Upgrading HassOS and Integrating Shelly Relays: A Step-by-Step Guide

General
1

Upgrading your Home Assistant system is a crucial step to ensure you have the latest features and security updates. However, it’s not always a smooth process. I recently encountered an issue while trying to upgrade from version 0.75.3 to 0.77.2 on HassOS 1.10. The error message indicated a problem with compiling the C extensions for the cffi package, specifically pointing to missing header files like limits.h. After some research, I discovered that this issue often arises due to incomplete toolchain installations or missing development packages on the system. If you’re facing similar challenges, I recommend checking your system’s development tools and ensuring all necessary dependencies are installed before proceeding with the upgrade.

Once the upgrade is complete, you can start exploring new integrations. For instance, I recently set up a Node-RED flow to control my Shelly relays. Here’s a quick overview of how I did it:

  1. Configuring the MQTT Broker: I ensured that my Shelly devices were properly connected to my MQTT broker. This involved setting the correct MQTT topic for the relay commands, which is typically shellies/<device_id>/relay/<relay_number>/command.

  2. Node-RED Flow Setup: I created a flow that listens for specific events from my Home Assistant scripts. When a predefined script runs (e.g., script.test123), the flow triggers and sends a command to the Shelly relay. Here’s a simplified version of the flow:

[
{
“id”: “event_listener”,
“type”: “server-events”,
“event_type”: “call_service”
},
{
“id”: “condition”,
“type”: “switch”,
“property”: “payload.event.service_data.entity_id”,
“rules”: [
{
“t”: “eq”,
“v”: “script.test123”
}
]
},
{
“id”: “relay_control”,
“type”: “mqtt out”,
“topic”: “shellies/shelly1-XXXXXX/relay/0/command”
}
]

  1. Testing and Troubleshooting: If the relay doesn’t respond as expected, I recommend verifying the MQTT topics and payloads. Using tools like mosquitto_sub can help monitor the communication between your devices and the broker.

This setup has greatly enhanced my home automation experience, allowing me to control my Shelly devices seamlessly from Home Assistant. If you’re looking to integrate similar devices, I hope this guide provides a helpful starting point. Feel free to share your own experiences or ask questions in the comments below!