this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
32 points (97.1% liked)

homeassistant

16750 readers
120 users here now

Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first.
Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts.

Home Assistant can be self-installed on ProxMox, Raspberry Pi, or even purchased pre-installed: Home Assistant: Installation

Discussion of Home-Assistant adjacent topics is absolutely fine, within reason.
If you're not sure, DM @GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk
greatalbatross@lemmy.world
32
From scratch? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 week ago by CAVOK@lemmy.world to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world
22 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hi. I'm currently rebuilding my setup from scratch, moving away from my old Pi. What's best practice these days? How would you do it? What cards are the best for the dashboard? How would you do presence detection (getting home), mqtt via ha, or stand alone?

Looking for good ideas, and possibly things to avoid.

TIA.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] besmtt@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Get something small, maybe something like a Lenovo ThinkCentre mini. Put Proxmox on it and install HAOS as a VM. Then when you want to add software, add them as LXC containers on the Proxmox host. Like Z-wave, MQTT, ESPHome, zigbee, etc. I really like having things in separate containers so that way I can work on things separately. If I need to restart the HAOS VM, it's a lot faster because my entire Z-wave network doesn't have to restart.

Avoid adding things that require cloud access. I have to have a damned good use case before I add anything that requires Internet access.

Oh and I like this place: https://cloudfree.shop/

[–] besmtt@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Avoid using device IDs in automations, use entity IDs instead.

[–] 18107@aussie.zone 2 points 1 week ago

That explains all the problems when I got a new phone. Now I know how to fix it properly.

[–] CAVOK@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Good tip. Thanks.

[–] CAVOK@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Is it better to keep MQTT, Zigbee etc in containers rather than in HAOS itself? Am I not just creating an upgrade/dependency mess for myself?

[–] claude_flammang@dju.social 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

@CAVOK
I have two HAOS installations with MQTT as well as ZHA. Mosquito being an add-on, as far as I know it’s a container anyway but ZHA and MQTT are normal integrations and I never have any issues. Generally speaking I always try to stick with what the developers suggest, in my eyes it’s the best strategy to avoid messing up with dependencies as they take care of those.

[–] besmtt@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I think both of these ways are good and valid in their own way, they both have upsides and downsides. For me, having things separated is working well. I especially like being able to reboot HAOS more frequently and as soon as it comes back up all my Z-wave devices are ready to go. Back when I ran Z-wave inside of HAOS it took a lot longer for the Z-wave network to calm down and be ready after a reboot.