Setup basic information


By default, Home Assistant will try to detect your location from IP address geolocation. Home Assistant will automatically select a temperature unit and time zone based on this location. You can overwrite this by adding the following information to your configuration.yaml:

homeassistant:
  latitude: 32.87336
  longitude: 117.22743
  elevation: 430
  unit_system: metric
  time_zone: America/Los_Angeles
  name: Home

Configuration variables:

  • latitude (Optional): Latitude of your location required to calculate the time the sun rises and sets.
  • longitude (Optional): Longitude of your location required to calculate the time the sun rises and sets.
  • elevation (Optional): Altitude above sea level in meters. Impacts weather/sunrise data.
  • unit_system (Optional): metric for Metric, imperial for Imperial.
  • time_zone (Optional): Pick yours from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones
  • name (Optional): Name of the location where Home Assistant is running.
  • customize (Optional): Customize entities.
  • customize_domain (Optional): Customize all entities in a domain.
  • customize_glob (Optional): Customize entities matching a pattern.
  • whitelist_external_dirs (Optional): List of folders that can be used as sources for sending files.

Password protecting the web interface

First, you’ll want to add a password for the Home Assistant web interface. Use your favorite text editor to open configuration.yaml and edit the http section:

http:
  api_password: YOUR_PASSWORD

If you decide to expose your Home Assistant instance to the internet and forget to set a password, your installation could be accessed by everybody.

See the HTTP component documentation for more options, such as the use of HTTPS encryption.