Booting issues of "HA over iHost"

[imassig]

@MichaelLearnsToCode and yes after I received the SanDisk TF and after hours of waiting and third attempt to restart iHost finally started

[MichaelLearnsToCode]

You were not talking about the same thing with them.

@imassig @alamin.yusuph were talking about the initial installation time of Home Assistant OS and you were talking about the OS startup time.

Regarding to installation time, Home Assistant team themselves state This may take 20 minutes or more. However, many users experienced much more time than 20 minutes. This doesn’t mean there is something wrong with HA or with users, it only shows the installation process performs differently in different situations.

[MichaelLearnsToCode]

Great news! I am glad for you.

I have also bought and tested 2 additional USB to Ethernet Adapters using RTL8153 chip, and they all works on HA over iHost. I believe you already know it

[imassig]

yes mine is RTL 8153 I wrote it on

a post above

[MichaelLearnsToCode]

Does the Home Assistant OS installation process successfully complete? Is Home Assistant on iHost working now? We have provided several add-ons that could improve the user experience for HA over iHost:

• iHost Hardware Control
• SONOFF Dongle Flasher for iHost
• Node-RED for ARMv7
• Matter Bridge for iHost
• ESPHome Device Builder for ARMv7

We are also working on the following add-ons:

• Matter Server for ARMv7
• OpenThread Border Router for ARMv7
• SiliconLabs Zigbee/OpenThread Multiprotocol
• eWeLink Remote for iHost

[imassig]

Yes all work perfectly! after restore from backup all work fine! Thanks
Still wait something to repair my cube os. Thanks

[root-expert]

Hello,
I’m having some issues with booting HA or Linux OS from the SD card.
I have tried using both the BalenaEtcher and RPI Imager, my SD Card is a Sandisk Ultra 32GB A1. When inserting and powering on my ihost, repeatedly pressing the mute button doesn’t do anything, my ihost is in Marquee Red mode and doesn’t boot up. If I power cycle it and remove the SD card it boots normally into CUBE.

Generally the same SD card was working fine for the docker add-ons. Is there any logs I can provide? Could the A1 SD card cause these issues?

@MichaelLearnsToCode

I have discussed with our team members, and we have decided to create a feature for eWeLink CUBE OS which could support flashing and booting HAOS directly from eWeLink CUBE OS, so users don’t have to do it manually.

I’m interested in testing this if it is still available.

Thanks!

[MichaelLearnsToCode]

We have decided to create a feature for eWeLink CUBE OS which could support flashing and booting HAOS directly from eWeLink CUBE OS, so users don’t have to do it manually.

This feature is under development and it will take us 1~3 weeks to finish. We are currently working on the mentioned add-ons.

my ihost is in Marquee Red mode and doesn’t boot up

If the side LED stripe didn’t turn into Breathing Blue after repeatedly pressing the mute button when you powered on the iHost, then iHost didn’t boot from the TF card. You need to make sure of two things:

1. eWeLink CUBE OS has been upgraded to latest version which is 2.5.2 now.
2. Pressing the right button at the right timing. mute button is the third button from the back of iHost, and you can press it once every second when you plug the power cable into iHost.

[root-expert]

I’m on 2.5.2

Pressing the mute button doesn’t turn into Breathing Blue. In fact if the sd card is plugged in, ihost never boot into CUBE, the red stripe keeps flashing forever.

[MichaelLearnsToCode]

Here is a YouTube video showing how to flash HA over iHost image on TF card and boot iHost from TF card:

How to Run Home Assistant over SONOFF iHost

You need to press the mute button one or more times within 5 seconds after power on iHost

If you are certain that you did press the right button at the right timing, then I suggest to verify the following 2 things:

1. boot into eWeLink CUBE OS, open CUBE dashboard, goto Docker page. You should see an alert No TF card inserted, then insert your TF card that flashed with HA over iHost image. If you see a notice TF card inserted then it means that specific TF card has no compatibility issue. Otherwise, that specific TF card is not recognized, and iHost can’t boot from it.

2. on eWeLink CUBE OS, press the mute button to see whether the LED indicator of mute button can be turn on or off. If not, it means the mute button is dead, so it can not be used to change boot media (internal eMMC or TF card).

Here is a short video showing boot failure on TF card. The side LED stripe changes from Marquee Red (about 3~4 seconds) to Breading Blue (less than 1 second) to Breathing Red (forever).

By the way, could you take a short video about how you boot iHost and press the mute button?

[alamin.yusuph]

Can you please update the ihost hardware control add-on entities to show exactly the behaviour of the side LED bar, insteaf of showing option one, two ot three?

For example if one wants the side led bar to brearh red colour by selecting an entity that states red colour if there is a persistent notification instead of current entity options requiring selecting option one or option two etc.

[MichaelLearnsToCode]

I am sorry I don’t quite understand which GUI component you are talking about.

If you look at side LED stripe in Entities view, it should look like this:

If you look at side LED stripe in Device view, it should look like this:

If you look at side LED stripe in Automations, it should look like this:

Could you take a screenshot of the side LED stripe UI which you think is inappropriate.

By the way, please make sure you are using the latest version which is 1.1.2 of iHost Hardware Control add-on.

[alamin.yusuph]

I am using the latest version and have applied a toggle switch for automatic updates.
If you access the entities through HA. Try to create a new automation that will change the side strip colour and you will notice theconfusion.
There are even.no actions associated to Sonoff Ihost entity and Sonoff Hardware control entity.

[MichaelLearnsToCode]

Sorry for the confusion, you were looking at the wrong entity.

Home Assistant Host is the entity provided by Home Assistant OS, and iHost Hardware Control is the entity also provided by Home Assistant OS when iHost Hardware Control Add-on is installed. We as add-on developers can do nothing about it.

For the real devices and entities exposed by iHost Hardware Control Add-on (through MQTT), you should use:

• iHost Buttons device (in MQTT integration) with following entities:
  • Mute
  • Pairing
  • Power
  • Reset
  • Security
• iHost Indicators device (also in MQTT integration) with following entities:
  • Mute
  • Pairing
  • Power
  • Security
  • Side Strip
• iHost Hardware Control Automations (device also in MQTT integration) with following events:
  • “Home Assistant” is started

[alamin.yusuph]

Seems this does not apply to.me as I am using ZHA. No problem, I will live with the shortcomings

[MichaelLearnsToCode]

Oh, it has nothing to do with ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT.

When you install iHost Hardware Control Add-on, it will automatically install Mosquitto broker Add-on, and alert you that HA has discovered MQTT devices in Settings -> Devices & services -> Integrations. You can click the ADD button of MQTT integration card, and then you’ll get the iHost build-in devices and entities I mentioned earlier.

Give it a try please, it’s easy and useful

[imassig]

what I would like for me Side Strip brightness that I can’t find. Thanks

[MichaelLearnsToCode]

The current version of iHost doesn’t support brightness control of LED indicators. I am sorry for that.

[alamin.yusuph]

The issue is not to access the entities through the MQTT Card. I already access them and I can I.can change tge different configuration through the MQTT Card, .The issue is to have them wotk through.HA automations as I wish.

[imassig]

I use that one and it works also side strip brightness level, I wanted you to integrate it into your official addon