Advice for those starting out or who haven’t used Home Assistant before:
If you have Apple devices or want a clean easy start with automations and hubs, either just use Aqara (their devices are great plus can do Matter support in app) or embrace Apple Home. Apple Home still remains the easy access point for my family, talking to Siri to quickly turn something on/off etc, and potentially ties in with their new movements towards smart home integrations and SiriAI.
If Apple Home is too simple or runs out of features for you, you’ve made it to the big leagues of smart home automation then don’t look anywhere else but Home Assistant. HA can do it ALL! I had played around with several other systems and Homey came close in a nice packaged interface but it still fell short. HA is becoming easier to use all the time with monthly updates, you can ask AI to build you dashboard cards/automations and you can just copy paste the code etc.
Then if it’s too complicated for family members, they can stick with Apple Home - keep it simple and do your fancy complicated stuff behind the scenes in Home Assistant.
Start with Apple Home, end with Home Assistant. No reason to look elsewhere.
But apple is easier for the family to use from their phone. Thinking specifically on controlling lights which is a simple but critical use case
Yes, that’s what I mean, keep Apple Home around for the family or simple stuff, but if you need deeper automations then go with Home Assistant to run behind the scenes.
I like also the approach to use both worlds in combination.
Can set up a lot with Aqara and have the benefit to the easy use from Apple.
Think of it as front-end and back-end. Apple Home/Siri are your front-end interfaces, while Home Assistant (or Homey as an alternative) runs your backend connectivity, device management, complex automations etc…
Wanted to say exactly the same! @coletti.robert
Seeing Apple Home as front end and Home Assistant as a back end makes totally sense. Having all or most automations set up and organizing all the devices in Home Assistant but having Apple Home for my wife and me as the main user interface is our way to go
We use Apple Home mainly for Siri commands. I have build a for us better to use interface for controlling our home in Home Assistant, less clutter, one view shows al you need.
As someone who has played with both HA and Homey and HomeKit - I moved over to Homey, mainly for the ease of writing automations. I also still have HA in the background, which does some of the interfacing between Homey and some devices that aren’t natively supported. OP why did you think Homey came up short?
I am currently using Home Assistant and Apple Home together because I found Apple Home to be too limited in what could be automated. I also like the way it makes it possible to use much wider range of devices that are not Apple HomeKit compatible. Though, Matter is starting to make this moot. Home Assistant has a fairly steep learning curve depending on how you are using it. I’m using Home Bridge to make non-HomeKit devices available to Apple Home. It works, but, took awhile to get the hang of, for example, it took a bit to figure out how to make filters for selecting the devices to include in the bridge. So, I don’t recommend wading into Home Assistant lightly with big expectations. The biggest mistake I made was that I failed to backup my Home Assistant configuration and then the SD card in my Raspberry Pi died and I had to start over completely. Sad. Now I’m running on an old-ish MacBook air. I do like Home Assistant, overall.
Do you add matter devices to Apple home kit first then home assistant? Or do you just add to home assistant and expose to home kit via the home bridge?
I use both. The wife has tried home assistant and she doesn’t like it. I love the powerful automations I can create.
For me it has worked best to add Matter devices to Home Assistant first, and then create a sharing code for Apple Home. Some of the brand specific apps (e.g. Tapo, I think) will then recognize their product is available on Matter when I next open the app, and I add it with a click. And at the same time, some of those apps don’t have a properly functioning Matter code sharing function, which is another reason to add them to Home Assistant first. I’m running apps on iPhone by the way. Sometimes it feels more like a magic home than a smart home. i.e., it’s magic when it finally works, or it’s magic when it works on the first try. Either way.
I have a Homey Pro Mini. Ran out of storage/ram. Sure the full Pro has more but it’s a lot more expensive too where HA was essentially free for what I had already.
HA can integrate with almost anything, Homey has reduced connectivity. It’s super easy to ask AI to write some YAML for custom cards and automations that I’m finding way more customizable and powerful than Homey.
Which is why I found that if I were to do it over again (point of the post) I would go to Home Assistant after Apple Home, as the money/time/effort to invest into Homey or other ecosystems, just wasn’t worth it.
If you need more than Apple Home, use HA as a powerful behind the scenes machine, and you can still use Apple for the ease of use for the family.
Yeah I agree. I try to add to Home Assistant first.
Add to Home Assistant first, almost always. If it’s matter then I’ll add via Matter to Apple Home, otherwise bridge a HomeKit only device.