Home Assistant and emonPi

Home Assistant (HA) is a fully open-source home automation platform.

In terms of functionality it’s quite similar to openHAB however it’s architecture is very different it runs on Python 3 as opposed to java.

I found home assistant very easy to setup and configure. It’s got some nice auto detect features e.g. It auto-detected by Chromecast devices. Home Assistant has got pre-built component integrations with many home automation and monitoring devices and platforms. I was also impressed with the presence detection support, I tested using nmap to scan my home router for presence of my phone connected to my home WiFi (indication that I’m home…or I forget my phone!) and OwnTracks MQTT based GPS tracking.

Interfacing with our emonPi Raspberry Pi energy monitor was easy, using MQTT component to connect to emonPi’s MQTT server and subscribe to the power and sensor readings of interest.

As yet I have not experimented with creating automations with HA .e.g turning off lights and heating when we’re not home. I think I will still prefer using nodeRED for these types of rule based automations. However what HA does well is present a nice clean, mobile friendly and easy to configure front-end interface:

My HA Home Setup So Far

Home Assistant has some nice mini graphing features to give you a quick overview.

On a switch node a quite overview will tell you how long the switch has been on or off for. Very useful for checking long long the heating has been on for

Generic emonPi Config Example

I have published setup guide to setting up Home Assistant on an emonPi with example config.