Home Assistant frustrates me
Home Assistant is really neat.
But...
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like I have to always be in it to understand the architecture and keep it accessible in my head.
One of my biggest gripes is that when I'm trying to quickly add or edit something, it's difficult to have a full understanding of what I need to do. You can create sensors and things in config files AND in the UI... but some custom sensors can't be created in the UI. So, if I need to edit something that only exists in config files, I've got to figure out how to access those configs via mobile if I'm not near my computer.
There's also some automation paths that don't work like I assume they would. Basically, the logic in my head doesn't match the logic the devs decided made more sense. I noticed in the 2024.01 release that they've tweaked the automation builder UI, so seemingly some of that has been an issue for users other than me.
Speaking of the UI... I find that most of it just isn't very useful. I don't need to constantly check a dashboard to see the status of my home. The whole point of automations is that it reliably does this thing when that other thing happens. If I need to keep a constant eye on it, then what is the point?
Also, the default UI is kind of junk. If you go searching for Home Assistant UI examples, 9.5 times out of 10, you'll find example dashboard layouts with huge addon UI libraries that have other library dependencies that have other dependencies... Don't get me wrong, it's great that there is such an active community, but if you're an average user trying to have a dashboard layout that doesn't look like ass across different resolutions, you're gonna have a rough time. And I didn't even mention the different install processes required depending on how you are running Home Assistant!
UI design and such aside, I find that I only need to access it when something isn't working quite right or I haven't yet finished configuring an automation. In most cases, if I didn't finish setting up the automation, it's because I ran into a hurdle and ran out of free time to troubleshoot or assess the best path forward. By the time I get to sit down and focus on resolving whatever issue, it's been several weeks and I've lost all desire to load the entirety of Home Assistant back into my brain so that I can move forward.
It's a combination of all of these friction points that make me not want to use Home Assistant at all. I almost want to go to a stripped down solution that just gives me pure automations via configs and no UI fluff. I need one place to define everything.
Maybe Node-RED is a safer middle ground? I'm not sure.