I own a couple TP-Link Tapo Wi-fi light bulbs. Currently, each family member installs an app on the phone to control the light bulbs. I wonder if there’s a way to do the same but in a browser (via docker app on my NAS). And because we may use smart devices of other brands in the future, it seems too much trouble to install yet another app on each phone.
HomeAssistant?
Just throw it in a VM and try it out that way if you can. The Docker version is just the Home Assistant part but if you run the VM you can run HAOS which is the “Supervised” version that can install add-ons to. There is a way to run Supervised in Docker but it’s not supported (and when my version died it was devastating)
Thanks so much for the advice. Easy of use is a major concern for family members, however. My plan is to open the web page on a tablet and put it in the living room then the family doesn’t need to use a phone. I’ll look into both options.
That’s what home assistant is built to do. There is a docker version, but I hit limits pretty quick and fired up an old raspberry pi running HomeassistantOS
One app, many devices & brands, custom interfaces for each member.
It was many, many years ago, but if I recall some of the add-ons or installations didn’t work in the docker version. I started with docker on a Synology server, but I gave up on the whole project for a year until I found a Pi in a drawer I forgot I had.
HAOS just feels more “complete” to me.
Addons on HAOS are just Docker containers. When you use HA in Docker you have to just install the addons you like yourself as containers next to HA. It gives you more freedom to change settings for the “addons” when you install them yourself, but it is also a little more work. I think it is still worth it because you can also just install whatever you want. I run a minecraft server for example on the same server.
Ah. I’m running HA out of docker currently and haven’t hit any walls, but I’m not exactly pushing it. There’s an annoyance where I have to tell HA to trust my docker’s default IP, and there was some reverse-proxy messing around I had to do to get it working on my network. Once it’s up and loaded, it’s indistinguishably HomeAssistant.
I don’t know if tapo plugs are supported, but this git code lets you turn tplink kasa plugs into local server activated plugs so you don’t have to use tplink app for activation online. Then homeassistant is a great tool for control
https://github.com/jkbenaim/hs100
Also worked on dimmable switches
