Home Assistant is an open source operating system for a localized Smart Home Hub. Basically it works like IFTTT or Samsung Smart Things, but without having to send your data out onto the internet. This means that you have total control over your data, limit the amount of internet traffic from your smart devices, and tighten up security. Along with all of those things Home Assistant also allows you to create complex Scripts and Automations that blow other such Smart Home systems out of the water.

Support for over 1400 devices means that just about every type of Smart Home device will likely work from consumer products like Hue, Lifx, Google Home, Alexa, Ecobee, Z-Wave, WeMo, IKEA Trådfri, and so many DIY devices that use things like Python or MQTT. Most IOT projects that use the ESP8266 or ESP32 can be tied into this system as easily as connecting to Adafruit.io.

This guide will walk you though setting up the Home Assistant server onto a Raspberry Pi using Hass.io.

Next we will configure the server using the web interface.

Then it is time to install goodies like MQTT and Node Red

Last we will go over some things to look for in devices that work best with this kind of system.

This guide was first published on Sep 05, 2019. It was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

This page (Intro) was last updated on Mar 08, 2024.

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