HomeSeer with Home Assistant (front end)

[WhitW]

As a bit of background, I am getting my HomeSeer system back up and running after using Home Assistant for the last 9 months or so. I am primarily coming back the HS3 due to its (in my opinion) superior Z-wave device support.

Anyway, one thing I do like about HA is the Lovelace interface, so my desire is to use the Home Assistant apps/web front as my UI and have HomeSeer as background.

My first attempt was to use the MQTT interface, but I struggled considerably getting that up and running (its likely totally my failure to properly setup MQTT on either end...), and I came across this on Github:

https://github.com/marthoc/homeseer

Basically, it uses the HS3 ASCII interface and creates devices/entities on Home Assistant for the devices in HS3. I've had it running for a day or so without any major issues, so for the time being I'm going to rely on this.

I will say it does require some familiarity with Home Assistant due to needing to setup a custom component, but its the first thing that seemed to work once I set it up.

Anyway, wanted to pass along

[wabbastang]

For a number of reasons, about a month or two ago I started doing this exact thing. If you search the HA community forums you will find a great thread detailing some of the more complex aspects of this, search for homeseer refugee.

As everyone is well aware the whole idea behind home automation is to make things work together, right? HA is just another resource IMO. It has broad support for a lot of niche things and has an interface configurable far beyond most. That said, I think for the silent majority of HS users it is probably too complex to deal with. People buy HS because they don't want to have to build their own system in YAML, let alone figure out how to install and manage a foreign OS. I too found many people with issues with its ZWave support; HS really excels here, easy and solid. So I'm essentially running HS3 as a ZWave hub with no plans to change right now.

The marthoc integration works awesome for controlling most things. If you find that thread, you'll see there are a couple people working to expand its capabilities. The only other thing I found that I needed was there were some sensors (energy monitors) that I wanted to access, and the plugin does not send sensor data. I ended up using mcsMQTT for those and it's working perfectly now....after going in circles for an entire evening. I may have posted about it in the mcsMQTT forum, check both the HS/HA forums, or msg me if you want some help. It wasn't even a steep learning curve so much as I suddenly just stumbled across the right sequence of events, and then it was smooth sailing.

[kriz83]

Never had problems with my zwave network using HA. The preferred way for syncing would be to use the MQTT according to the HomeAssistant Auto Discovery syntax.

[dbrunt]

I tried the Marthoc Integration and it works fine. I'm currently using HS mcsMQTT to integrate my HS Z-Wave devices into HA and it also works albeit quite a bit more work IMO. HA OZW 1.6 is slowly maturing but not as easy to work with yet as compared to HS.

[marcusone]

I tried the Marthoc Integration and it works fine. I'm currently using HS mcsMQTT to integrate my HS Z-Wave devices into HA and it also works albeit quite a bit more work IMO. HA OZW 1.6 is slowly maturing but not as easy to work with yet as compared to HS.

I agree, HA z-wave devices works "fine", but not as easy to HS, specifically the Scene switches/events. a real PITA in HA ... I wish there was a better way to link the two as I do like the HA Lovelace for wall tablet devices and to integrate Tasmota and other MQTT devices much easier than HS does it.

I believe HS4 now has a websocket (or easier way to interface with an API so hopefully it will "play nice" with other soon).

[Michael McSharry]

to integrate Tasmota and other MQTT devices much easier than HS does it.

Both HS via mcsMQTT and HA use the same Homeassistant Discovery protocol to create the interface for Tasmota devices. Why do you believe HA is easier than HS to integrate Tasmota?

[kideon]

Once I spent some time with a clear head MQTT was pretty straightforward. Actually one thing the HA team should do is be able to link entities to MQTT status posts so that they automatically update the broker without automations. Our plug-in has a leg up

[marthoc]

Hello all,

Just wanted to drop in and say that I'm glad to hear you're finding success with the custom component. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to improve it - for example, it would be fairly trivial to add new Z-Wave sensor types, all I would need is to know the Z-Wave device type in HomeSeer (e.g. "Z-Wave Switch", "Z-Wave Door Lock"), and possibly get some API data from you. Unfortunately, the HSAPI is fairly limited in the data that it sends, so not everything may be possible.

I've limited support to Z-Wave devices at the moment because for many if not most other platforms, Home Assistant has a direct integration (e.g. Philips Hue, ecobee, Lutron, etc.). HomeSeer's Z-Wave support is really great though and the primary driver for me to create this custom component.

Mark

[dbrunt]

marthoc
Hi Mark, thanks for stopping by!

One question I have is... Can you suggest a way to convert my window blinds in HS (type Z-Wave Switch Multilevel) to a cover in HA?
I can type what ever I want in the Device Type String: field...

[marthoc]

dbrunt This will require a bit of tweaking under the hood in the custom component. Do the blinds “work” as a light in Home Assistant? Does toggling the switch open and close them and does adjusting the slider move them to an intermediate position? If not, I think I’ll need some HSAPI data from you to figure out how to translate them to HA.

[dbrunt]

dbrunt This will require a bit of tweaking under the hood in the custom component. Do the blinds “work” as a light in Home Assistant? Does toggling the switch open and close them and does adjusting the slider move them to an intermediate position? If not, I think I’ll need some HSAPI data from you to figure out how to translate them to HA.

Yes, the on/off and dim work as light entities in HA. I can post this as an enhancement request at https://github.com/marthoc/homeseer if you think it could work...

[marthoc]

dbrunt OK this should be fairly easy to implement then. I think there will need to be a configuration.yaml option to force certain device_refs to be another type of device.

Can you send me a screenshot of the "Status Graphics" page for the device showing the "Edit Status Text for device" table?

Thanks!

[dbrunt]

dbrunt OK this should be fairly easy to implement then. I think there will need to be a configuration.yaml option to force certain device_refs to be another type of device.

Can you send me a screenshot of the "Status Graphics" page for the device showing the "Edit Status Text for device" table?

Thanks!

"Edit Status Text for device" table? I'm not seeing that precise working in HS4...

[marthoc]

Sorry yes HS4 the wording is different. I was working off HS3 menus.

Last question: what does “off” correspond to? Does that mean the blind is fully up or fully down?

[dbrunt]

Off is closed down...

Default config:



One that I edited: