Hello everyone 👋
I'm very new here. I am thinking of getting into home assistant but it all seems like .. a lot. Currently, my "smart home" consists of 4 govee lights bulbs (H6003), a Xiaomi robot vacuum and mop and a couple of devices from SwitchBot (making a dumb switch smart in the dining room, a contact sensor (that's also a motion sensor but Google home can't do that part for some reason), a temp sensor in the bedroom with a hub mini to turn on or off the AC, another smart switch on the boiler switch to turn it off and on)
I'm very confused by home assistant. Do I need a dongle? Do I need a raspberry pi? Can I just use my home computer? Do my devices work? Will it be a pain in the arse to configure everything?
#Set up help
worn nimbus
autumn marsh
You need a dongle if you want to use a protocol it speaks. Zigbee for example. You do not need a raspberry pi. I actually consider them a bad option. Yes you can use a computer. Likely.
urban wing
Hello everyone 👋
I'm very new here. I am thinking of getting into home assistan...
If you have an old computer, you can start with that. A raspberry pi is one of the best budget friendly options for dedicated hardware. You can always refer to the home assistant website for tutorials on how to set up.
worn nimbus
So I have my 6 year old laptop. I guess I could use that. I do use it for uni but I've switched almost entirely to my tablet now so it's not really that important to keep around. But is it worth it to switch from Google home? Google home pretty much works with all of my devices and I'm worried home assistant might not. Or it might but only after sitting on it for hours with help from Google and discord