Initial setup

2-minute read
baldarn
raspberrypi • homeassistant • homeautomation • caffedomotico • opensource

Here we are again with a practical guide to start your #homeautomation journey!

Shopping list

  • raspberry pi ~100 euros
  • usb c power supply (3.5A recommended) ~ 15 euros
  • SD card (64GB class 2 recommended) ~ 15 euros

Home assistant

You can install #homeassistant in your raspberry pi. Here the official guide

I strongly suggest the installation with the operating system, but if you are confident and want to play more with your raspberry, you can install a distro and then install #homeassistant. Your call!

I also suggest to connect the raspberry directly with the ethernet cable.

Reaching home assistant from outside your home

But how can I use it from outside my local network?

There are multiple way:

  1. use nabucasa (no brainer, but costs 7,5 eur/month)
  2. use duckdns plugin (normal difficulty)
  3. host your domain and dns (expert, maybe I’ll address this in another post ;) )

for option 2 or 3

Now have to redirect the 443 external port of the modem to the internal ip:8123 port of your raspberry!

To configure your raspberry ip with home assistant os, go to the http://{raspberry_ip}:8123/config/network path.

To find the current ip you can look in your router connected clients.

Every modem is different, so I recommend to find a guide to forward a port to an internal ip.

Dynamic ip refresh

Create and account at duckdns. You will use the addons duckdns and Nginx to access your home assistant from everywhere in the internet!

  1. Duckdns
  • login to duckdns
  • add your domain (eg: mywonderfulhouse.duckdns.org)
  • take the token
  • paste the token in the addon
  1. Duckdns addon
  • copy the token
  • add the domain added (eg: mywonderfulhouse.duckdns.org)
  • change the accept_terms: false to accept_terms: true in the Let’s Encrypt options
  1. Nginix addon
  • set the domain mywonderfulhouse.duckdns.org

You are done! Try and connect to to mywonderfulhouse.duckdns.org and you will see your home assistant interface!

Companion app

On your mobile you can configure the connection to your home assistant!

I advise you to set the public url on the app.

Then (to save bandwidth) configure the in the app section

settings > companion app
internal url

set your internal path (eg: {raspberry_ip}:8123)

Next steps

Now you can start to integrate a lot of different things! Some examples:

  • backup
  • ip cams
  • lights
  • relays

I’ll address all this things in the next posts! stay tuned!

For any question come in the telegram channel