It's no secret that I love Home Assistant, and the potent smart home and automation platform that it enables. Being able to control every aspect of my smart home from one dashboard is almost intoxicating, and that was before I discovered how many ways I could link those services together to create the smart home that I was promised all those years ago.

It's now a factor in every new smart device I buy, where I'll research if it has a Home Assistant integration before anything else. But those integrations don't work on their own, and that's where add-ons come in. These third-party applications and services run alongside Home Assistant, adding functionality without changing your core installation. Arguably, some of these add-ons should be must-haves, and installing them first will make adding the rest of your smart devices that much easier.

ESPHome

Manage sensors and microcontrollers the easy way

If you want to make your smart home yours, some projects can only be accomplished by building from scratch. And that's where ESP8266 and ESP32 microcontrollers come in. These tiny chips let you create customized sensors for your home, but then you're left wondering how to communicate and control them. ESPHome is what you need to accomplish this, with an open platform to create and control custom smart home devices.

You might be wondering why this should be one of the first things you install, but I consider ESPHome integral to Home Assistant's ethos. It brings local control of sensors and devices, enables advanced automations, and lets you build the smart home you want, instead of the one manufacturers think you should have.

File editor

And then Advanced SSH & Web Terminal, so I never have to leave the browser to configure things

Home Assistant's UI is handy, but once you start installing your smart devices and integrating those into the overall picture, you'll find that much of your life will be spent writing YAML in configuration files. File editor lets you do this without leaving the Home Assistant UI, so you don't have to worry about where or how to upload the configuration files you'll need. Plus, it highlights syntax, an invaluable tool at any time, especially when you're first learning the ropes and want as few blockers as possible.

Sometimes you need a good command line, and Advanced SSH & Web Terminal replicates the CLI environment inside your browser tab. Anyone familiar with Proxmox knows the power of having your CLI immediately available without having to open a new window, connect, and log in, and this add-on is very similar in scope. To begin with, it will be mostly for installing tools or troubleshooting issues, but as your skills grow, it'll be the place you test scripts and other tasks that need direct access to the underlying code of your self-hosted system.

Whisper (and Piper too)

Make your own voice assistant

If the Open Home model of Home Assistant appeals to you, that also means getting away from proprietary voice assistants and running a locally-hosted voice pipeline for a voice assistant that works for you. Crucially, adding Whisper for speech-to-text transcription and Piper for text-to-speech removes the need for cloud-based voice assistants, keeping your prompts and conversations inside your home.

That doesn't just mean that voice-activated commands are kept private. It also means they don't need access to the internet to work, so connectivity issues won't stop you from being able to control your smart home. It's also a five-minute install to get running, which is a nice confidence booster when you're first getting used to the workflow in Home Assistant.

Frigate

Turn Home Assistant into your NVR

The second smart home device I purchased was a video doorbell, and I bet many of you had a similar journey when adding smart devices to your homes. The combination of convenience and security makes video-equipped devices one of the foundations of any smart home, but many of them come with subscriptions to enable long-term clip storage and other features that should be core elements.

Adding Frigate to the mix removes those subscription fees, saves your footage, and pulls those cameras into Home Assistant for automations, notifications, and other tasks. And when you're trying to get buy-in from the rest of the family to use Home Assistant, features like package detection will sway the vote.

Mosquitto broker

Communication protocols are foundational elements of any smart home system

MQTT is one of the foundational communication protocols for any smart home, and you'll need a broker to integrate devices that use it with Home Assistant. Mosquitto broker is the go-to here; there are other options, but none are as stable and easy to integrate with other systems that use MQTT. If you've been building custom sensors to go in ESPHome, chances are they'll be using MQTT, and it's just easier to have this running for when you need it. Then, once you start bringing in Zigbee devices, you'll have the communications framework ready to go.

Matter Server

Turn Home Assistant into the only hub you need

Matter-compatible smart devices need their own server to handle communications protocols over Wi-Fi or Thread, and that's why this is a day one installation for me. While many other companies drag their heels in integrating Matter into their products, Home Assistant has been lightning-fast about getting it where it needs to be. It makes sense. Matter is local by default, open source, and can control many IP-connected devices from a single protocol. It's precisely the type of thing Home Assistant users should want to support, and it will only get better as more device makers add support.

Home Assistant is more than the sum of its parts

Building a smart home that serves your needs is easier with Home Assistant, and having the right mix of add-ons from the start makes the entire experience smoother. It gives you an incredibly versatile platform to work with, and reduces your dependence and exposure on cloud-based services you have no control over.

And while it's true enough that many of these add-ons will be mentioned in the installation steps for more advanced tools, isn't it easier to have them running already?