That the lead engineer of Home Assistant (HA) doesn't have an actual functioning HA setup, because he likes tinkering apparently, explains a lot about why HA is so awful to use for anyone who doesn't want to pick it up as a constant tinkering hobby.
The most useful automations are very simple: turn on some lights around sunset, turn off radiators when windows are open, etc.
It's building automation. When it's over a decade, then it's starting to be OK.
I want a system so reliable that I can completely forget it exists. I have been leaning towards setting up a few basic automations with Apple Home and calling it good, since it seems like the Apple version can handle simple things like “turn on the lights at 8pm for 3 hours when I’m out of town” or “open the blinds when my morning alarm rings”. Other than that, probably don’t need a ton of smartness besides grouping things into zones that can be turned on/off together
Whatever you do, don't skimp on the lighting smart devices. It usually ends in tears.
You can still use Apple’s automations to do stuff in HomeKit. I mean all the rooms & devices “just show up” in Apple HomeKit seamlessly. “Siri, bedroom off” works perfectly with no setup, for example.
Apple home is ok, but automations / iOS shortcuts are unfortunately extremely difficult to write unless they’re very simple. As a technical user, it’s nice to have the option to do something deeper if I want. But the biggest problem for me was the reliability, even for bulbs allegedly fully supported by HomeKit.
I originally only set HA up to bridge in non-homekit devices (like my Govee LEDs), which is also a good use case for HA.
I’ve been fiddling with my smart home less than ever now that HA is set up.
Unless I start tinkering with it :)
They have an entirely different mentality on longevity, on where and how it can run, plus it supports scripting instead of the utterly disgusting YAML thing in HA.
For most people that I know that use HA, it's more of an hobby than a thing you set up once and then blends away in the background.
I tried HA a few times and it was way too much effort for something that I do not want to spend a lot of time on.
I haven't (had) to touch my HA assistant since I set it up which is now roughly a year ago and it is running fine. If you feel the constant need to optimize stuff that is a bit on you..
Heck, I even set up the HomeKit bridge so my wife can use Siri or the Home app to control everything, and she still prefers the dashboard I built on Home Assistant.
I only have two problems, which aren’t even Home Assistant problems:
1. Some door and window sensors I got from Sonoff become unavailable at times, which is a problem since I use them on the security system. Haven’t had the time or money to replace them yet, but I’ll probably go with Aqara next.
2. While my wife loves the dashboard, I like to thinker with it, and am never satisfied. I’m still looking for a way to expose all devices and controls in a visually pleasing way.
Actually, three. My only cloud integration, which controls my LG air conditioner, recently started to give me problems and I can’t turn the units off from Home Assistant anymore. But I’m sure this will be fixed soon, so, meh.
All in all, I’m very pleased with Home Assistant. Wish they had a better design, but themes fix that, so, overall, very pleased.
I gave up trying to do much with it. It still runs my MQTT broker and basic automations, but for anything tricky I no longer try.
It’s like GitHub actions - yaml shouldn’t be doing too much.