Home Assistant 必裝外掛 HACS 安裝步驟詳解 – Home Assistant 手把手教學 EP 17

When talking about Home Assistant (HA), we have to mention HACS (Home Assistant Community Store), which is a platform that allows developers to publish self-made components (plug-ins) and allows general users to install these customized components. It includes four types of components: Dashboard, Integration, Template, and Theme. The most commonly used of them are Integration type packages. For example, the integration of third-party platforms such as Xiaomi, Tuya, Aqara, etc., before obtaining official support from HA, you can obtain self-service integration developed by netizens through HACS to connect various smart home devices; the second is Dashboard type packages. The most popular Mushroom, mini-graph-card, button-card, etc. can help you build your own smart home control panel.

In short, HACS will be one of the most important add-ons you need to use HA. For other recommended add-ons, please refer to:

7 must-install add-ons for Home Assistant – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 12

neiltw.com

After several years, I tried to install HACS again and found that it is so simple now. Even if you don’t understand IT and don’t know how to put the files in the right place, just follow the steps and click through. Let’s get started!

Table of contents

Installing HACS

Open HACS official website (https://www.hacs.xyz/)
Click "Start using HACS"

Click "Download HACS"

⚠️ Attention!
The following installation steps are for HAOS or HA Supervised versions. If you are using HA Container or HA Core version, please follow the instructions on the HACS official website to complete the installation, and continue to refer to the settings and usage instructions in this article after the installation is complete.

Click "my link"

A confirmation screen will appear, which means that this link will take you to your Home Assistant and ask you to confirm the address of the Home Assistant entity.

To determine the physical address of Home Assistant, there are several possibilities:
1. If you are in the same local network as Home Assistant, you can use the default "http://homeassistant.local:8123" in most cases.
2. If you are on the same LAN as Home Assistant and know that you are not using the default address, you should usually know how to change the link here.
3. If you are outside, replace this with your external network link
Click "Open link"

Click "Install"

Click "Start"

This is just to download HACS! Please continue with the following steps to complete the installation

Go to Settings > Devices and Services
Click on "Add Integration" in the lower right corner
Search "HACS"
Click "HACS"

If you cannot find HACS here, try restarting HA and then try again.
(Thanks Jerry for the report 😍)

Click "Send"

Click "https://github.com/login/device"
Copy the serial number on the screen for later use

Confirm your Github account and click "Continue"

Paste (enter) the serial number obtained in step 15
Click “Continue”

This completes the HACS installation!

HACS Interface Introduction

Enter HACS

After the installation is complete, you can find "HACS" in the left column

Interface and function introduction

filter：Status, Type Filter
search
Group display: Optional grouping display by status or type
Sorting: You can choose to sort by name, number of downloads, number of stars, update time, download version, available version, status, type
Display column adjustment
More Features: The most commonly used one is probably "Custom repositories" which is used to load plugins that are not officially included in HACS.
External operation: You can view detailed information, link to Github to view, download, etc.

Congratulations! You're done!

In the future, if you want to connect Home Assistant to a certain brand of smart devices or home appliances, or want to make your Home Assistant more beautiful, you can look for plug-ins developed by various great developers in HACS!

Recommend a few HACS plugins that I use myself

Dashboard beautification

Universal Remote Card: Control Google TV and Apple TV directly in HA Dashboard, be sure to try it!
Mushroom: The Dashboard plugin with the highest star rating on HACS. Needless to say, just try it!
Xiaomi Vacuum Map Card: If you have a sweeping robot from brands such as Xiaomi, Roborock, Dreame, etc., then you must try this.

Integration

Local Tuya: Although Tuya has polarized reviews, choosing a product with good quality is indeed a good choice with good CP value. Tuya Local allows you to control Tuya devices locally without going through the Tuya cloud.
Xiaomi Home: The HA integration plug-in officially launched by Xiaomi at the end of 2024, the official support is great.
Xiaomi Cloud Map Extractor: Paired with Xiaomi Vacuum Map Card, the map status of the sweeping robot can be visually displayed.
Electrolux Wellbeing: Electrolux home store integration 👍
Refer to my installation instructions:

Electrolux home appliance integration joins Home Assistant tutorial – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 13

neiltw.com

3 COMMENTS

Ghost 2025-04-07 At 17:47
Xiaomi Home currently does not support Taiwan. For now, you can only use Xiaomi Miot Auto
As for the 2FA issue that Xiaomi Cloud Map Extractor is currently facing, there seems to be no simple solution, and I haven’t tried it successfully yet.
- Jerry 2025-04-07 At 19:14
  Xiaomi Home can be used in Singapore by selecting the country
Jerry 2025-03-22 At 18:59
Reporting the situation I encountered, after starting HACS, I couldn't find HACS when adding integration directly. Finally, I restarted HA and it was successfully found^^

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Jerry 2025/04/14Thank you very much Neil for your selfless sharing. The websites you provided are of great help to me. I will save it first and digest it slowly^^ I also look forward to Neil's industry news and teaching articles in the futureHome Assistant Floor plan A new experience in smart home control with visual floor plan! – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 6

Neil 2025/04/13Hi Jerry, I usually get information about HA from these places: Website: – Home Assistant official Release notes – Automata – Home Automation Community – Weijia Home Intelligence FB Group: – Taiwan Home Assistant enthusiasts exchange – Home Assistant YouTube channel: – Smart Home Solver – Everything Smart Home – Home Assistant Programming language: Strictly speaking, YAML is not really a programming language (let me make this clear in case some people mind 🤣), but if we include these data formats or style languages that “look like” programming languages, and sort them by depth of use in HA (the deeper the bottom, the deeper the bottom): – YAML (data format): a language for configuration files used in many places in the HA environment. – CSS (style language): used to adjust the interface style (font size, color, image, position, etc.). – JSON (data format): If you use Node-RED, you will probably come across it. – Jinja2 (Python template syntax): You may encounter it when you explore automation or Dashboard in depth. ※ But in fact, even if HA does not know the above, it can still make a smart home complete. You don’t have to put so much pressure on yourself, but if you are interested, it is also good to know more. It is actually difficult to generalize about the support of devices. Now, even if the home appliances themselves do not support it, there are still many different ways to connect traditional home appliances to HA. In addition, cases like Haier do require in-depth research. What I usually do is to crawl a lot of information on the Internet, and usually find attempts made by others. It just so happens that when I was looking up other information recently, I saw someone sharing how Haier water heaters were connected to HA. But it is indeed like what you said, if you get involved for a while, you will understand these details more and more. 🤣Home Assistant Floor plan A new experience in smart home control with visual floor plan! – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 6

Jerry 2025/04/10Hello Neil: After observing for 1 or 2 days, everything seems to be normal. Maybe it’s because the system was not stable during the initial setup period!? The more I play, the deeper I feel. I also find that I still have many shortcomings. I wonder if Neil can share and teach everyone how to fish? For example, recommend good websites, forums, FB groups, youtube videos, or give some guidance. In addition to the YAML language, would it be helpful to know some CSS syntax? Do I need to know other languages? I can even start a new teaching direction. When I see non-big-name products that claim to support APP (such as products from mainland China), I can teach everyone how to identify whether they can be connected to HA and how to ask customer service? Where can I see supported articles or platforms? This kind of experience sharing, I think, will be very helpful to everyone. I am currently looking to buy a heat pump water heater from Haier. Haier is a big manufacturer in the world and has its own APP. I have also found Haier's kit from HACS, but it does not seem to support heat pump water heaters. Does that mean it cannot be connected to HA? Or is there any channel to check it? There are also many flat panel lights and fan function lamps on the other side of the strait, which also claim to support APP connection, but they are all small manufacturers and it is difficult to tell whether they can be connected to HA. These are the problems I am facing now. If the home appliances I buy are different from what Neil shared, I don’t know where to start. Maybe I'm still too inexperienced. If I play for a few more months, maybe the above problems won't be a problem anymore, haha^^Home Assistant Floor plan A new experience in smart home control with visual floor plan! – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 6

Neil 2025/04/09Hi Jerry, I tested it myself and it was fine, but please note that because it is controlled through the cloud, there is an extra layer of brand mediation, so it is not suitable for fast switching. I tested it myself and it took about 1 second to complete the synchronization after clicking. Remember to put the entity in entities, otherwise the status display may have problemsHome Assistant Floor plan A new experience in smart home control with visual floor plan! – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 6

Jerry 2025/04/07Thanks Neil for clarifying this. I tested it later and found that when using the "button panel" to control the switch of the Electrolux air conditioner (the same model as Neil), the device will respond to turning on or off in about 1 second, but the "status icon" for turning on is much slower, and it takes about 30 seconds. The "status icon" for turning off is normal, and the "status icons" of other negative ion switches and the "status icons" of the monitoring light switch are also normal, which made me think there was a problem with the synchronization. I'll test it again, maybe it's caused by the wrong setting.Home Assistant Floor plan A new experience in smart home control with visual floor plan! – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 6

Neil 2025/04/07Hi Jerry, 1. This method is through cloud integration, which is actually using HA to call Xiaomi/Electrolux to control the device. 2. It is not normal. If this happens, you may need to check whether the entity you display on the floor plan can truly represent the status of the device. If not, you may need to try other entities of the same device.Home Assistant Floor plan A new experience in smart home control with visual floor plan! – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 6

Jerry 2025/04/07The problem is solved. Thanks again to Neil for his help^^ I have two more questions about concepts. Neil, do I have any misunderstandings? 1. I connected Xiaomi and Electrolux devices to HA through HACS. Is it still connected through WiFi? Before connecting, you need to obtain API key and Access Token from the official. This means that the communication between HA and the device still needs to go through the official. It’s just that the official APP can be replaced and all integrated into the HA APP for control? 2. After testing, when controlling the device through physical operation or the original official APP, the HA app cannot know the status of the device synchronously, but it can know the opposite. Is this normal? For example, the Xiaomi electric fan at home was turned on by someone physically before going out, but when the person is outside, he cannot know through the HA app that the device was forgotten to be turned off. He has to connect to the Xiaomi app to know!?Home Assistant Floor plan A new experience in smart home control with visual floor plan! – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 6

Jerry 2025/04/07Xiaomi Home can be used in Singapore by selecting the countryHome Assistant must-install HACS plug-in installation steps detailed explanation – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 17

Ghost 2025/04/07Xiaomi Home currently does not support Taiwan. For now, you can only use Xiaomi Miot Auto. As for Xiaomi Cloud Map Extractor, I currently have a 2FA problem. There seems to be no simple solution. I haven’t tried it successfully yet.Home Assistant must-install HACS plug-in installation steps detailed explanation – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 17

Neil 2025/04/07Jerry, it seems that the click action cannot penetrate the part where the picture changes because of the overlapping pictures. Try adding pointer-events: none to the style.Home Assistant Floor plan A new experience in smart home control with visual floor plan! – Home Assistant step-by-step tutorial EP 6