooz ZAC93, both of which have similar form factor and fit on the connector inside the HA Yellow case. Both work fine, the ZAC93 is Z-Wave 800 LR.

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Just to make sure everything is crystal clear...

The Hubitat Community created HADB integration, allows HA devices/entities to be brought into Hubitat Elevation. The communication between the two systems is fully bi-directional. In other words, Hubitat could control a light switch device that only exists in Home Assistant. This integration requires no custom code on the HA side of things.

The HACS-Hubitat integration, allows HE devices/entities to be brought into Home Assistant. The communication between the two systems is fully bi-directional. There is no custom code required on the Hubitat side, but one does need to install and configure an instance of the Hubitat Maker API app on the HE hub.

It is important to no create a loop using the above two integrations at the same time. This could result in a very messy situation! :wink:

As for the big differences between HA Yellow and Green...

  • the cost of the HA Green + SkyConnect Zigbee USB Dongle is $100 + $30 = $130
  • the cost of the HA Yellow + comparable RPi CM4 (4GB RAM, 32GB eMMC) module is about $194 for the nonPoE version, or $205 with PoE

The HA Yellow, as previously mentioned, already includes an onboard version of the SkyConnect Zigbee module. As @672southmain mentioned, one can also easily add Z-Wave inside the HA Yellow's case. I have the Zooz ZAC93 module happily tucked inside.

The other big advantage of the HA Yellow is the option for using an NVME solid state drive. I personally boot my HA Yellow directly off of a 1TB NVME drive. This means no wear and tear on a smallish 16-32GB eMMC drive. I personally run multiple HA Add-Ons, like InfluxDB, Grafana, Node-RED, NUT, etc... on my Yellow. Having an NVME drive brings peace of mind that all of the constant writes generated by InfluxDB are not going to wear out a smaller eMMC drive.

Finally, depending on the RPi CM4 module you decide to use on the HA Yellow, it is possible to use Bluetooth and/or WiFi. I would personally not recommend using WiFi to connect a HA Yellow to your home network. Ethernet is a much better choice. Neither Bluetooth or WiFi are built in to the HA Green.

The HA Green is trivial to get up and running, though. Plug in Ethernet, plug in power and then you're up and running. The HA Yellow, if bought as a kit, requires a little more work to get HAOS loaded on the board, especially if you're trying to boot directly from an NVME drive. It is not difficult, but also nowhere near as plug and play as the HA Green.

Both devices support HA's implementation of Matter. Matter uses IPv6 behind the scenes for all device communications. Matter over Thread does require a Thread Border Router device, which HA can sort of achieve using the SkyConnect module. But please do not try to use that module as both Zigbee and Thread at the same time. Most users have reported problems over the past year attempting that. Best to keep your Zigbee radio separate from your Thread radio. If you have a recent Google Home hub, Amazon Echo 4, Apple HomePod Mini, or Apple TV 4K (certain models), then you already have a device that can take on the role of Thread Border Router. This is exactly how Hubitat's Matter implementation currently works for Matter over Thread devices.

Hope this helps... probably more than you asked for, but I figure this might help others trying to make a similar decision.

I use Hubitat for my Zigbee devices, Lutron devices, Philips Hue devices, and all of my Rules/Automations. My HA Yellow is used for integrating devices that cannot be added directly to HE, and also to run other always on services like InfluxDB, Grafana, and Node-RED. Having both is really the best of both worlds. Good luck and have fun!

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Such insight into everything. This is really helpful and answers more than I could imagine. Such a minefield for the average guy. However, I'm confident I can pick this up and run with it. Thanks again to everyone :+1::+1::+1:

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May I point out that since HA is seen here as an addon to HE, there is no need for radio on the HA device as HE allready have those. As for Thread, most big company assistant devices have it onbord. Only one Thread border device is needed. There is no point of having an extra Thread radio on HA.

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That's a good point and thanks for this. I was thinking in the longer term of moving my Aqara devices onto HA as they're hit and miss on HE. Are they more stable on HA?

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I believe Aqara Zigbee devices can exhibit problems on any Zigbee controller, other than those made by Aqara. What Home Assistant may offer, however, is a much wider range of Zigbee Controller options to choose from, as well as both ZHA and Zigbe2MQTT to use with those controllers. Users can probably find a combination of Zigbee Controller, plus integration software, plus Zigbee repeaters that work well with Aqara's non-standard Zigbee implementation. With Hubitat, one has fewer options to choose from, with the biggest option being the proper choice of Zigbee repeaters.

Another option that may help to resolve the Aqara issues, is the potential to use an Aqara Zigbee Hub as a Matter Bridge. This would keep the Aqara Zigbee products all on their own vendor's Zigbee mesh network, yet still allow those devices to be added to Matter Controllers (like Hubitat's C8, Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Home Assistant.) I am not sure how viable an option this is at this point in time.

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I’m not saying you are wrong but a year or maybe a year and a half now I put all my aqara devices (16 of them) on a separate c5 with a few tradfri repeaters and they have been 100% solid and excellent on batteries.

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