This is an old thread, but probably the most relevant one. I just wanted to post on my experience thus far with HA. Instead of using a bare Raspbian image and installing HA or installing Hass.IO, I opted to try using the Hassbian image. This image is basically Raspbian with HA preinstalled plus some useful utilities that are HA specific. I believe it will give the best of both worlds (easy setup of Hass.IO and flexibility/configuration of manually installed HA).
Since it does not have the capability like Hass.IO to just click a button and install components, you still have to do that through the shell. That's unavoidable if you want X10 since there is no component within Hass.IO for HeyU or Mochad that I could locate. I did have an issue getting up and running with X10 since HA didn't automatically install the Mochad interface component the tutorial suggested would happen. But, once I installed it (sudo pip3 install pymochad), the modules popped up and functioned as expected in HA. It's easy to see what's going on with X10 since you can simply watch from the shell (nc localhost 1099). If it pops up there, it was received. If not, it wasn't. Simple!
My next step will be getting Mochad_dispatch configured or testing the following command:
/bin/nc -d localhost 1099 | /usr/bin/awk -W interactive ' /HouseUnit:/ && /Func:/ { system("mosquitto_pub -q 1 -t /X10/"$6" -m "$8) } ' &
Mochad sees all X10 traffic but HA doesn't see RF by default. From reading, I believe this is because X10 sends RF in one command vs 2 for PLC. I don't see why this couldn't be addressed by forking Mochad in such a way that HA could see both, but I haven't looked that far yet and, since there appear to be other solutions, I likely won't.
In any case, outside of the one niggle with PyMochad not installing, HA seems like a great system. Lots of useful comments on their forum and all of it current and active. Reminds me of the old HG forum before it was transferred to Google+ and basically killed off.
Glad to report no niggles here. Completed migration of home automation to Home Assistant quite recently and glad to say that everything migrated over perfectly. From X10, Motion detection cameras, heating systems, high end security system to integrated media systems all speaking to each other and all controlled through one single front end.
I’ve finally parked up anything that has gone before. No need for it now. You’ve all the automation scripts you’ll ever need with a few key taps
The biggest benefit of all is the healthy developer and user community. No waiting around for plugins to be developed either. They’ve all been done. Endless plugins to choose from. You don’t like one you pick another. And all free to use of course. It’s a massive open source project and one I’m glad to be part of.
For anyone looking to future home automation needs I couldn’t recommend Home Assistant highly enough. There’s even a few members from this forum over on the Home Assistant community sharing their setups and experiences.
The commercial guys are definitely looking over their shoulders and the niche project developers are parking up their efforts and joint venture in. If you’re serious about home automation why not wander over and join in. Glad to see you their bkenobi. They could definitely do with your skills.