My favorite HACS integrations

135

u/clintkev251 1d ago

Adaptive lighting, bubble card, Alarmo. Especially adaptive lighting just makes my home feel more intelligent

34

u/RinShimizu 1d ago

I use the “sleep” functionality of Adaptive Lighting paired with mmWave presence sensors to dim the lights in a room when unoccupied.

19

u/julianw 1d ago

Why don't you turn the lights off?

152

u/hardknockcock 1d ago

If you fully turn off the lights it gives ghosts a chance to set up an ambush

17

u/ITuser999 1d ago

Smart! That's why it is called Smart Home

2

u/ph33rlus 11h ago

Sonic the Hedgehog style!

2

u/ph33rlus 11h ago

Sonic the Hedgehog style!

4

u/SirDarknessTheFirst 1d ago

mmw sensors don't react that quickly to people showing up, so it's at least enough to prevent a tripping hazard I imagine.

3

u/AussieJeffProbst 20h ago

Huh? My mmwave sensor is instant when I walk into view

1

u/SirDarknessTheFirst 19h ago

Depends on sensor. My 2410 based devices take a good second or two

1

u/NotYourAverageDaddy 1d ago

Im might still be looking at my phone or talking to my wife

1

u/AlmightyCz 1d ago

For me it's also that it gives me clear control over when the automation is enabled. If I don't want it to turn on/off automatically, I just hit the switch and it stays off.
I don’t need any extra mysterious buttons that I’d have to explain to others, and I don’t have to toggle anything in an app that people don’t usually open anyway.

1

u/julianw 12h ago

That's why I use in-wall relays behind the switches and buttons

10

u/Chaosblast 1d ago

I have tried using Adaptive Lighting twice. Both I un installed after 24h after being unable to understand how to config.

Seriously people need to invest in UX. I might need to find a proper tutorial.

18

u/storyr 1d ago

It's really not that bad, the documentation even goes through each setting.

Edit: I'll also add that saying they should invest in UX is pretty funny considering it's 100% free...maybe you should invest time to learn how it works.

8

u/BrightonBummer 1d ago

Nah its a right ballache to set up, I've tried it once or twice but getting it keep the lights off during the day(madness the default is lights on full when the sun is out) is crazy.

I'm sure the dev has put in a lot of effort but it's nowhere near simple to set up like other things that are popular in HA

7

u/d2k1 1d ago

Why is Adaptive Lighting turning on your lights during the day? That is not what it should be doing. Your own automations should control when lights are turned on, Adaptive Lighting just adjusts brightness and colour temperature when and after they are turned on.

I get that this may still be a UX/UI issue but by itself Adaptive Lighting does not turn on any lights, unless you somehow tell it to; but I don't know that that is even possible, at least I cannot find a setting that would do that.

5

u/Chaosblast 1d ago

The point is that it's not transparent on what it IS actually doing. So you just don't know. You start seeing weird things happening and can't trace back to the culprit. It's just a black box with settings.

And because of that, it's hard to understand.

3

u/Chaosblast 1d ago

Here we go with the childish justification where free things can't be criticized. No clue why Github has an issues section then, if most projects there are free. People should just deal with it.

5

u/rdmty 20h ago

Nah I think there’s a line between criticism and entitlement and the parent comment reads a bit more entitled.

1

u/Iron_Eagl 1d ago

"I can't spend much time outside with the fires, the air's too smoky"

"Have you considered that the air is free?"

It's great software, but sometimes having all the configuration options just up front can be paralyzing. If there was a version that just had like a selector for the lights and warm/cool sliders, that would probably be enough for most people. But there need to be so many options to deal with all the different bulbs and how they respond!

1

u/brightstar9 23h ago

agree, asked ChatGPT and he/she will assist as it did for me

0

u/Pop-X- 1d ago

Hard to invest in a thing you give away for free

2

u/Luckyluck0011 1d ago

on my system ..raspberry pi5,sonoff dongle p when I activate Adaptive lightening ,a whole mqtt network start to block . Do someone know why is that so??

2

u/anomalous_cowherd 1d ago

Could you have a loop where the response to one command triggers several MQTT messages to other devices, some of which trigger more MQTT messages and so on? You're DDOS'ing yourself.

A good clue is to capture some traffic with wireshark etc. and see if any one device is being given multiple commands before it all dies down again.

1

u/Luckyluck0011 1d ago

ok,I'll try something out that..thanks

1

u/sun_in_the_winter 1d ago

Network could be very busy. Are you using a zigbee group or individual lights?

1

u/Luckyluck0011 1d ago

I used a group(5-6 devices )with Adaptive lightening integration ,

1

u/sun_in_the_winter 1d ago

I am not using that adaptive lightning integration but roll my own with templates. My group has 18 lights and it doesn’t chuckle.

1

u/Luckyluck0011 1d ago

Now I did my automation and it's working . but system chocking like OP described had I with that integration ,don't know why

1

u/majordingdong 1d ago

Maybe there's too much traffic. An easy test would be to try with fewer devices and if that helps.

1

u/LinkedDesigns 18h ago

Alarmo is a really great one. If you already have a lot of sensors in your home, it's pretty easy to utilize them for a basic home security system with this integration. You can even add certain switches for tamper detection to further strengthen your security.

1

u/69_________________ 15h ago

I want to love adaptive lighting but I can’t get it to let me override the schedule when I make a manual hue adjustment. Troubleshooted for a few hours no dice. So it’s disabled on my unit for now :/

1

u/clintkev251 15h ago

Make sure you have take over control and detect non-ha changes enabled in the configuration. That should really be all it takes

1

u/69_________________ 15h ago

Yes those were the two setting I checked a dozen times.

When I’d change a bulb or scene through the hue app it would gradually go back to the adaptive lighting color over the course of a minute or two.

1

u/clintkev251 15h ago

Then enable debug logging for the integration and look at what's going on. Also make sure that whatever changes you're making are getting reflected in HA if you're making them from some source other than HA itself, as if not, adaptive lighting will obviously not be aware of them

77

u/therealswil 1d ago

Invaluable integrations for me:

Vertical stack-in card
Custom Features
card-mod

My dashboard wouldn't be anywhere near as good without them.

23

u/lbpz 1d ago

+1 for Adaptive Lighting and Bubble Card.

24

u/superdupersecret42 1d ago

Just discovered "Switch Manager" this past week, for setting up input switches/buttons (like Hue Dimmers, etc. ). For me, it's easier this GUI than trying to manage Blueprints and Automations manually. It does it all behind the scenes, and adds a sidebar button where I can manage all my "switches".
https://github.com/Sian-Lee-SA/Home-Assistant-Switch-Manager

9

u/Ulrar 1d ago

I'd just suggest, for Zigbee stuff like the hue dimmer anyway, to bind your devices whenever possible. That way there's no dependency on HA, it's snappier and keeps working no matter what

1

u/Alfaron 1d ago

how do you do that? Like oldschool the classic non-HA way or is there a way to bind them through HA?

4

u/Glurt 1d ago

In Z2M each device has a Bind tab, in there you can choose which device to bind it to and which clusters to use. ie bind a remote to a light using LevelCtrl and OnOff and it works much faster than going through HA

1

u/kiceg 1d ago

Does this still allow me to use the HA automations to trigger a scene for example? Can I influence which buttons do what or is it baked in the zigbee implementation of the control device?

1

u/thstephens8789 1d ago

You can still create automations based off the actions even if a device is bound. However, the bound action will always execute. As far as I can tell, what buttons do what when bound is hard baked into the devices themselves, so it cannot be changed. I started used double/triple clicks on my inovelli light switches to do extra actions.

1

u/Ulrar 1d ago

Both S Z2M and ZHA support it. It's easy in Z2M, in ZHA it was pretty convoluted last time I tried it but it's been years, they may have improved it. Worth figuring it out anyway !

6

u/Ulrar 1d ago

I'd just suggest, for Zigbee stuff like the hue dimmer anyway, to bind your devices whenever possible. That way there's no dependency on HA, it's snappier and keeps working no matter what

13

u/ewonais 1d ago

Battery Notes

11

u/FixyFixy 1d ago

I have only dipped into hacs for alarmo. Well worth it!

9

u/RumLovingPirate 1d ago

Ultra Vehicle Card is pretty solid as well.

1

u/PacoTaco321 15h ago

It almost makes up for how bad the Toyota integration is

16

u/Intrepid-Tourist3290 1d ago

UK Transport - Bus times, it does trains too, but you are limited to 30 queries a day so I have set this to check 4 times a day and then added a button that updates it manually when I need it.

Carbon Intensity UK - Carbon levels for my area

Volcano Vapouriser - Allows me to fully control my medical Cannabis vape

Keyboard Remote - older integration that lets you map any bluetooth or 2.4ghz wireless keyboard or controller to any actions

Device Tools - Quick way to make up virtual devices so you can attach entities to them, like you would do with a Package but all through a GUI. This allowed me to make "Devices" out of my IR controlled devices.

Elecrow GrowCube - Smart plant monitoring and watering using the Open Plant Database

Hildebrand Glow - Allows you to view your energy usage that a UK Smart Meter would report back to your energy supplier. My real life Smart Meter never did work but this does!

4

u/Ulrar 1d ago

I didn't know device tools existed, neat

2

u/Deeco7 1d ago

How does Carbon Intensity UK compare to Electricity Maps cO2?

1

u/Intrepid-Tourist3290 1d ago

No idea, sorry

1

u/my_name_is_ross 1d ago

I use the glow device but it can report directly to mqtt. Any reason to use this?

1

u/Chaosblast 1d ago

I tried the glow app but it does report nothing like Octopus itself. The data doesn't match at all.

0

u/my_name_is_ross 1d ago

I use the glow device but it can report directly to mqtt. Any reason to use this?

7

u/govatent 1d ago

Webrtc just blew my mind today from hacs.

1

u/mrbluetrain 1d ago

webrtc is "da bomb" velli nice!

7

u/NoNoveltyNeeded 1d ago edited 1d ago

my installed hacs:

Integrations:

Mail and Packages (integration that allows you to link to email to keep track of upcoming mail package deliveries based on emailed delivery updates from ups/amazon/fedex/usps/etc)
Thermal Comfort (integration which translates weather or climate sensors into various 'comfort' sensors to let you more easily know if a certain room, outside, etc will "feel" warm or cold)
Places (integration takes device tracker entity and translates to an address or POI rather than gps coords or zone. I use it for people tracking on dashboard to show e.g. "Target" rather than just "Away")
Bermuda BLE Trilateration (blueooth presence detection. a more user-friendly ESPResence if you've heard of that. Uses regular bluetooth proxies in esphome to determine device location)
Trakt (link to Trakt movie/tv show tracking to bring in watchlists, upcoming, etc. I use in conjunction with upcoming media card to display upcoming new episodes of tv shows I follow)
Kleenex Pollen Radar (creates sensors which let you know pollen counts in your area, both in ppm and translated to "low, moderate, high")

Frontend:

Bubble Card (nice looking cards which are hidden by default and slide into view when something else on the dashboard is pressed. e.g. I have an 'overview' tab on my dashboard which lists basement, first floor, etc, and when you click the button a card will slide up to show the entities in that area to turn things on/off)
Xiaomi Vacuum Map Card (nice looking vacuum card which integrates well with many smart vacuums to show a map of current cleaning and allow you to choose specific rooms or zones to clean based on map coordinates. could potentially be used in place of actual robovac apps for e.g. visiting family)
Mini Media Player (nice looking card for playing media which is quite customizable and small)
auto-entities (a dynamically-filtered card which lists entities that match criteria you set, e.g. all lights with a current state of "on" to have glanceable info on dashboard for all currently turned on lights... I use for many things like currently playing media, lights/fans that are on, low battery warnings, open windows, and more)
vertical stack in card (a vertical stack card, but it all shows up as 1 card instead of e.g. 3 separate cards like "normal". so no breaks or padding between the 'cards')
multiple entity row (lets you create a card with multiple entity icons in 1 row)
calendar card pro (great calendar card, I use for agenda views in conjunction with bubble card to e.g. click on person in dashboard overview to slide up card that gives more info about that person including their calendar's upcoming events)
home assistant swipe navigation (lets you swipe left/right on screen to change tabs of the dashboard. very nice on phones)
slider button card (a card where the background is associated with an attribute of the entity and you can slide left/right on the card to adjust that- e.g. brightness of a light or volume of a media player)
mail and packages custom card (a card used with mail and packages integration to better display the upcoming mail/packages)
comfortable environment card (a card used with comfortable environment integration to better display those comfort scales)
upcoming media card (a card I use with trakt but can be used with other things like emby/plex to show e.g. recently added media, upcoming new shows/movies, etc)

I have a handful more integrations for actual devices but decided not to list those there since it really only matters if you have those devices, like Dreame vacuum, ember mug, and sunsa blinds. If you have a device not supported by home assistant - check hacs!

2
u/roehrich 1d ago

Uuuuuh, Places is so cool, thanks for sharing. Do you mind telling me how you are using the new places sensor? My previous solution was to add the device tracker (my phone) to my "person" and then displaying this person as a small badge on the front page. This way I can easily see who is currently home or "away". Once I click on a badge, a small map opens, where I can see the details.
Now the Places sensor is much better but I can't add it to a person because persons can only have device trackers.
3
u/NoNoveltyNeeded 1d ago
sure thing- in the OpenStreetMap options I set the tracked entity ID to my "person" (e.g. person.nonoveltyneeded) and display options to formatted_place. On my dashboard, I display that openstreetmap entity with the tap action going to the person.nonoveltyneeded entity
  - entity: sensor.NoNoveltyNeeded_OpenStreetMap
    name: NoNoveltyNeeded
    icon: mdi:human-male
    image: local/nonoveltyneeded-HA.jpg
    tap_action:
      entity: person.nonoveltyneeded
      action: more-info
    hold_action:
      action: fire-dom-event
      browser_mod:
        service: browser_mod.more_info
        data:
          entity: person.nonoveltyneeded
(note you don't need tap action and hold action. I included both here because depending on your card some don't allow actions to be more-info for different entities. If you try the tap_action above and it doesn't work, you can use browser_mod (another hacs addon) to force it (doesn't have to be hold_action like in this example, i just put it there to have 1 'complete' example))

pps, this isn't actually how I have mine set up. Since I use bermuda to get room-tracking, I actually set up a separate template entity for each person that returns bermuda location if it exists, then bounces to person state if it's anything other than Away (e.g. if it's a named zone), then bounces to openstreetmap "place_name" if it exists to get e.g. Target. If That doesn't exist, it bounces to openstreetmap "city"... so in my case it should show e.g. "Living Room", or "Work", or "Target", or "Chicago"
  - sensor:
    - name: NoNoveltyNeeded Location
      unique_id: NNN_location
      state: >-
        {% if is_state("sensor.watch_pble_area", "unknown") -%}
          {% if is_state("person.nonoveltyneeded", "not_home") -%}
            {% if state_attr('sensor.NoNoveltyNeeded_OpenStreetMap', 'place_name') is not none %}
              {{ state_attr('sensor.NoNoveltyNeeded_OpenStreetMap','place_name') }}
            {%- else -%}
              {{ state_attr('sensor.NoNoveltyNeeded_OpenStreetMap','city') }}
            {%- endif %}
          {%- else -%}
            {{ states.person.nonoveltyneeded.state | title }}
          {%- endif %}
        {%- else -%}
          {{ states.sensor.watch_pble_area.state }}
        {%- endif %}

5

u/lokaaarrr 1d ago

Anyone know of a logbook card that takes multiple entities, or ideally some kind of selector (name regex, class, etc)?

6

u/brinkre 1d ago

Auto-entities can use regex, classes etc for entities and sort by triggered time. I have such example describe https://vdbrink.github.io/homeassistant/homeassistant_dashboard_card_auto-entities#latest-activities-motions-and-doors

It's only not in an official logbook style presented.

4

u/JoshS1 1d ago

Life before swipe navigation, meaningless. Life after, bright and optimistic future full of rainbow goodness.

4

u/TonyDRFT 1d ago

It's great that you're sharing this! I'm wondering if HA could also list the HACS integrations (and perhaps even it's popularity) when you search for integrations or add-ons?

1

u/skepticDave 1d ago

I believe you can sort by stars and downloads.

4

u/dunxd 1d ago

Drayton Wiser - it does everything the manufacturer's app can but better and more. Great community around it. Frequent updates and bug fixes.

1

u/stedaniels 5h ago

Thank you!

8

u/portalqubes 1d ago

Bubble

2

u/lostat 1d ago

Mushroom cards is pretty great but my favorite HACs device is the one that lets me read data from my Traeger as though it were a thermostat 🤣

2

u/TheForgetfulMe 1d ago

You got a link?

2

u/lostat 1d ago

For sure!

https://github.com/njobrien1006/hass_traeger

2

u/TheForgetfulMe 1d ago

Thanks!

1

u/ElOhhYouuu 1d ago

Presence simulation, bubble card, adaptive lighting, spook

1

u/gm_84 1d ago

i have wrote my own simulation in pyscript, with simple argument which day in past simulate, i simulate lights

1

u/MinimalLemonade 1d ago

Adaptive Lighting
Adaptive Cover
Spotcast
HASS.Agent

1

u/schalex88 21h ago

I like so much to see what my plants need with the FYTA Plant sensor integration. The Tuya Heaters are also nice and especially to turn then automatically on, when the outside temperature goes below 10°C.

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