I know that the iHost is mainly intended for use with Sonoff products and services. But naturally Docker leaves the door wide open for systems like iobroker Home Assistant. For me that was the main reason, I go an iHost. I myself am more familiar with iobroker and want to learn more about Home Assistant in a seperate, enclosed environment. If there is any information out there on how to best use HA with iHost, I’d be glad to know.
So far I encountered several problems with homeassistant/armv7-homeassistant:
No add ons
No way to edit configuration.yaml
No way to restore a backup
Judging by my first tests, iobroker seems to be the better choice. There is no direct upload for backups either, but you can restore via FTP, WebDav, NAS, Dropbox oder Onedrive.
Backups are - in my view - essential when it comes to complex installations and configurations.
Any further experience with Home Assistant on iHost out there?
I am trying to use HA on my iHost, so I can have a better control of things and fine tune things.
What didn’t work for me is installing homeassistant/armv7-homeassistant without installing the homebridge! (I don’t know why). Some sensors/actuators were not found by my HA. Can anyone confirm this?
What I have tested that are not working in HA:
Blueprints!
BUT, the iHost showed me an update available to the homeassistant docker image two days ago. I tried to update, but it completely broke my HA, I tried to uninstall and reinstall multiple times, but all I get now is a blank HA page.
Ok, let’s see…
Here is a comparison of features in Home Assistant OS versus Home Assistant Docker:
Blueprints should work (they do here), but they are no use if you can’t edit files (like configuration.yaml), which won’t work without the file editor add on or at least shell access.
Also the entire setup is of no use if you can’t backup and restore your container. You will lose all configuration when something happens. And I am saying when, not if.
The next version firmware which will be released in the middle of next month, will support more environment variable configuration and volume management for docer management. However, we are not familiar with Home Assistant, so we don’t know if these improvements will satisfy your need to run Home Assistant docker directly on the eWeLink CUBE.
Running Home Assistant directly on the eWeLink CUBE system is not what this system was set up to do. But iHost provides a maskROM mode, in which you can use Rockchip flash tool to overwrite the hold system, install a clean linux system, you will have all the system permissions on this, I personally recommend that you install and use Home Assistant on this separate system by refalsh the iHost.
Thank you very much for the insights! I will gladly test the new options with docker containers. I do understand that the iHost is a product designed to manage mainly ewelink products. And it is designed to work with Cube and devices like the NSPanel Pro. But I am also certain, that the success of iHost relies on early adopters and power users who buy the device. This specific group of customers will explore the possibilities and will try to use the device beyond it was designed to do. But once a consiberable number of devices is sold and out there, others will follow.
I myself like the concept and think that the iHost has potential. Personally I have a different environment for my productive Smart Home installation. But I am trying to get the iHost working for a friend who would be too overwhelmed by a device like a RasPi or such.
Opening the device (MaskROM option) would be a last resort for me. I am much more curious, what future releases will actually enable us to do.
Our current focus is on making the system more stable and reliable - the next few upgrades are all in this direction.
In addition, the general direction is to make eWeLink CUBE compatible with more brands and more types of devices - we will keep updating for this goal.
Does that improvement to docker management include to docker-compose? When I had the standard version installed I had an SD card failure so haven’t dared try again, but now I think it was probably a coincidence.
All good stuff… I’m looking forward to the opposite…
I’m hoping to use iHost to manage all my zigbee devices and then hopefully someone builds an integration in HomeAssistant for iHost.
Yes, that would be my prefered approach. However, a special adaption of HA would be needed. The docker version has no and no restore function. I could live with that if I was able to backup (and restore) the entire container). But what I do need is the ability to edit configuration.yaml and add/edit other YAML files. For this we would need the editor (which is an add on) or at least access to the file system within the container with the ability to upload files there.
Hi @Alexie
Do you happen to have any information on the upcoming docker configuration features? I would really like to get Home Assistant running on the iHost and I am tempted to install the other Linux distribution if there is no other way.
The problem is that Home Assistant needs some sort of shell access if it is to really work.
Funny thing that this forum has a Home Assistant section, which is about getting ewelink devices to work under Home Assistant. And there is an iHost section, which could be about getting to run Home Assistant on an ewelink device.
