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Establish a smooth onboarding experience for ESPHome based proxying devices #153

Description

@mkerstner

Problem statement

With recent introduction of

we also want to improve the setup and onboarding experience of ESPHome powered proxying devices.

While proxying devices are inherently a more technical product they by nature require users to understand a bit more about how their setup works and what is required.

That said, we still want to make the onboarding experience feel approachable, consistent, and smooth for anyone setting it up within Home Assistant.

This opportunity focuses specifically on the discovery, setup, and user documentation side of the product experience - not the marketing and launch activities covered separately in #133 and #140.

Note that developer-facing documentation covering serial proxying and migration paths is already in place:

As we are talking about ESPHome powered devices we aim to keep the effort here generic to ESPHome devices.
Meaning that we aim to identify capabilities exposed by ESPHome devices setup to surface further configuration options, focusing on the proxying capabilities in a first step.

Community signals

As previously mentioned in #23

Scope & Boundaries

In scope

  • Surfacing these ESPHome proxying product and its capabilities within Home Assistant in a way that clearly communicates what users can do with it, with direct links to relevant documentation if needed
  • A (ESPHome) device setup wizard shown after initial setup was done to guide users to unlock new functionality provided by the device
  • Linking to supporting user documentation for reference (via our commercial partners)
  • Evaluation of auto-discovery and surfacing of plugged in Nabu Casa Connect line products (ZBT-2 and ZWA-2)

Not in scope

  • Additional features

Foreseen solution

Risks & open questions

Open questions

  • Best way to identify and surface discovered proxying devices, such as Nabu Casa Connect line products (ZBT-2 and ZWA-2) through the proxying capabilities

Risks

  • Unsure if we're able to cover entire suite of functionality of the Connect line to be proxied

Appetite

Medium - 1 cycle

Execution issues

No response

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