RIP Fibaro

[ppeterr 202]

I think this is the second best option is to access your HA install from the evil internet. Although it has some minor limitations, I think it is a safe and simple solution. Especially simple. I run it here as an addon, and it works flawlessly. Run a 2nd vpn service next to it for my proxy solutions on the local network. I deliberately keep these networks separate from each other. So for me this works perfectly. I think the most important thing is that in some cases it is very important that the config is simple. So no critical errors can be made that reduce safety. My advice would therefore be to open and forward ports on your local network as little as possible or rather not at all.

Tailscale provides this.

[petergebruers 1,261]

51 minutes ago, ppeterr said:

Well.....i will say it again

 

Tailscale addon...zero config, ZERO PORTFORWARDING

 

Yeah, sure, and I am definitely not against your solution because it is based on Wireguard.

 

Definitely the "zero config zero portforwarding" is easy and sometimes needed

 

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I quote: Tailscale is built on top of WireGuard; we think very highly of it.

 

36 minutes ago, Joep said:

This is reversed tunneling, exactly what the HC3 and Yubii app does when remote. 😇

 

Absolutely, and you need some "public" service to make the rendez-vous for you. You can build that infrastructure yourself but then you need a public server and are able to run the management service which imho makes you a power user.

 

Now you both mention this, I think this guide by "Andreas Spiess" about Zerotier VPN might interest a few users in case they do not trust Fibaro or Nabu Casa for example...

 

At the moment, Zerotier is free up to 25 Nodes, tomorrow the price or number might be different 🙃

 

Also, right now, we have the "Open Source Community Edition", featuring unlimited nodes, networks, and admins. Self-hosted. Designed for non-commercial use cases.

 

I haven't tried the open source version yet. I am only mentioning that because "open source" is often regarded as a seal of approval. Of course it is also very educational!

 

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If you want the easy setup, as far as I can see, you will end up tied to the company behind Zerotier (or Fibaro or Nabu Casa or ...) because they own the "roots" aka rendez-vous service to set up the VPN or the reverse tunnel...

 

Here is the imho highly educational video:

 

 

 

Edited April 5, 2023 by petergebruers

[ppeterr 202]

I think there are still some security issues around wireguard. Especially when public services are involved. The IP configs are fixed and not dynamic as with the openvpn protocol, and are therefore stored server side. This can of course be solved by frequently updating the IPs and obtaining new keys. I mainly use wireguard for an ip/connection to the outside of my network, and have set up a kind of "cycle" system that refreshes every 24 hours. I personally find the speed that I get over the wireguard vpn a big advantage. Almost full ISP speeds (1gbit u/d). Anyway to be honest this is a bit out of my scope But i am also very happy with the wireguard connection that i use for my "other" "things" that need a vpn.

 

Thanks for the video @petergebruers interresting.

 

I just need to update my vpn knowledge a bit I think

[ppeterr 202]

On 3/21/2023 at 12:03 PM, Syrzyk said:

Just installed Home Assistant and started to migrate my z-wave devices to new system. Much, much faster, a little bit scary at first, but with so much bigger potential. Wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped me understand LUA and overcome hiccups of Fibaro system. Really appreciated. Peace.

 

I would like to add something to your initial topic start. I agree with you that HA has a lot of potential. I run it myself, but next to my HC3. I think the 2 systems complement each other very well. the fibaro system is in my opinion a lot more robust, not necessarily easier. But if you want to do more complex things at HA, then that is not really simple either. I therefore believe that you certainly do not have to make a switch to HA. But that both systems go hand in hand very well, and can run side by side.

[Lode 18]

On 4/6/2023 at 12:43 PM, ppeterr said:

 

I would like to add something to your initial topic start. I agree with you that HA has a lot of potential. I run it myself, but next to my HC3. I think the 2 systems complement each other very well. the fibaro system is in my opinion a lot more robust, not necessarily easier. But if you want to do more complex things at HA, then that is not really simple either. I therefore believe that you certainly do not have to make a switch to HA. But that both systems go hand in hand very well, and can run side by side.

 

Are you using the fibaro integration in HA ?

If so, does it perform well ?

 

I'm migrating from Fibaro to HA but ran into some difficulties.

e.g. battery-levels are not updated, z-wave network is not performing as it should be, fibaro thermostats don't work as aspected and some other issues.

 

With HC3 i had a rocksolid network for years.

I only use fibaro devices and they perform very well !!

 

The reasons i want to leave fibaro are :

 

- the lack of communication

- no decent documentation

- yubii app is a disaster

- no major updates, only some UI tweaking. 

- no possibility to build your own dashboard ( the main reason i guess)

 

So what i want to do now is running HC3 only for handling the z-wave communication and controlling my (wireless) elero rollershutters.

All the rest will be done in HA.

 

What do you think about that ? 

 

[ppeterr 202]

3 hours ago, Lode said:

 

Are you using the fibaro integration in HA ?

If so, does it perform well ?

 

I'm migrating from Fibaro to HA but ran into some difficulties.

e.g. battery-levels are not updated, z-wave network is not performing as it should be, fibaro thermostats don't work as aspected and some other issues.

 

With HC3 i had a rocksolid network for years.

I only use fibaro devices and they perform very well !!

 

The reasons i want to leave fibaro are :

 

- the lack of communication

- no decent documentation

- yubii app is a disaster

- no major updates, only some UI tweaking. 

- no possibility to build your own dashboard ( the main reason i guess)

 

So what i want to do now is running HC3 only for handling the z-wave communication and controlling my (wireless) elero rollershutters.

All the rest will be done in HA.

 

What do you think about that ? 

 

 

I am using a MQTT bridge to HA and vica versa, and i agree with most of your reasons. The main parts of what i use on the HC3 are 100% stable. Mostly quickapps of respected users on this forum. Also they provide all the information and coding or fixes. That is very valuable and a good reason for me to stick with fibaro. Fact is that compared to HA these things run rock solid.

 

My main reason is the same as yours. A dashboard, been working on that for the last 4 months and worked out pretty well.

( i can show you if you like)

 

But i can tell you, the last 4 months have been really frustrating. HA is so fragmented in every aspect up to the update policy for any used aspect in the complete HA enviroment that i can for sure say that a HC3 is multiple times more reliable. (and thats ofcourse a very important aspect).

 

 

 

 

[Lode 18]

16 hours ago, ppeterr said:

 

I am using a MQTT bridge to HA and vica versa, and i agree with most of your reasons. The main parts of what i use on the HC3 are 100% stable. Mostly quickapps of respected users on this forum. Also they provide all the information and coding or fixes. That is very valuable and a good reason for me to stick with fibaro. Fact is that compared to HA these things run rock solid.

 

My main reason is the same as yours. A dashboard, been working on that for the last 4 months and worked out pretty well.

( i can show you if you like)

 

But i can tell you, the last 4 months have been really frustrating. HA is so fragmented in every aspect up to the update policy for any used aspect in the complete HA enviroment that i can for sure say that a HC3 is multiple times more reliable. (and thats ofcourse a very important aspect).

 

 

 

 

Do you think the fibaro integration works as well ?

I did some testing and it seems to work (for now)

 

I don't know anything about MQTT....

 

Off course i would like to see your dashboard. 😀

 

[ppeterr 202]

14 minutes ago, Lode said:

Do you think the fibaro integration works as well ?

I did some testing and it seems to work (for now)

 

I don't know anything about MQTT....

 

Off course i would like to see your dashboard. 😀

 

 

I am not using the HA integration, so i dont know much about that. What i use is 2 quickapps on my hc3. One for getting the information from HA into the HC3 and the other one to do it reverse.

 

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And;

 

 

This is how i designed it initially, but i ended up in portrait mode when i fitted it on the wall.

 

 

 

 

 

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[Lode 18]

Looks very nice !! Well done !

Just finished to readd all z-wave devices to HC3.

I saw that quickapp before but didn't pay much attention to it.

I will definitely give that a try.

Fibaro integration from HA works well but it doesn't import quickapps, at least as far as i can see.

 

Happy Easter and thanks for the info !!

 

 

[petergebruers 1,261]

I have been running HASS alongside Fibaro Home Center since 2018. My setup is overly complex and I have almost the same issues with this setup as mentioned by @Lode and @ppeterr. Because of my complex setup and these drawbacks (eg reread the previous posts about some possible VPN / remote access solutions) I rarely post about it. I do recommend it though if you have time and are a power user. IMHO HASS has evolved enough into a "user friendly product" to attract a wider audience... I am not here to defend either Fibaro or Home Assistant, I think running both avoids you falling into the "the grass is always greener on the other side" trap.

[Lode 18]

I migrated all my z-wave devices back to HC3. (one day and a half of work 😁)

Indeed i almost fell into "that green grass" but i haven't been there after reading several thoughts and experiences from fibaro- and HA users.

In my humble opinion i can say that running both devices side by side is for me the best solution.

The reasons why i wanted to leave fibaro (as mentioned in my previous post)  are still the same but HC3 has becoming so stable that it would be stupid to throw it aside.

Using a MQTT bridge works fine until now. @ppeterr put me on the right track.

I still don't understand why he uses two quickapps to do it in reverse.

I only use the quickapp from 

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 and setup the MQTT in HA.

Downside was i had to rename all my parent devices in HC3 because they still had a name like 892 ,894, 892 etc.....

 

Finally i can start building my dashboard wich i have been talking about for years but what can you expect when you don't have a decent app ?

 

 

 

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[ppeterr 202]

47 minutes ago, Lode said:

Using a MQTT bridge works fine until now. @ppeterr put me on the right track.

I still don't understand why he uses two quickapps to do it in reverse.

 

 

I use some integrations in HA, that needs secundairy hardware to function on the HC3. Like the KLF200 velux integration for my somfy setup. But  those work out of the box on my HA install. So with that other quickapp i have all statuses (uhmm is statuses a real word ) for the entities i select and use them on the HC3. (and something about Zigbee2mqqt)

Edited April 10, 2023 by ppeterr

[Lode 18]

53 minutes ago, ppeterr said:

 

I use some integrations in HA, that needs secundairy hardware to function on the HC3. Like the KLF200 velux integration for my somfy setup. But  those work out of the box on my HA install. So with that other quickapp i have all statuses (uhmm is statuses a real word ) for the entities i select and use them on the HC3. (and something about Zigbee2mqqt)

Aha, got it !

Setting up my dashboards now......not easy to do the way you want it 😁

[ppeterr 202]

50 minutes ago, Lode said:

Aha, got it !

Setting up my dashboards now......not easy to do the way you want it 😁

 

I am really curious! I've been working on it for about 4 months, and when it should hang functionally on the wall, an update has demolished a lot of things. Also, I have some other essential issues that make the operation poor. Kinda frustrating.

 

So do your best!

[RH_Dreambox 179]

On 4/10/2023 at 12:10 PM, petergebruers said:

I have been running HASS alongside Fibaro Home Center since 2018. My setup is overly complex and I have almost the same issues with this setup as mentioned by @Lode and @ppeterr. Because of my complex setup and these drawbacks (eg reread the previous posts about some possible VPN / remote access solutions) I rarely post about it. I do recommend it though if you have time and are a power user. IMHO HASS has evolved enough into a "user friendly product" to attract a wider audience... I am not here to defend either Fibaro or Home Assistant, I think running both avoids you falling into the "the grass is always greener on the other side" trap.

Yes, that's right. The grass was greener on the other side:-)

[petergebruers 1,261]

7 minutes ago, RH_Dreambox said:

Yes, that's right. The grass was greener on the other side:-)

Hehehe. Once you get a taste of the possibilities, opportunities, hardware and protocol support, there is no way back.

[ppeterr 202]

Here is my tutorial to get rid of HA.

 

step 1 - Dont make backups

step 2 - Dont read the release notes for the next update

step 3 - Update

 

Done

[Lode 18]

On 4/10/2023 at 6:02 PM, ppeterr said:

 

I am really curious! I've been working on it for about 4 months, and when it should hang functionally on the wall, an update has demolished a lot of things. Also, I have some other essential issues that make the operation poor. Kinda frustrating.

 

So do your best!

So here it is.

It's just a first trial to see how things work but for the moment i'm quite happy whit it.....

The Button-card is my favorite. It's so powerfull. I'm still learning all the possibilities.

Also the mushroomcards are very nice.

Downside is that all camera's have a significant delay. I'm going to try the webrtc integration. That should speed things up.

 

 

 

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Edited June 4, 2023 by Lode

[RH_Dreambox 179]

Yes, RTSPtoWebRTC fixes the delay. My cameras now display the image in real time.
But there's probably no point in telling inveterate Fibaro users how good HA is, because they won't believe what you tell them 🤣

[Lode 18]

4 minutes ago, RH_Dreambox said:

Yes, RTSPtoWebRTC fixes the delay. My cameras now display the image in real time.
But there's probably no point in telling inveterate Fibaro users how good HA is, because they won't believe what you tell them 🤣

I did....🤪

Edited June 4, 2023 by Lode