1. Installing Home Assistant

My goal of this guide is to capture the installation process of Hass.io using my a Raspberry Pi 3 B+. Hass.io is a solution that turned my Raspberry Pi and “smart” devices into a centralized home automation hub. I also approached the architectural design around relying less on cloud and various apps required.

I leveraged the new containerized version of Home Assistant (Hass.io for Raspberry Pi) versus starting with other installation methods and performing all actions yourself. There are pros and cons however I started with the new concept  of

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

• Download the Hass.io image for your device
• Download Etcher to write the image to an SD card
• Text Editor like Visual Studio Code
• Putty (optional)
• WinSCM (optional)
• GitHub Repository

INSTALLING HASS.IO

1. Put the SD card in your SD card reader.
2. Open Etcher, select the Hass.io image and flash it to the SD card.
3. WiFi and Static IP setup only: Format a USB-Stick with name CONFIG, create a folder named network and within that folder a file named my-network. Copy one of the examples to the my-network file.
4. Unmount the SD card and remove it from your SD card reader.
5. Insert the SD card into your Raspberry Pi 3. If you are going to use an Ethernet cable, connect that too.
6. Connect your Raspberry Pi to the power supply, so it turns on.
7. The Raspberry Pi will now boot up, connect to the Internet and download the latest version of Home Assistant, which will take about 20 minutes.
8. Home Assistant will be available at http://hassio.local:8123 or http://IP_ADDRESS:8123. Shortly after the download has started, a simple preparation status page will be available – point your browser there. The page refreshes automatically, and Home Assistant will be shown when the download is complete (typically takes around 20 minutes).
9. Secure your installation once you’ve finished with the installation process.

2. My Gear

• Raspberry Pi 3 Kit – https://amzn.to/2Pc8hyz
• 64GB EVO Select Memory Card – https://amzn.to/2Q8BxLN
• Z-Stick Gen5 – https://amzn.to/2E76lGh
• Echo Plus Hub – https://amzn.to/2Q7npCp

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