Home Assistant is one of the best applications you can install on any home lab or NAS that supports Docker. It can be the centerpiece of your smart home, with thousands of integrations supporting practically every smart device out there. Chances are, if it exists and can be controlled by some kind of remote service, there's a way to get it working with Home Assistant, too. Whether you're new to Home Assistant or an experienced user, you need to install the Home Assistant Community Store, also known as HACS.
HACS is a repository of custom add-ons that you can install in Home Assistant. Rather than needing to manually install them yourself, you just need to manually install HACS, and it handles the rest for you. It's the first add-on I deploy with Home Assistant, and I can't recommend it enough.
6 It seamlessly integrates with Home Assistant
It's just part of the UI
HACS isn't some add-on that's external to Home Assistant; it actually becomes part of it. When you install HACS, it adds it to the sidebar alongside all of your other options. That means it's easy to get to, and it also feels like a part of your overall home setup rather than something external to keep an eye on.
Because of this, HACS feels like one of the best add-ons you can get, and it's why it's always first for me. Why bother going through the motions of installing others when I can just install HACS and have it handle everything for me?
5 Easy access to custom integrations and themes
There are so many to choose from
While Home Assistant has many, many integrations built in already, it doesn't have everything that you might need. For example, the TrueNAS system that I run Home Assistant on can't be monitored within Home Assistant by default. However, there's a custom integration available on HACS that will add the integration, complete with sensors to pull statistics from your server. It works perfectly, and HACS handled the installation process for me.
There are many other kinds of add-ons that you can find on HACS too; it's not just limited to integrations. These include themes and cards as well, where cards are the data pieces you can add to a dashboard.
4 Custom cards are amazing
A whole new look for your dashboard
Custom cards are fantastic, and it took me a while to figure out what I could use them for. Sure, they can just help you make your dashboard look pretty, but they have actual uses, too. For example, I use Atomic Calendar, which is only available in HACS (or by manual install), and has a much better Google Calendar integration than the official Home Assistant Google Calendar integration. There's a little more work involved in setting it up (it requires you to create a Google API key), but once set up, there's a lot you can do with it.
In my case, my calendar sits at the top of my Home Assistant dashboard. I can pull data from it through an automation, and I can then send a notification to my phone with events for the day. I get a notification on my phone every morning at 9 am with the time of my first work call, and if I don't have one, I don't get a notification. Then, when I open my Home Assistant dashboard, I can see a summary for the day of what my calendar looks like.
3 There are so many themes
Change everything about your UI
One feature that I've loved in Home Assistant is the ability to install themes, and HACS makes it incredibly easy. You'll need to edit your configuration.yaml file to enable themes, but when you do, you can download them in HACS and enable them in settings. These can change everything about your Home Assistant front end, making it look exactly how you like it.
While Home Assistant has some basic built-in themes (that you still need to enable themes to switch between), there are so many more in HACS that are available to try out. I highly recommend it, especially if you're looking to give your Home Assistant dashboard a little more flair.
2 Automatic updates and notifications
Keep on top of updates for custom add-ons
If you use custom integrations that you've manually installed, then you probably know that it can be annoying to keep them up to date. That's also where HACS comes in, as it handles those updates for you. Once an update is released, you'll get a notification, and you can then go to HACS and update it yourself. You can even see the list of installed add-ons from the HACS menu, where it'll be pinned to the top.
This means that while you may worry that community software not distributed via Home Assistant itself could run the risk of introducing bugs or security problems, you can still ensure that you keep things up to date. New features and bug fixes can be pushed out quickly for new add-ons through HACS, so you'll always keep on top of them.
1 Encourages exploration
I've got so many ideas from HACS
When I first heard about HACS, I installed it and browsed through it to see what I could install. I was amazed by the number of options that I had available to me, and it got me really thinking about what I could do with my smart home and my devices. It encouraged me to explore and try out new things, and I've now gone down a rabbit hole of epic proportions in order to automate all that I can. Some of the more interesting that I've found are:
- Spook
- Alarmo
- Alexa Media Player
- Node-RED Companion
- Powercalc
Funnily enough, most things I've started using don't require HACS to function, but HACS is what initially got me thinking about what I can do with my smart home. There's so much in there, and even seeing the add-ons others are downloading (because there is a download count beside each item) has given me ideas of things I'd like to try.