Just to help everyone, including myself, understand - Why is this required for the LG Washer and Dryer devices brought from HA into HE via HADB? Is it because Hubitat does not have child devices for these types of appliance devices? Those are somewhat unique devices, compared to traditional devices like a Switch, Dimmer, Fan Controller, Thermostat, etc...
I want to make sure @LearningHubitat understands that the HADB devices are fully capable of two-way communication between HA and HE. This assumes the HA device exposes commands like "ON" and "OFF" for a switch. Sensor devices, like a motion detector or leak sensor, only support communications from HA to HE. These types of sensor devices do not implement any commands. Thus, the communications for those devices is one way.
To @ogiewon's point, I do think this is probably not a normal use case, since who starts a washer or dryer without being there to put the cloths in?
Also, not to throw the topic off, you can make a helper toggle on HA and only use HADB if you want. The HACS Hubitat integration isn't a requirement to share a virtual switch with Hubitat (even though I do personally use it in the way you are describing).
One can imagine a case of wanting to use the washer or the dryer at off peak hours when energy cost is lower and nobody is on site to start it. Since all entities of LG integration are supported by HADB, no helper are needed on HA side.
@LearningHubitat While it's possible to run HA in so many different ways, I concur that an RPi 4 or later a solid choice and easy to get started with. I'm still running an RPi4 and there's no problem with any device, integration or the speed of HA. I have quite a lot of devices and integrations running on it (including HomeKit controller for an Aqara FP2 and an old iDevices light switch).
While I was warned against using a microSD card for the storage, I've been running a SanDisk 256GB High Endurance Video microSDXC in it since April of 2022 and still have not needed the backup card I bought.
Ah yes, that's a good point. I'm sorry you guys in Quebec and Ontario have to deal with TOU rates. I'm glad to have left that behind when I moved from Toronto. I hope never to have it be made mandatory here in BC, but it might be someday unfortunately.
After 2 cards died on me, I switched to a USB SSD. I didn't buy the highest quality SD cards though. Running tests on a non-HA Raspberry Pi4, it was MUCH faster running on SSD vs SD.
Laughing with you, not at you on this one. This is always what I hear when people say their SD cards failed. Mine will probably fail now that I've mentioned the subject, but so far it's not been a problem with the High Endurance card.
I believe you. I'm just not seeing the need for it with HA. I'm sure it would boot faster, but the boot time isn't something that gets under my skin, and it's only about a minute with all the integrations I have in there now.
A small Intel based NUC-like PC would run Home Assistant OS (HAOS)without any issues, and it would be plenty powerful.
I personally run HAOS on on a HA Yellow PoE hub. While not the cheapest solution, I really like the feature set. It uses a Raspberry Pi Compute Module (either the CM4 or CM5 works), has onboard Zigbee, has pins to use an optional plug-in Z-Wave module, and has a m.2 NVME SSD slot. I actually boot my HA Yellow directly off of the m.2 NVME SSD, thus eliminating any fears of a micro SD or eMMC storage failing. Since I am writing a lot of data via InfluxDB, I sleep better knowing that I am using a Samsung NVME SSD instead of eMMC or microSD.
Pior to the HA Yellow, I did run HAOS on a Raspberry Pi 4 with a Samsung High Endurance micro SD flash memory storage card. I never had any issues, however the m.2 NVME SSD is so much quicker as mentioned by @stephen_nutt. Lots of good information above.
Thanks for sharing. I've been curious about that option, even though I don't need it. It's good to hear that someone with a lot of experience has good things to say about it. Do you have Aqara devices joined to it? Curious about the built-in controllers compatibility with them.
Frequent HAOS updates. I can see how boot time could get annoying if it's too long. HA updates are many, so HA restarts are a way of life. I don't mind the time, but don't doubt that it too would be faster with an SSD instead of an SD card.
Yes, it is all sensors and buttons, and a switch. The switch didn't work when I tested it, but really no reason to turn the power on or off. It should work, I have tested other devices between the bridge, it certainly works if the device is in Maker API. Do I need to add the devices that HADB adds from HA into Maker API to get back to HA? I hadn't thought about needing to do that if that is the case.
It was the button controls that I remember did not have the support, I thought I read on the developer's page about using virtual devices for buttons, not sure where I read that.
Edit: I forgot, yes, the switch is both a sensor and a "switch". The switch device does not update status from HA, but the sensor switch does. It also does not turn on or off the washer/dryer.
This is a unique use case that should not mislead anyone about HADB. Less details on my part might have helped avoid confusion. This is all on the way the HA integration is written, and the way it translates into Hubitat using HADB. It got me what I wanted and I'm happy with HADB, even though this integration is funky.
I do not use Aqara devices, except for the FP2 mmWave sensors, which are WiFi/HomeKit.
All of my Zigbee devices are connected to my HE C8 Pro hub. The HA Yellow’s Zigbee radio chip is the same one found in the HA SkyConnect USB dongle, IIRC.
Personal opinion aside. Don’t run Zigbee on both . Put your devices in one or the other . There really is t much reason to build and maintain seperate meshes (unless you have a huge home , but that is a whole other discussion.
To bring devices that otherwise aren’t compatible with Hubitat into Hubitat via The Hubitat Device bridge. Other than that, I almost never touch Home assistant. To much tinkering and futzing around.
This describes me. I could never get the Aqara Cube to behave on my C8. Then, after installing a few mmwave sensors, I noticed how chatty they were. Now all Aqara and mmwave sensors live on HA using Zigbee2MQTT. Aqara devices are allowed across "The Bridge" but if I need the mmwave sensors for automations, I do it in Node Red.
