Get started with the automation system

In the previous post, I’ve covered the pros and cons of having a home automation system in the house. Now I will cover how we can set up the system and get it running.

Preparations

First, we need to collect all the needed hardware and software we are gonna use. You can set up everything in place where you gonna have it in your house, but we have to install the home assistant software on the SD card first. So no need to rush and boot it up before this is done, you will get disappointed if you’re expecting picture on your screen.

Hardware

• Raspberry Pi Model 3 B+
• Power Supply (2.5 A)
• Case for Raspberry Pi (optional but recommended)
• Micro-SD card (32gb or bigger recommended)
• USB-stick if your gonna setup WI-FI connection (a cheap one will do the trick)

Software

• Hass.io image
• balenaEtcher (for writing the image to the SD card)
• Text editor if your gonna setup WI-FI connection (I prefer WebStorm)

OK, lets start!

1. Set up WI-FI for Home assistant (optional)

This is where the USB-stick comes in, we need to format this to FAT or EXFAT format and give it a new name «CONFIG».
You can do this by using:
Disk utility (mac)
or
Go to my computer -> right-click on USB-stick and «format» (windows).

After the USB-stick is formated we can now create a directory for the configuration file for WIFI, the new directory is CONFIG/network
In this folder, we need to create a new file called «hassos-wifi» without any file extension.
Then you can copy-paste the code under and replace SSID (WIFI-name) and PSK (WI-FI password)

Now save the file and eject the USB-stick and insert it in the Raspberry PI.
Don’t boot the PI yet. 

2. Flash Hass.io image to SD-card

Ok, now we are getting closer to getting the setup up running, now we need to open Etcher for flashing the image to the SD-card

The Etcher software is pretty straight forward, just a simply select image that we downloaded, then select the SD-Card as drive and hit Flash!
The flashing can take some minutes…

When the flashing is done we can eject the SD-card and place it in the Raspberry PI and we can jump to the next step!

3. Start the install

Now as the USB-stick and SD-Card are ready and mounted to the Raspberry PI, we can plug the power cable in. After a few minutes (independent if it’s cabled or WI-FI) the Home Assistant should be able from http://hassio.local:8123 

If everything is set upright, you will get this message on your screen (this can take up to 20 minutes). When this is done we can go forward to the next step.

3. Setup new account

When the preparation of Hass.io is ready, then you will get a user registration form (username and password) for logging in to the system. As probably said many times, It’s very recommended to have a strong password.

You can use https://passwordsgenerator.net to create a new password if you don’t know what to use…

4. And your’e DONE! 

You should now be able to access the Home Assistant panel now, Great! Now we can start setting up our frontend setup and smart devices such as bulbs temperature monitors and so on. That you can read more about in one of my other articles.