Once HACS is installed, the real question is what to put in it. (New to HACS? Start with What is HACS? and how to install HACS.) Here are the HACS integrations I actually run in my own Home Assistant setup – followed by the community must-haves worth knowing.
The HACS integrations I actually use
Huawei Solar
This is how I read my Huawei SUN2000 inverter over Modbus: power, daily yield, battery state and grid import/export all land as native Home Assistant sensors – no vendor cloud in the loop. If you run a Huawei inverter, it's the single most useful integration on this list. I wrote up the Modbus side in detail in caching a Huawei SUN2000 over Modbus.
Tapo: Cameras Control
Brings TP-Link Tapo cameras into Home Assistant as proper entities – stream, motion detection, privacy mode and more – without depending on the Tapo cloud. If you've got Tapo gear, this turns it into first-class HA devices.
ShellyForHass
The community Shelly integration. Worth being honest here: Home Assistant now ships a core Shelly integration too, so for a fresh setup you can often use that instead. I still run ShellyForHass, but check which one fits before adding it.
button-card
My go-to custom Lovelace card. button-card gives you fully templatable buttons and tiles – custom states, icons, colours and tap actions – which is what most "how did they build that dashboard?" screenshots are really made of.
Other popular HACS must-haves worth knowing
These are community favourites I'd recommend looking at, even where they aren't in my own stack:
Mushroom
A set of clean, minimal dashboard cards – the fastest way to a modern-looking Lovelace UI without hand-writing CSS.
Card Mod
Apply custom CSS to almost any card. The standard tool once you want your dashboard to look exactly your way.
mini-graph-card
Compact, good-looking history graphs for any sensor – ideal for energy, temperature and humidity at a glance.
auto-entities
Populate cards automatically by filter (area, domain, attribute) instead of maintaining entity lists by hand. A huge time-saver as your setup grows.
Frigate
Local AI object detection for cameras/NVR. If you outgrow basic camera control and want person/car detection that runs on your own hardware, this is the one.
Frequently asked questions
Are HACS integrations free?
Almost all are free and open source. The integration itself stays free even when the underlying device or service has a paid tier.
How many HACS integrations should I install?
Only the ones you'll actually use – each adds maintenance and update overhead. A handful of well-chosen integrations beats dozens of half-used ones.
Do HACS integrations update automatically?
No. HACS notifies you when an update is available; you apply it with a click and a restart. Updates aren't silent by default.
Next step
Not sure what HACS even is yet? Read What is HACS? – or if you haven't set it up, follow how to install HACS in Home Assistant.
