Setup Home Assistant and LIVISI SmartHome

The instructions for installing Home Assistant on Raspberry PI are based on Raspberry Pi - Home Assistant (home-assistant.io ) - this manual is in English and is a bit more technical so it might not be easy to understand for everyone.

You can find questions and discussions about Home Assistant in our Home Assistant Forum.

Prepare to Install

The requirement for these instructions is that you have the hardware described in Remote Access the Local SmartHome and that everything is prepared accordingly.

First you have to somehow get the operating system and Home Assistant on the SD card so that it can then result in a fully functional system with the Raspberry PI.

The best way to do this is as follows:

• Connect a micro-SD card reader (if not installed)
• Download and install SD card flashing software: https://www.balena.io/etcher/
• Start Balena Etcher
• Select "Flash from URL" and enter the correct URL: You can find the current one under Raspberry Pi - Home Assistant (home-assistant.io) in point 4 of the chapter "Write the image to your boot media"). The URL should look like this: https://github.com/home-assistant…4-64-9.3.img.xz
• Clicking "OK" will take you back to the main Balena Etcher screen
• Now select the target drive from "Select target"
• Start with one click on "Flash!" the process

Install Home Assistant

So now you have an SD card with the image for Home Assistant and can start with the actual installation of Home Assistant:

1. Insert the SD card into the Raspberry Pi
2. Connect the Raspberry Pi to your network
3. Start the Raspberry Pi (connect to power)
4. Wait a few minutes and Home Assistant will already be available at homeassistant.local:8123.

Initial Setup of Home Assistant

Now you're almost there and only need to provide a few basic details before you can start using HA. You can find the current instructions at Onboarding Home Assistant - Home Assistant (home-assistant.io).

1. Connect to homeassistant.local:8123
2. First you have to create an administrator account. The following is required for this:
   • Your name
   • Username and a strong password
3. Next are some details on your home
   • Give your home a name (e.g., "Home")
   • Your exact location is required for functions such as the weather service or sunrise/sunset
   • The time zone, altitude, unit system and currency are also required for various functions in HA
4. Now HA would like to collect some anonymous statistics - your decision if and what you allow
5. In the last step, HA shows you which devices have already been found... here please click on "End/Finish"

The initial setup is now complete, and you will be redirected to the Home Assistant dashboard.

Connect LIVISI

In the last step you now have to setup the "LIVISI SmartHome" integration (see livisi - Home Assistant (home-assistant.io)) and connect to your control center:

1. Go to Settings > Devices & Services and then click "Add integration".
2. Search for "LIVISI" and add it...
3. Unfortunately, the SHC is not found automatically and must be added manually.
   1. IP address: the address at which your SHC can be reached in the local network
   2. Password: the password you set for the local SmartHome
4. Next, all devices found will be displayed and you can add them all to Home Assistant in one step

All devices that you include into LIVISI afterwards are automatically displayed under Settings > Devices & Services as newly found devices. This also applies to the devices that are only supported with later versions of the integration - these are also displayed as newly found devices after the update to the newer version.

Remote Access¹ & Co

Now you have Home Assistant and all (or the important) LIVISI devices are connected to it. However, you are not connected to Amazon Alexa/Google Home, nor can you access your home remotely.

Remote Access

Remote access is enabled with Home Assistant via Nabu Casa.

• Go to Settings > Home Assistant Cloud
• Sign in
  • If you already have an account at Account Page - Nabu Casa, log in with your credentials.
  • Otherwise go to Create Account, create an account and sign in with your credentials.
• There is also the option to start a 1-month test phase and to setup billable subscription later

The login will set up remote access for this user account. Under the item "Remote control" you will find the option to copy the individual URL for your instance (the URL looks something like this: "https://heraremanycharacters.ui.nabu.cas"). You can also use this URL to connect the app to your instance.

App

Next, you might want to use a mobile app? The Home Assistant Companion App is available for both Android and iOS. You can find both under the search term "Home Assistant" in the respective stores.

It is best to first open the app in the same network in which your HA instance can be reached - then the app will find it automatically and establish a local connection.

• You must log in with your local user account
• Name the device (you can access the device's properties under this name in HA)
• Choose if you want to use location sharing (Geo Fence)

That's it. The app automatically detects whether your Home Assistant installation is set up with Nabu Casa and sets up remote access itself.

Alexa & Google Home

These two services are set up in the same way as for remote access via app using the login information of your Nabu Casa account.