Install handy add ons for Home Assistant
The image is equipped with a set of handy add-ons. If you do not need certain add-ons, you can simply uninstall them. All add-ons are installed in their proper docker container.
We can connect to our Home Assistant container from the browser by installing Terminal & SSH.
Go to Settings/Add-on Store and find Terminal. Select the Official Add-on and press Install.
In the same way go to Settings/Add-on Store and find File editor. Press Install.
You will have an editor in the browser.
Our Home Assistant devices will be using the MQTT protcol. MQTT is an easy way to interact with your devices.
We will install the Mosquitto broker to handle the MQTT protocol.
Get over to Settings/Add-on store and search for Mosquitto to install.
Go to Settings/Devices & Services
Open MQTT and configure. Press submit to make Mosquitto the default MQTT broker.
A fantastic tool to configure your devices and build simple scripts.
Node-Red is available in Settings/Add-on store.
Node-Red is handy to define all your devices and map them to MQTT topics. It is also very easy to define groups of devices.
When using zigbee devices this is a must have. Install zigbee2mqtt
Check the zigbee port in the Home Assistant Terminal:
ls -l /dev/serial/by-idYou will need to add one configuration to the add-on to tell the add-on which zigbee device you are using. serial: port: /dev/ttyUSB0
Make sure to generate a new network id. Add: advanced: pan_id: GENERATE
Next install zigbee2mqtt assistant Go to its configuration and change:
mqttport: ''
to
mqttport: 1883