[00:00:08.15] - Gordon
Hello.
[00:00:08.26] - Taylor
Hello.
[00:00:09.06] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.
[00:00:11.01] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:00:12.29] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have happened to our businesses over the last seven days. And it's a very interesting week for us.
[00:00:27.04] - Taylor
It is.
[00:00:28.01] - Gordon
So as you would have heard last week, Taylor is looking to buy a flat, and he was talking about Home Assistant, which is the system that allows you to basically run a automation around your house. And so I thought it would be quite a good idea for me to get a Home Assistant set up, and then Taylor can play with it as well. And that way he will get a much better idea of what he needs and wants for his flat, and I will end up bringing everything into one dashboard and one place to control everything.
[00:01:13.29] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:01:14.05] - Gordon
So that's what we did. This is going to be our topic. We're going to talk about this and nothing else today. A joint topic. Don't think we've ever had that, have we?
[00:01:24.21] - Taylor
I think we've had it a couple of times, but not very often.
[00:01:28.11] - Gordon
Not planned, maybe. So let me tell you what we purchased and the cost of what we purchased. We bought a... What's it called? A Home Assistant Yellow. Now, this is basically a box that has a circuit in it with lots of components, lots of ports, and there's two different versions. You can get the 'power over Ethernet' and you can get the 'external power brick,' power socket version, which is the one we got, because I did some research and power over Ethernet is not very common over here. So I decided that we wouldn't do that one, we'd get the one that needs a plug. And then you also have to purchase a compute module. So it's a Raspberry Pi Compute Module. And any of the four compute modules or the five compute modules will go inside the Home Assistant Yellow. Pardon me, bit of a sore throat today. So I decided that I would get the Home Assistant... Sorry, the Raspberry Pi 5, because that's the latest one and that's the most powerful one available at the moment. And you get a choice of what storage you want on there and what RAM you want on there.
[00:02:52.23] - Gordon
And I went for 8 gigabytes of RAM and 16 gigabytes of storage. And that's all on the actual Raspberry Pi. And it was tiny, wasn't it?
[00:03:05.23] - Taylor
Yeah.
[00:03:06.07] - Gordon
I mean, it's so small. It's about that size, which if you're-
[00:03:12.07] - Taylor
Matchbox size.
[00:03:13.01] - Gordon
Yeah, matchbox size. And it was like small matchbox size, not one of the giant huge matches, the small ones. It was tiny, wasn't it? The sad thing is, well sad thing and good thing is that when it arrived, I took it out of its little tiny box and there was a little rattle in the box, which I thought, "Uh oh, that can't be good." And so I tipped it out on my hand and it was a little component. It must have come off the board during transit, I guess, and I had no idea if it was important. I mean, I'm guessing it would have been because why put components on a board that size if it's not important? So the people that I purchased this from are called The Pi Hut. I'll put a link in the show notes because they were great. They were really good. So they are the official distribution in the UK for anything Raspberry Pi.
[00:04:12.02] - Taylor
From Home Assistant, like recommended.
[00:04:14.14] - Gordon
Yeah, Home Assistant recommend them.
[00:04:17.04] - Taylor
Because it's an open source product, they have partners, and you can basically say, "Where are you in the world?" And it will recommend some distributors from your location or region.
[00:04:30.04] - Gordon
Yeah, and The Pi Hut is the one for the UK. So I contacted them. They've got a support ticket system, and I sent some pictures of the component. I had to zoom in so they could see what it was with my camera. And within about half an hour or so, they came back to me and they said, "Right, send it back to us. This is the way you get a postage-free label. Make sure you pack it really well. And as soon as we get it, we will then send out a replacement." And I thought, "Okay, well, that's reasonable." And the return label is a 48 hour and didn't cost us anything. So it's just a matter of wrapping it up, taking it to the post office, getting a receipt. And so I messaged them and said, "Right, it's in the post. Hopefully you get it soon because we want to get on with this and get it up and running." And they sent me a message back saying, "If you can send me a picture of the receipt from the post office, we'll get one sent out to you as a replacement, which is really good of them because they're trusting that I have actually sent them what I've said I've sent them, and not just anything. So I was really quite pleased with how they dealt with that. And in fact, it came the day after.
[00:05:44.23] - Taylor
And hopefully, they should be able to maybe solder it back to on, and then it's good as new, really.
[00:05:52.15] - Gordon
Yeah, and then they can resell it.
[00:05:53.14] - Taylor
Because they know what they're doing.
[00:05:54.18] - Gordon
Yeah, exactly. So that was really good. So we had a day's delay, but it could have been an awful lot longer if we'd had to wait for them to get it back there and then come back to us. So what did all this cost? Well, the Home Assistant Yellow that we purchased with the external power unit was £120 as of the time of recording this. The Raspberry Pi 5 compute module with 8 gigabytes of RAM, 16 gigabytes of storage was £82.
[00:06:28.29] - Taylor
About £200.
[00:06:31.02] - Gordon
There was about, I think, £6, £7 delivery, something like that. So yeah, just over £200, under £210. And basically, what it is, is it's a dedicated computer, and it allows you to basically put all of your home automation responsibilities onto this one device, and that is being dealt with, and that's all it does. So as a computer goes, 200 quid is not too bad for one job that it's going to do really well. We then had to put it together. So that is a little bit involved. It's not something that just somebody who doesn't have any knowledge or the ability to research is going to be able to do easily. So there's two things you need to do. I'll talk about the hardware side, and then I'll pass you over to Taylor for the software side. So you have to basically open the box, which is very easy. There's just thumb screws. You need to put very carefully this compute module onto the board, and it's got little rails that pins go into. So you've got to make sure you line them up correctly. You then put a heat sink over the top, which has some heat transfer pads that you put onto the chips so that when they get hot, it transfers into the heat sink and you screw those down. That's it for the hardware. And then the software:
[00:08:03.26] - Taylor
So for the software, you basically have to connect to your computer via the USB-C cable, run the boot file or add it on into the memory, and then you have to restart it and then load the... Or plug it in and power it, and it then triggers a boot cycle to install the software, which is the Home Assistant operating system. And then once it's got that, it will then install and download Home Assistant itself from the internet because it will be connected via Ethernet.
[00:08:44.03] - Gordon
There was a little bit of messing about with a jumper pin on the Home Assistant Yellow board where you have to move it to the USB-C part so that it accepts the control from the USB-C and then put it back again once that's all been done. And the only reason we had to do all this was because the Compute 5 Module doesn't seem to recognise the USB-A socket. Or port on the-
[00:09:16.20] - Taylor
It didn't have a bootable USB, basically.
[00:09:18.27] - Gordon
Yeah. If you're using a Compute Module 4, then it's fine. You get a little memory stick and you can put the software onto that, plug it in, and basically boot from that, and it will do everything you need it to do. So it's a little bit more finickity if you do it this way with a Compute 5, but it's worth it because the Compute 5 is much more powerful.
[00:09:40.21] - Taylor
There is a Home Assistant Green, which is essentially the exact same but it's all been done for you and comes all packaged. And you don't have to do anything; you don't have to install anything, you don't have to add any components. You just plug it in and it's ready to go. The downside to that is you don't get as powerful specs, you get baseline. The reason we wanted slightly higher specs is there is something called 'The Home Assistant Preview' or 'Voice Preview,' which is a local privacy-first voice assistance, so similar to the smart voice assistance that you have. I don't want to say it because I'll trigger it. But it basically is run all locally on your home. So you can turn on devices, you can turn them off, you can connect to an external speaker and play music, and you don't have to give any of your data to any of the big tech companies. There were people that have connected it to ChatGPT, so you can say, "set the scene to help with my headache." And it's not a scene that actually exists, but it's sent it to ChatGPT and said, "what do you recommend for the colour temperatures for all the lights?" And it knows what lights you have, what type of sensors you have, and it will automatically change everything for you.
[00:10:59.21] - Gordon
Now, that's great for you because you're looking at setting this up from scratch. For me, I've got Alexa's, sorry if that's triggered your machines, all over the house, and we use them a lot. And for me to be able to use those devices to listen to and play from with Home Assistant requires a subscription. Now, it's something like £65 a year, so in the great scheme of things, it's not a lot of money. And I might end up going that route just because I've already got the infrastructure in the house with it because I've got one in the kitchen, one in the lounge, which is a lounge dining, one in the office, one in the bedroom. And they're basically all over the place. So it would be really nice to be able to trigger routines and automations from anywhere in the house and not have to be in the one room that has the voice detector or having to get multiple voice devices so that I can put them in different rooms. And then we're doubling up on things because we use the voice smart speakers for lots of things, whether it be timers or playing music or playing radio stations. We use them for automating things already, but that's going to obviously then change once we use Home Assistant.
[00:12:31.18] - Taylor
The advantage for integrating with the voice assistance with the Googles and the Amazons and stuff, is that you can connect devices and connect to devices that aren't or don't have a native integration. So because you can go through Home Assistant, you basically set up routines and stuff to just trigger Home Assistant, which then does all of the processing for you. So things that don't have those native connections you can then use. And you can also syndicate them out to HomeKit, to the Google Homes. So if you have all three different platforms that you use, you can syndicate them, again, out to all of them, even if they don't have a direct integration with their product.
[00:13:20.10] - Gordon
And the other advantage is because Home Assistant is a local-based system, so it's all in the place that you are in, it's connecting to your WiFi to all the devices in your home that's on that WiFi and local. When you connect the Amazon Assistant to it, you also then get access to trigger things remotely. So I could be away from home and say, "I forgot to turn the lights off at home," which I won't do because I've already set up an automation so that when the alarm goes on, it will turn off the lights that it can. They're not all smart lights in this house yet. But I can then trigger that from anywhere in the world as long as I've got an internet connection. And that's a big advantage, which I don't think you get with the speaker through Home Assistant, do you? That has to be a subscription, doesn't it?
[00:14:19.20] - Taylor
Yeah. I mean, the voice assistant from Home Assistant is essentially just a device that listens to you and then just translates what you say into home automation.
[00:14:33.05] - Gordon
I mean, there may be a way where you can do something called Dynamic DNS, where you can set up a Dynamic DNS domain name, and then that can then come into your network and you can then do it that way without having to have this subscription.
[00:14:54.06] - Taylor
Yeah, that is a way, and they do have documentation on how to do that.
[00:14:58.19] - Gordon
I figured they might.
[00:15:00.06] - Taylor
It's easier.
[00:15:01.01] - Gordon
It's a faff.
[00:15:01.22] - Taylor
A lot of people will find it easier just to use the service.
[00:15:04.22] - Gordon
Yeah, of course. So now we've got the system, we are exploring what can be done. As I just said, I've set up an automation that when I turn the alarm off, sorry, when I turn the alarm on, it will turn off all the lights that I have. So I now don't need to worry about turning my light switch on and off in my office, because normally when I come out of my office, I'm either going to bed or I'm going out, or I'm going to the kitchen and I'll be back again. So that doesn't require any changes. So that way, by having the alarm set and then automatically turning all of the lights off, I now don't have to worry about that. And that's not possible without Home Assistant, because the SimpliSafe alarm system that we have doesn't talk to anything; it's just its own system. But Home Assistant allows you to grab the codes as they're going through and do something with them, which is really, really useful. And you can't do that any other way. I've also got an automation for my phone so that once I leave the house, it will automatically check to see if there's any lights on and turn those off, in the office.
[00:16:19.23] - Gordon
I don't want to do it all around the house because that's going to annoy people if I'm going out and they're not. And this is the thing with automation, you need to think about. All the different variations. If I'm going upstairs, then yes, I want my office lights to be turned off, but someone might be watching TV in the lounge, and the automation currently turns off all the TVs as well as the lights. And that's not going to be great because someone's going to be sitting watching TV and it will just turn off. So that's no good. You got to think about variations and maybe doing partial automations. I don't know if you can trigger another automation from an automation, because if you can, that will be really useful as well. But as far as the house goes, this house, not your flat, can you see any immediate automations that we should set up?
[00:17:16.01] - Taylor
I definitely think that motion sensors are probably the biggest one. You do have to have the infrastructure there for it to be worth it. So for example, having the smart lights in the entire house makes the motion sensors worth it because they can all turn on and off by themselves. I think that's probably the most useful one because you don't ever have to think about turning them on, turning them off, worrying about if you leave the room for a couple of minutes to go to the kitchen, that it's going to go off because you can set, in a lot of the sensors, you can say "only run this after five minutes." So, it will wait for five minutes to say, "Oh, has there been any motion?" And if you walk into the room, you basically reset the timer back to zero. So, I think they're quite useful, especially for people that leave their TVs on, leave lights on, and go into a different room and forget. I think that could be quite useful. Just making sure people are aware in the house. I think it's different for me because I'll probably be living by myself. Most of the stuff I'm going to be setting up in a way that works for me.
[00:18:36.03] - Taylor
I know how it works. Something that I have been thinking about is how I can make sure that I don't isolate the people when they come round. So one of the things you can do is you can get what's called a Shelley, what is it? Shelley repeater. And what it essentially does is it goes in the back of your light switch box and basically is intermediary. And you can do one of two methods, allow it to turn the actual light on and off and just connect it. So it's basically just a dumb light switch that you can remotely control. Or you can have it where you fake, turn a light on and off. So the light is on 100% of the time, but you're just cutting the power between the actual repeater and the light. So that if someone turns the light on and off, like with your office, you don't cut power to your smart lights, you can still use them. So just thinking about things like that, how I can make sure that people that don't live at the house and come round can still use normal stuff without needing to know how everything works.
[00:19:46.13] - Gordon
Well, yeah, because you're going to have code words and phrases and all sorts of things and controls on your phone and on your laptop and your computer and your iPads. I don't know if it's available for the watch. I wouldn't be surprised. But if you've got people who come round, then they're not going to know any of this. You need to make it easy for them to understand and be able to do what they expect to do, like turning a light switch on.
[00:20:13.29] - Taylor
Yeah. In my bedroom, I have lights under my windowsill in the corner, behind my bed and on my monitor. And then I've also got ceiling lights, but I only really use a couple of them, I don't use the main light. But there's no way to turn those lights on or off physically without using the Amazon Assistant. People in the house know how to control them now, so it's fine. But if people came round, then it's a bit different. So you've just got to think about those as well as making sure you can control them or making sure they're not a nuisance, essentially.
[00:20:54.02] - Gordon
That's pretty much all I want to say. I think maybe we'll come back to this when you have got your own system and we can talk about any automations that we've set up, anything that we've discovered, anything that we think could be better or how we've got round various problems maybe that we found. But it's quite an extensive system. And because it's open source, it's being maintained by hundreds of people all over the world. And so its longevity is quite good because there's always going to be people who are going to need the ability to run their house using Home Assistant as they've put so much time and effort into it.
[00:21:39.23] - Taylor
It's decentralised as well. So you own everything. It's all local. Well, most of it is local, as long as the devices that you're using support local. You can still connect over WiFi for devices that only support WiFi as well. But the idea is that you can use local first.
[00:21:58.17] - Gordon
Yeah, which is great. So that's it from me.
[00:22:02.14] - Taylor
And me as well.
[00:22:03.15] - Gordon
Thank you so much for joining us. You can, as always, like, share, and subscribe. We're on YouTube. Please watch any back episodes there if you wish.
[00:22:13.05] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes, the YouTube and the audio versions, show notes, anything we've spoken about.
[00:22:23.12] - Gordon
And we have transcriptions of every episode on there as well. If you would prefer to listen to us, then we are on all the major podcast platforms. Please do a search for "This Week with Taylor and Gordon." You can also ask your smart speaker to play it, which is something we found out a little while ago, which is really cool. We will be back with you at 1pm next Friday. Until then, my name is Gordon, and I'm from Drayson Design.
[00:22:51.26] - Taylor
I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.
[00:22:54.11] - Gordon
Goodbye.
[00:22:56.25] - Taylor
Bye.
