HomeAssistant#

Table of Contents

Resources#

Install procedure#

Boot the HP thin client from an Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 usb, and then follow this procedure to install the HA-OS to the built-in SSD.
Then simply remove the USB and reboot.
You get a HomeAssistant prompt on console 1, and a root prompt on console 6 (just press enter)
The web console is available at http://192.168.2.8:8123, first create a user.

Customization#

DSMR#

Add DSMR integration and plug a P1 usb meter in the HP thin client. Also you can enable some initially disabled entities, like voltages and current. You can entities from this integration to the energy dashboard.

Imperial DabMan#

Add the Frontier Silicon integration, that should allow operating the Imperial DABMan internet radio.

Mobile App#

Install the Mobile App integration (or was it already present after vanilla install?), anyway, you should be able to add your phone, but using the HomeAssistant app on your phone.

SolarEdge#

Install the SolarEdge integration. Also add this in the energy dashboard. You do need an API key, I got that straight away as a reply on a mail to mail solar installer SolarHVT. Zie ook deze instructies

Miscellaneous#

Create an empty dashboard ("Rommel"), here you can add stuff (you cannot add stuff to the default set of dashboards)

Internet access to HA#

  • arrange firewalling via the raspberry pi by:
    • adding one POSTROUTING rule:
      iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -p tcp -d 192.168.2.8 --dport 8123 -j SNAT --to-source 192.168.2.19
    • adding another forward rule:
      iptables -A FORWARD -p tcp -d 192.168.2.8 --dport 8123 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
    • add an extra nat rule to the knockd config: 
[options]
	UseSyslog

[openALL]
	sequence    = 4381, 3090, 9672
	seq_timeout = 5
	command     = /sbin/iptables -I INPUT -s %IP% -p tcp -j ACCEPT;/sbin/iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 8123 --source %IP% -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.2.8:8123
	tcpflags    = syn

[closeALL]
	sequence    = 9672, 3090, 4381
	seq_timeout = 5
	command     = /sbin/iptables -D INPUT -s %IP% -p tcp -j ACCEPT;/sbin/iptables -t nat -D PREROUTING -p tcp --dport 8123 --source %IP% -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.2.8:8123
	tcpflags    = syn

HACS#

Install HACS (Home Assistant Community Store

SSH access to HA host#

Enable ssh root access to the ha host:
  • basically copying your ssh public key to /root/.ssh/authorized_keys. The root console is on serial console 6, just enter root, not password is asked. Then I used the ha webterminal to copy/paste my public key to a file called "aap", did a find / -name aap, and found out which actual from the host file system it was, then simply copy the contents: cat aap >/root/.ssh/authorized_keys.
  • Then the DropBear ssh daemon needs to be enabled/started: systemctl start dropbear && systemctl enable dropbear
  • You can then ssh from your workstation to ha with ssh root@192.168.2.8, and ther you are :-)

BOSH EasyControl Thermostat#

This github seems outdated, and has dead links.
BOSCH SHC, I think you need a smart home controller for that, which I don't have.
But this home-assistant-bosch-custom-component works. Follow the installation steps, which require you to enter the serial number, access-code/token, and the password, the first 2 can be found on the back of the thermostat, the last is what you configure when installing the thermostat.
I did run into issue 484, stating that the latest (05.04.00) thermostat firmware wasn't supported, but I installed the custom github repo (mentioned in that issue).

Telegram#

See instructions.
Got to Telegram BotFather, create a new bot and note/save the bot token and name. Configure those in the below yaml.

Add this one to configuration.yaml (using the File Editor): 

# Telegram Bot
telegram_bot:
  - platform: polling
    api_key: "<redacted>"
    allowed_chat_ids:
      - <redacted>
      - <redacted>

# Notifier
notify:
  - platform: telegram
    name: "harry"
    chat_id: <redacted>     
  - platform: telegram
    name: "group"
    chat_id: <redacted>

Restart HA, and go to HA Developer Tools actions, and send the following action: 

action: notify.group
data:
  message: Yay! A message from Home Assistant.
That should give you a message in Telegram.

Backup#

HA provides it's own backup system, you can configure it with the UI (settings, system, backup). I set it to twice a week with 5 versions, only local backup.
Then I arranged a poor man's remote backup by scheduling scp from my raspberry pi using crontab. I first arranged an ssh keypair and added the public key to ha's root authorized_keys file. crontab: 

15 1	* * 1,3	ubuntu  scp -i /home/ubuntu/.ssh/ha_rsa -P 22222 root@192.168.2.8:/mnt/data/supervisor/backup/* /home/ubuntu/ha-backups 2>/tmp/ha-backup.err 1>/tmp/ha-backup.out
15 2	* * 1,3	ubuntu  find /home/ubuntu/ha-backups -type f -mtime +7 -exec rm {} \; 2>/tmp/ha-backup-clean.err 1>/tmp/ha-backup-clean.out

TODO#

This particular version was published on 09-Jun-2025 09:27 by Harry Metske.Top