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Home Assistant IHC Viewer – not “just” a viewer anymore

The Home Assistant IHC viewer version 2.0 has had a lot of changes:

• Most importantly, it can now be used to add/remove manual setup of entites. (no more manual editing of the ihc_manual_setup.yaml file)
• It support multiple controllers.
• The setup is now a config flow – no editing of comfiguration.yaml.
• You can change boolean input/output on the controller directly from the UI.
• Several other smaller bugfixes/improments

IMPORTANT NOTE: this new version does only work with the new IHC integration

Home Assistant and IHC Dimmers

The older wired dimmer 350LR and unidimmer 350/400/1000, are causing problems for a lot of people, so this post will be about what you can do, and cannot do. The new 2 channel LED dimmer RS485 and the wireless dimmers, all work fine with Home Assistant so this is not about them.

Help testing the new Home Assistant IHC integration

I have been working on new verion of the IHC integration for Home Assistant.

If you want to help test this you can install a “beta” version as a custom component in Home Assistant. You can get it here:

github beta test

Note. Because the process of getting the pull request for the new version accepted is going so slow, I will not make any change that are not related to the PR until the PR has been accepted.

Home Assistant IHC integration roadmap

I get many questions about if/when some specific feature is comming to the IHC integration for Home Assistant. Must of these are regarding configflow/unique id on entites, and related stuff. (And I will soon have a new version with configflow ready for testing)

So here is my list of stuff I am working on/concidering to do in a priority order:

Home Assistant Blue

After the Home Assistant conference on the 13 dec. 2020, where the Home Assistant blue was announced, I think it is time to make a post about how I run Home Assistant, because I have been using the Odroid N2 for a longer time, and is very pleased about it.

Airthings Wave Plus

Airthings Wave is a bluetooth device that can monitor temperature, humidity and radon level. The “plus” model can also monitor air pressure, CO2 and VOC (Volatile organic compounds). I have had one of each model for about half a year now, so I think it is time to share my experience and thoughts about it.

Dukaone ventilation with heat exchanger and Home Assistant

The dukaone S6W is a one room ventilation system with a heat exchanger with up to 95% heat efficiency (running on the lowest speed). The S6W model has build it WiFi and can be controlled from an app on your phone/tablet. I have made an integration for Home Assistant so you can control the dukaone from within HA – read more below

HTTPS support to the IHC Controller version 3 in Home Assistant

In an upcoming firmware update (to be released soon) for the IHC controller version 3, you will only be able to use a https connection to the soap API in the controller. This means the current version of Home Assistant will not be able to connect to the IHC controller. The current version can only use http.

Note: The https support is now included in HA version 0.112 and later, but only working with verison 3 of the controller. 

Xiaomi cube in Home Assistant as remote control

The Xiaomi cube is a zigbee remote control (The official name is “Xiaomi Aqara smart home cube”). It can detect how you turn the cube (detect which face up is up), shake, tap and rotation. When I bought this I did not know exactly what I was going to do with it. I just thought it would be fun to play with it.

I have made it an internet radio remote control for a chromecast using Home Assistant automations. I have an internet radio channel on each side of the cube, and flipping the cube will start the channel facing up. I made channel logos on each face of the cube. Turning the cube will increase or decrease the volume. Shaking the cube will stop the audio.