How to set up Home Assistant
· Updated 31 July 2026 · SparkBox team
Smart home automation hub. This guide covers how to access it, log in for the first time, configure the basics, and where its data lives so you can back it up.
1. What is Home Assistant?
Open-source home automation hub. Control smart devices, create automations, and integrate with 3000+ services — all running locally on your own hardware.
2. Before you start
Home Assistant works best with network_mode: host for auto-discovery of Zeroconf/mDNS devices (Chromecast, HomeKit, etc). SparkBox runs HA in bridge mode to keep port isolation — for full auto-discovery, see the HA docs to switch to host networking.
3. How to access it
Once it's enabled, Home Assistant runs on your SparkBox at:
http://<your-NAS-IP>:8123Auto-discovery works best with network_mode: host — see docs for that setup
4. First login
Home Assistant runs a multi-step onboarding wizard on first launch. Create your user account in the first step.
If it instead asks for a password you didn't set, check Settings → Passwords in your SparkBox dashboard — every auto-generated credential is listed there.
5. Where your data lives
Home Assistant's config and persistent data are stored on the SparkBox host under:
/opt/sparkbox/modules/homeassistant/config/Backups via the SparkBox dashboard's Backup tile include this directory by default, so a single restore brings Home Assistant back to its current state on a fresh install.
Next steps
That's Home Assistant live on SparkBox.
If something doesn't match what you see, post in d/sparkbox or hit us up on YouTube. Every SparkBox bug gets patched; every UX-stumble in this guide gets rewritten.
Questions, or did this not match your box?
Every guide here came from a real problem someone hit. If yours behaves differently, say so — that is how these get corrected, and how the fix gets prioritised.
We answer there rather than in a comment box, because that is where the people who have already solved it are.