Getting Started, Help Please

Welcome!

Depends on your definition of “good” and what you want to actually get started doing and where you are starting from. Assuming you are planning to run openHAB on an RPI I recommend https://www.openhab.org/docs/installation/openhabian.html. If not, find the installation instructions for the OS you want to install it on in the docs.

Once installed, the first and obvious source will be Getting Started - Introduction | openHAB. Beyond that see How to get started (there is no step-by-step tutorial) for a number of links to resources that can help you get started. But the main point of that post is to explain why you will not find a single end-to-end tutorial because everyone’s home automation requirements are unique. Instead you’ll need to string together a series of separate smaller tutorials to reach your end goal.

Do try the best you can. When you run into trouble and need to ask for help, please tell us what you’ve tried. You cannot provide too many details. I’d rather see a really long post with a simple answer than have to play 20 questions just to get enough information to start helping.

And if you show a some effort and willingness to learn, we will bend over backwards to help. We really don’t expect you to figure it all out on your own. But do we expect you to try.

I can’t help with 3 or 4.

To be successful you will need to become at least a little familiar with the technologies you want to use and how they work. Often, reading the binding docs and maybe a wikipedia article is enough to tell you what you need to know. For example, a quick search of this forum or Google should tell you that Tuya provides WiFi bulbs. A quick read of the wikipedia article on Zigbee should tell you that Zigbee is not WiFi.

There will likely not be anyone here who can answer the last part. We don’t know your requirements. Your skill level. Your Budget. Your end goal. Most of the time you’ll have to do some research and experimentation to figure out what best meets your specific requirements. That’s why I highly recommend starting slow with just a few devices. You won’t get it right immediately. You’ll head down some wrong paths and you don’t want it to cost too much to change directions if you discover a certain brand or technology just isn’t working out.

You will want to standardize on a few technologies. Then you will want to try to stick to those technologies. That will give you less to learn over all. But you will not find a single page that is going to tell you what to get.

The way I do it is I shop around for a device. Then I’ll look to see if that device/technology is supported by openHAB by looking for an appropriate binding and searching the forum. Based on what I’ve learned I make the buy/don’t buy decision. Repeat.

No one is going to be able to do this for you. And mistakes will be made. But that’s part of the fun!