Home Assistant Green Review – 6 Months Later
Home Assistant Green Review – 6 Months Later
Is Home Assistant Green the best smart home hub for most people? Why would you use it over other platforms and can it solve the issues with the Smart Home today? Sponsored by DREO. Buy DREO Polyfan 502S: https://noxl.ink/-noCr0
Don’t miss DREO’s mid-year deal: https://noxl.ink/n2giUh
Use our code [6MONTHS] for an extra 8% discount
or buy it on Amazon: https://noxl.ink/KduERj
We’ll walk you through what Home Assistant Green is, the setup experience, how its price compares to other smart home hubs as well as Home Assistant Yellow and the differences between them. Plus, we’ll take you through why Home Assistant’s open source foundation is a big deal compared to other smart home platforms, how to bring Home Assistant devices into Apple Home, all the automations, Dashboards, and custom scripting you can do, the downsides we’ve encountered using Home Assistant Green and then our recommendation on if you should purchase one.
📑Blog Post:
👉 View products used in this video, plus links to guides and resources: https://6monthslater.net/2024/06/home-assistant-green-review-6-months-later/
🛒 Product Links (Affiliate Links):
👉Home Assistant Green: https://ameridroid.com/products/home-assistant-green?ref=zvL2wAvxTNzJB2
👉Home Assistant Sky Connect: https://ameridroid.com/products/skyconnect?ref=zvL2wAvxTNzJB2
👉Sonoff Zigbee Smart Plug: https://ameridroid.com/products/sonoff-s31-lite-zb-smart-plug-us-type?ref=zvL2wAvxTNzJB2
👉Sonoff Motion Sensor: https://ameridroid.com/products/sonoff-zigbee-motion-sensor?ref=zvL2wAvxTNzJB2
👉Apple Homepod: https://amzn.to/3uYGJYc
👉Google Pixel Tablet: https://amzn.to/3uUfXAe
👉Anom Echo Smart Speaker Kit: https://www.electromaker.io/shop/product/atom-echo-smart-speaker-dev-kit?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwm_SzBhAsEiwAXE2Cv16aPAbMrhlopQMR-I2axV__kSZs8A4V8LzRJHh4r9ga6VDFpDJu7RoC9_sQAvD_BwE
👉August Smart Lock: https://amzn.to/3zlZzum
👉Homey Pro: https://amzn.to/48CLjcH
👉Philips Hue starter pack: https://amzn.to/49QIiX2
👉Philips Hue Dimmer Switch:https://amzn.to/3ThBbS9
👉Philips Hue Motion Sensor: https://amzn.to/49STMcz
👉Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra:https://amzn.to/4cIAQPn
👉Sonos Era 100: https://amzn.to/3Im3E2U
👉Sonos Era 300: https://amzn.to/49Tbsoz
👉Sonos Move Gen 2: https://amzn.to/3wCs3i5
👉iPhone 15 Pro Max: https://amzn.to/4ce4ZpB
👉 View all of our recommended products: https://www.amazon.com/shop/6monthslaterreviews
🔗 Related Video links:
👉 Homey Pro Smart Home Hub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajta3O1Y6gg&list=PL2XWjlJjGp3vTgYgZ8WzYN7yE28YkdZjr&index=1
👉 Smart Home device playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2XWjlJjGp3vTgYgZ8WzYN7yE28YkdZjr
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🕰️Timestamps:
0:00 – What is Home Assistant Green?
0:23 – Price and why its a big deal
1:07 – Everything runs locally
1:26 – Open Source and the Open Home Foundation
2:26 – Setup
3:05 – Sky Connect and setting up Zigbee devices
3:52 – Bringing Home Assistant devices into Apple HomeKit
5:09 – DREO Smart Polyfan
6:34 – Home Assistant Automation and Entities
7:09 – Dashboards
7:40 – Integrations
8:17 – Downsides
11:06 – Recommendation
📜 Disclosures 📃
Any music used is licensed from artlist.io: https://artlist.io/referral/1878516/Josh
6 Months Later has no relationship with Home Assistant. All the products shown in the video were purchased by 6 Months Later. DREO sponsored the mid-roll ad in this video.
Any Amazon links we provide in our descriptions are in conjunction with our Amazon partnership. The channel receives a small percentage of revenue from any sales generated by viewers clicking the links.
#HomeAssistant
#Green
#SmartHome
#DREO
Was the Dreo fan a sponsored product? Your review was not complete, every product has some cons yet you didn’t mention any, even if a product is sponsored, you have an obligation to your subscribers to give a fair and even review of a product that you promote, you also need to give full disclosure as to whether the company sent the product to you for free (gifted) or you bought it yourself, and will help to determine if your glowing reviews are trustworthy and independent or possibly swayed. These steps will improve the credibility and trust that your subscribers expect and deserve.
HA works well enough if you use it with the random home automation gear you have at home already and expand from there, but where it really shines is if you purpose build your smart home around it and only buy devices that are known to work well and out of the box.
Yes that goes against the "works with everything" philosophy but I prefer my stuff work seamlessly offline as opposed to having to use work arounds or using cloud integrations.
HA breaks things with updates so you will always being tinkering with it. If you want to setup something and not mess with it then HA is not that.
Does it work just to avoid having multiple hubs and optimize your network? Even you are just that kind of only plug-in user, my understanding of this product is that allow users to have a multiple brand domotic house avoiding compatibility problems and multi (really expensy) hub configuration… am I correct pls?
what is this thing? internet? is it for connecting computers phone, home camera’s doorbells what is it.
Regarding your Printer: try hard wiring or setup a dedicated 2.4ghz wifi without fast roaming etc
I’m planing to buy this but can’t decide for sometime
thanks for your review, it help a lot
Thanks for a very helpful video. And thanks for NOT buying you HA from Seeed Studio! They have ridiculous return policies and are robotic in their responses.
👉 View products used in this video, plus links to guides and resources: https://6monthslater.net/2024/06/home-assistant-green-review-6-months-later/
Video sponsored by DREO. Buy DREO Polyfan 502S: https://noxl.ink/-noCr0
Don’t miss DREO’s mid-year deal: https://noxl.ink/n2giUh
Use our code [6MONTHS] for an extra 8% discount
or buy it on Amazon: https://noxl.ink/KduERj
Product links
👉Home Assistant Green: https://ameridroid.com/products/home-assistant-green?ref=zvL2wAvxTNzJB2
👉Home Assistant Sky Connect: https://ameridroid.com/products/skyconnect?ref=zvL2wAvxTNzJB2
👉Sonoff Zigbee Smart Plug: https://ameridroid.com/products/sonoff-s31-lite-zb-smart-plug-us-type?ref=zvL2wAvxTNzJB2
👉Sonoff Motion Sensor: https://ameridroid.com/products/sonoff-zigbee-motion-sensor?ref=zvL2wAvxTNzJB2
👉Apple Homepod: https://amzn.to/3uYGJYc
👉Google Pixel Tablet: https://amzn.to/3uUfXAe
👉Anom Echo Smart Speaker Kit: https://www.electromaker.io/shop/product/atom-echo-smart-speaker-dev-kit?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwm_SzBhAsEiwAXE2Cv16aPAbMrhlopQMR-I2axV__kSZs8A4V8LzRJHh4r9ga6VDFpDJu7RoC9_sQAvD_BwE
👉August Smart Lock: https://amzn.to/3zlZzum
👉Homey Pro: https://amzn.to/48CLjcH
👉Philips Hue starter pack: https://amzn.to/49QIiX2
👉Philips Hue Dimmer Switch:https://amzn.to/3ThBbS9
👉Philips Hue Motion Sensor: https://amzn.to/49STMcz
👉Roborock S8 MaxV Ultra:https://amzn.to/4cIAQPn
👉Sonos Era 100: https://amzn.to/3Im3E2U
👉Sonos Era 300: https://amzn.to/49Tbsoz
👉Sonos Move Gen 2: https://amzn.to/3wCs3i5
👉iPhone 15 Pro Max: https://amzn.to/4ce4ZpB
👉 View all of our recommended products: https://www.amazon.com/shop/6monthslaterreviews
🔗 Related Video links:
👉 Homey Pro Smart Home Hub: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajta3O1Y6gg&list=PL2XWjlJjGp3vTgYgZ8WzYN7yE28YkdZjr&index=1
👉 Smart Home device playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2XWjlJjGp3vTgYgZ8WzYN7yE28YkdZjr
❤ Follow Josh:
👉 Threads: https://www.threads.net/@joshteder
👉 Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/joshteder/
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshteder/
👉 Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@joshteder
👉 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshteder/
Nope. I bought it and set everything up and tried to add new things. Struggled with yaml and closed source items like ring doorbell, Aladdin garage door. So I decided to just use a Linux server to do everything. Gemeni and Copilot have helped me program everything. Disconnected Home Assistant Green yesterday and am now investigating loading straight Linux on it to use as a pi-hole or something. For automation I use crontabs, shell scripts, and . service files. Works perfectly. Anything closed source will be pitched.
I would really like to know if HA Green is any better or worse than running HA on a powerful server.
I currently have HA running on my Threadripper server. It runs great but whenever my server is down for maintenance my HA is also down.
I have purchased a Green, but have yet to set it up as it will be quite the task to migrate. I also fear that it will be slower or more laggy than my real server.
Great review! I think your criticisms were fair.
One point to add regarding voice assistants: the HomeKit Bridge integration is highly featured and a great way to expose non-HomeKit devices into HomeKit, then use Siri to control your devices (if you have an Apple TV or HomePod). Also if anyone is confused about the SkyConnect, it has recent been rebranded to “Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1”.
Looking forward to more Home Assistant related content on your channel!
Guess what? I am that guy who was expecting "plug and play" from H A Green. And to be fair, it is not a bad attempt. I am slowly building up the products I can use with it but I lack the confidence to attempt to create my own Dashboards and separate pages for different areas etc. I would need to be led by the hand to attempt such for fear of corrupting everything already pre- loaded. But at the end of the day as mentioned previously, I was looking for plug and play and bringing all my app controlled smart devices in to one area so am happy enough. In respect of design, I actually love the basic see-thru design of H A Green. It has a look of "here’s something I put together earlier from a box of bits I found in the cellar". Maybe I am just weird lol. Anyway, a nice video and one of the best I have seen reviewing H A Green. Thank you.
I primarily use HomeKit. I recently purchased a new build from DR Horton, and the house came installed with Deako light switches. After moving in and purchasing HA Green for my Z-Wave devices, everything worked great with HomeKit integration; then Deako announced compatibility with HA. I running into a problem somewhere (maybe in the bridge) because I can get my Porch/Deako smart switch working by triggering it from HomeKit, then it stops working after a few hours. Thoughts on where the issue might be? I’m still new to HA, so I bet I’m misconfiguring somewhere.
Just started moving over to HA. Being unable to send voice commands to my region locked robot vacuum motivated me to move over.
★★★★★★
I came to Green coz i was interested in Home Automation but have a family who couldn’t care less. Having tried a VM version on a 8 y.o. Kids school laptop with linux mint. This step was so quick. BUT the laptop had to be on sooo. The big seller was standalone plug n play version AND the apple bridge integration that brought in ALL the same light IR n Rf n plug devices to Apple pods pads phones n siri. The next stage was power monitoring solar and end cycle (announcements white-goods) geolocation and weather alert for white-goods. I see the power for countries and zones where thermostats necessary and ZIGBEE prevalent but not where i live. PRESENTLY I’m moving into Zigbee and … Matter (but despite the underlying philosophy the various companies have engineered multi controller conflicts) AND local A-Word control – a toughie coz i worry about security of surrendering p-words, hell i even worry about HASS’s icloud. Conclusion Green is good but a real time suck.
Inspiration on next step for me as integrations require either a healthy bank balance or raw time against a rising tide of resistance and demands of the rest of the family so 💰 😢 or 😓 💪 … 🤷♂️
Ive got too many hubs and routines running across separate apps. Looking forward to having everything moved locally through one app.
Linknlink ISG is new smartdisplay with home asst. built in. Can use a simple linknlink system and then home assistant if you want to dive in. Sounds promising.
In terms of the Sponsor, there is a HACS (Home Assistant Community Store) Integration for Dreo. Nothing official from Dreo, but someone has worked on integrating their devices to work within Home Assistant too.
Better then the newest homey?