Smart Home Automation

[Wildbill]

Now have it set to turn the heat on when it is expected to have a low below 50 and the ac comes on when the high is expected to be above 85, which I wouldn't be too surprised to have them both trigger on the same day at some point in the future (NE weather )

Just as long as they're not both running at the same time That would be an annoying power bill to receive!

 

[ChaoticUnreal]

Now have it set to turn the heat on when it is expected to have a low below 50 and the ac comes on when the high is expected to be above 85, which I wouldn't be too surprised to have them both trigger on the same day at some point in the future (NE weather )

Just as long as they're not both running at the same time That would be an annoying power bill to receive!

It is one unit that I leave on auto and set the high/low temp (even when off I just set the high/low to extremes (50-90)) so it shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Drizzt321]

NecroThread, ARISE!

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OK, so necroing this thread because I'm about to jump in and start in on this. Consider it to be a fresh, greenfield apartment. Nothing 'smart' about it in any shape, manner, or form. Except possibly the sole inhabitant, although there remain some questions.

My thought is probably just jump all the way to Home Assistant. Debating between a VM on my NAS, or just straight RPi4 so I have it as a separate device so it Just Keeps Working(tm). There's no way to cluster/HA them, right? Guess I'll have to automate the config backups and some extra hardware around. Also planning on getting Zwave & Zigbee adapters for Home Assistant. Prefer no additional hubs for other things, but if I need to, I need to. Can stick them out of the way pretty easily.

Devices:

First, light bulbs. RGBWW (warm-white/cool-white) is desired, mostly in standard A19 or so Edison screw, but I do have some indoor in-ceiling lights in the new place. Haven't gone up to see the exact size, but I assume their whatever standard size, possibly Edison screw but not certain. Also have a great private outdoor back patio, I'll be doing a bunch of stuff out there, but for now holding off on anything major while I work out my awning/shade situation, then planning and doing the entire lighting situation. Hue, something else?

Sensors/cameras. I do plan on a camera out in the back to capture the critters that stop by, daytime at the hummingbird feeder and rest of the day in general. Possibly even a camera at the gate into the back alley looking out over the edge. Otherwise, what's fairly common? It's a modest size 1 bedroom, have separate living room, bedroom (with closet), kitchen/dining area (where my desk is), small hallway with built-in shelves/closet, small bathroom.

Audio, low priority for now. I have a receiver & 5.1 speakers in my living room, and am planning on putting a couple of speakers out on the patio, and some at my desk/kitchen area. Would like to possibly have them all as separate zones but centrally controllable. Sonos? Something else? Would stream Pandora, SoundCloud playlist, from 1 (or more?) phone/tablet type devices, such as from guests.

Switches. If I have all the bulbs connected, I should replace my switches to allow for the 'smart' control setup, right? Although my front/rear door lights I might just leave on their own switches and simply get 'smart' switches to allow remote control of them lights.

I saw some folks have a 7-9" Android tablet of various kinds as a controller without needing to go to the computer/browser, how's this work out in practice?

Other devices? Thoughts?

 

[ChaoticUnreal]

Responses inline

NecroThread, ARISE!

Necro image tax first

Brought to you by KnowYourMeme

OK, so necroing this thread because I'm about to jump in and start in on this. Consider it to be a fresh, greenfield apartment. Nothing 'smart' about it in any shape, manner, or form. Except possibly the sole inhabitant, although there remain some questions.

Yeah kind of put a pause on new Smart home stuff since planning on moving soon so don't want to make any major changes that I'll then have to undo.

My thought is probably just jump all the way to Home Assistant. Debating between a VM on my NAS, or just straight RPi4 so I have it as a separate device so it Just Keeps Working(tm). There's no way to cluster/HA them, right? Guess I'll have to automate the config backups and some extra hardware around. Also planning on getting Zwave & Zigbee adapters for Home Assistant. Prefer no additional hubs for other things, but if I need to, I need to. Can stick them out of the way pretty easily.

I haven't fully looked into it yet (they just released the first version today) but there is a new Z-wave intergration that looks like it offloads Z-wave to another controller and then sends commands to HA via MQTT. There is a docker image and a Home Assistant addon so it can all be the same system as you HA instance but could also be another system.

Also since I first made the thread they have decided to rename HA (IMO in the worst possible way) so what was HASS.io (the image for raspberry pi that managed dockers as addons) is now Home Assistant and Home assistant (the actual software) is now Home Assistant Core so something to be aware of.

Devices:

First, light bulbs. RGBWW (warm-white/cool-white) is desired, mostly in standard A19 or so Edison screw, but I do have some indoor in-ceiling lights in the new place. Haven't gone up to see the exact size, but I assume their whatever standard size, possibly Edison screw but not certain. Also have a great private outdoor back patio, I'll be doing a bunch of stuff out there, but for now holding off on anything major while I work out my awning/shade situation, then planning and doing the entire lighting situation. Hue, something else?

I'd advise really thinking if you need the colors and if you don't just get smart switches. It is really frustrating to expect your lights to turn on and they can't because someone else flipped the switch and killed power to them. Also switches can be cheaper if you have multiple bulbs off one switch (most rooms in my house are 2 bulbs per fixture so a switch costs about the same as replacing all the smart bulbs)

I just did a quick search for colored bulbs (not even sure if they are RGBWW or just RGB)
Z-Wave were ~30$
Zigbee were ~25$
Wifi (flashable with a custom FW when I got them) were ~9.50$ (2 pack for 19$)

And those are just the cheap ones the Phillips Hue bulbs are 90$/2 they are zigbee and I think they work directly with HA but honestly haven't looked into it.

Sensors/cameras. I do plan on a camera out in the back to capture the critters that stop by, daytime at the hummingbird feeder and rest of the day in general. Possibly even a camera at the gate into the back alley looking out over the edge. Otherwise, what's fairly common? It's a modest size 1 bedroom, have separate living room, bedroom (with closet), kitchen/dining area (where my desk is), small hallway with built-in shelves/closet, small bathroom.

I don't have any cameras (yet). I played around with the ESP32 cam but it kept overheating so it is currently non-functional.

I have a few motion sensors that trigger lights (one in the master closet when you walk in and then shuts off after 5 mins no activities, one in the living room with a 20 min timer for shutting off, and then one in the kids room that just shuts off if no activity in the middle of the day)

I have a few temp sensors (most zigbee sensors come with a temp sensor as well) around the house so I can get an average temp of my house (right now it is 73F average in my house but 70F down where the thermostat is) I currently don't do anything with the various temp sensors but it is on my todo list.

Audio, low priority for now. I have a receiver & 5.1 speakers in my living room, and am planning on putting a couple of speakers out on the patio, and some at my desk/kitchen area. Would like to possibly have them all as separate zones but centrally controllable. Sonos? Something else? Would stream Pandora, SoundCloud playlist, from 1 (or more?) phone/tablet type devices, such as from guests.

I had Sonos speakers from before I started the whole smart home thing (relative used to work for them and they were a gift) and they work decently well. Sonos's recent attitude towards loyal customers has soured me on them so I probably won't be buying more or recommending them.

Switches. If I have all the bulbs connected, I should replace my switches to allow for the 'smart' control setup, right? Although my front/rear door lights I might just leave on their own switches and simply get 'smart' switches to allow remote control of them lights.

I'd recommend smart switches over smart bulbs unless you need color. If you want color you can install a smart switch as well but if you want a cheaper option you could also wire the switch to always be on and put a blank face plate where it was.

For outside lights I currently have smart bulbs in the fixtures (1 in the front 1 in the back) because I had them after switching to a switch inside and it would have cost more to do switches in those locations since they are single bulbs (~8$ bulb vs ~30$ switch last I looked)

I saw some folks have a 7-9" Android tablet of various kinds as a controller without needing to go to the computer/browser, how's this work out in practice?

Most of the ones I have seen (for HA) just have the browser full screen there is custom integration that will let you control the browser from within HA (pop open a window if someone rings a smart doorbell)

Other devices? Thoughts?

You didn't mention a smart thermostat that is a must (IMO) for a smart house.

I'd recommend HACS be the first custom integration you install. It provides you with a tab on the left that lets you search and easily install other integrations and lovelace cards (The frontend is called lovelace and each displayed this is a card) as well as themes.

HA has been doing a big push to make set up easier and has recently passed developer guidelines that all integrations going forward have to be configurable via the UI so it is some what easier to get going on things.

 

[Drizzt321]

So thermostat. Well. Technically now I do! But it's for heating only. Which is a single in-floor heating grate in the center area. Yet, this is Santa Monica (SoCal) under a mile from the beach, so mostly it's not needed. So I'm not going to bother, even for the heating. Honestly, the coldest it gets here is maybe 50 or so. I'll throw on another layer if I need or happily just use the basic thermostat as it exists.

I do think a temp/humidity inside sensor might be nice, and maybe a small outdoor weather station thingie eventually perhaps.

 

[Scifigod]

Maybe a fan controller if you have ceiling fans?

Thanks for the necro too, I started putting together a system two years ago but kind of wandered off before finishing. Probably should get back to that...

 

[Drizzt321]

No overhead fan. Do have a in-window fan, and a portable AC unit, the kind with a hose to the window. And a small fan that sits on my dress to blow air on me to sleep if I need. I suppose I could build a micro-controller in and use some relays to 'press' the buttons. Depending on how they're wired up. Might just simply be a series of resistors + off. More resistors for lower speed.

But anyway. Wouldn't mind a thermostat, but no real way to use one properly, and might as well just go with switch or outlet switches and have it pre-set to certain values.

 

[Scifigod]

I don't know if I'd put my ac on it but you could get one of the appliance rated outlets. As a bonus it'll get you power monitoring as well as on/off control.

https://www.amazon.com/Z-Wave-Power-Swi ... 1590015554

 

[Wildbill]

NecroThread, ARISE!

My thought is probably just jump all the way to Home Assistant. Debating between a VM on my NAS, or just straight RPi4 so I have it as a separate device so it Just Keeps Working(tm). There's no way to cluster/HA them, right?

It looks like you can run it in Docker, so you could have whatever Docker calls a cluster, either Docker native or managed by Kubernetes. Then you just need a method to have multiple synced copies of your config data.

 

[ChaoticUnreal]

NecroThread, ARISE!

My thought is probably just jump all the way to Home Assistant. Debating between a VM on my NAS, or just straight RPi4 so I have it as a separate device so it Just Keeps Working(tm). There's no way to cluster/HA them, right?

It looks like you can run it in Docker, so you could have whatever Docker calls a cluster, either Docker native or managed by Kubernetes. Then you just need a method to have multiple synced copies of your config data.

I don't have experience with clustering but not sure that would work with z-wave/zigbee things since they are normally paired to a single controller at a time. There are ways to do Z-wave/Zigbee via MQTT into HA however so that might work. But then you still have a single point of failure in whatever device is handling that.

 

[Amos]

1)It looks like it may be possible to run HA in a cluster if you really needed to:

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/h ... ant/128426

2) I would also recommend smart switches if you don't need color. My condo is about 50/50. Bedroom and living room get color lights, kitchen and dining room are just on dimmable smart switches. Some of my fixtures use lights bulbs that are not made in Wifi.

3) For the front end, check out Tileboard. It looks and runs great on my wall mounted 7" Nexus

4) For controlling the portable AC, they make smart IR controllers that works with Alexa and Google. I don't have any personal experience but I imagine they mostly work fine. Something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Broadlink-RM-Min ... 01FK2SDOC/

5) For indoor temp/humidity sensors, I am using a bunch of ESP8266 boards with DHT22 sensors, feeding into HA via MQ. I may have mentioned it earlier in the thread. I can share my ESP8266 code if anyone needs it.

 

[Drizzt321]

Put it up on github =D

Neat on that HA. Although...really as long as I have solid backups of the configuration/etc it shouldn't be _that_ bad to just have some spare hardware around.

And I definitely want some color, at least in some spots. Maybe doing connected RGB strips in strategic spots would give me what I want. Something to think about for sure.

Tileboard looks pretty nice, I'll take a look.

 

[w00key]

Fancy bulb vs fancy switch: here I run on 100% Tradfri as my experience with dimmable bulbs and dimmers aren't great. Even with proper Philips and Osram bulbs and ABB/Busch Jaeger/Jung wall dimmers, there's often compatibility issues.

And Tradfri wins in cost too, €7 for dimmable GU10, €13 for white spectrum, kinda unbeatable as a dimmer / smart dimmer is €50+ and you still need a good bulb to go with it.


Scriptable with a HA plugin, but I'm too distracted with the home theater setup to play with that for a moment.

~~

Thermostat: I went with the Evohome kit, 5 radiator controllers, wirelessly connected, so it acts as 5 temperature monitors, grouped into 4 zones with their own weekly schedule. Wake up = 21C upstairs and bathroom, end of day = warm in the living room / dining area, etc. Also HA scriptable, but I doubt I'll script this further, as the unit contains logic to determine how fast the each room warms up and adjusts for that to hit 21C at 0800, not start warming at 0800.

And as it is summer now, I just put it in permanently off mode, 5C frost protection only, 2 clicks away from undoing it on the app / UI when it gets chilly again in october.

~~

AC: what do you guys use as scriptable AC? I have none at the moment but considering adding a set (1:3 multi split) as a air-air heat pump, they are far more eco than burning gas. There seems to be an LG SmartThinQ plugin for HA, anyone tried that?

 

[Drizzt321]

OK, light bulbs, I'm thinking Sengled or Lifx. Anyone have experience with either? Or other, preferably moderate cost RGBW bulbs? Needs to play well with https://www.home-assistant.io as that's what I'm planning on using.

While this is from a year ago, the chart with lumens/etc I expect to be largely accurate. The Lifx and Sengled both seem pretty good in terms of lumen/control, although Lifx has a much wider color temp they claim to be able to reproduce which is nice.

I'm OK with zigbee stuff as well, there's a variety of HA zigbee/zigbee2mqtt hardware/hacks out there for me to try.

I figure I'll start with 1 bulb, get it integrated and working, and then move on from there.

 

[Wildbill]

OK, light bulbs, I'm thinking Sengled or Lifx. Anyone have experience with either? Or other, preferably moderate cost RGBW bulbs? Needs to play well with https://www.home-assistant.io as that's what I'm planning on using.

While this is from a year ago, the chart with lumens/etc I expect to be largely accurate. The Lifx and Sengled both seem pretty good in terms of lumen/control, although Lifx has a much wider color temp they claim to be able to reproduce which is nice.

I'm OK with zigbee stuff as well, there's a variety of HA zigbee/zigbee2mqtt hardware/hacks out there for me to try.

I figure I'll start with 1 bulb, get it integrated and working, and then move on from there.

I think I must be weird, or losing my geek credentials, but I just don't get this RGBW home automation stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like lights, I have lots of them in my house, but for the most part they're plain old white LEDs that can be on or off - I'm an IT guy, I like binary. There are a few dimmer switches left in the place but only because I haven't got round to replacing them.

I feel like I'd play around with such things for a day or two and then never change their settings (from white on/off) ever again. What do you true aficionados do with them?

 

[Drizzt321]

OK, light bulbs, I'm thinking Sengled or Lifx. Anyone have experience with either? Or other, preferably moderate cost RGBW bulbs? Needs to play well with https://www.home-assistant.io as that's what I'm planning on using.

While this is from a year ago, the chart with lumens/etc I expect to be largely accurate. The Lifx and Sengled both seem pretty good in terms of lumen/control, although Lifx has a much wider color temp they claim to be able to reproduce which is nice.

I'm OK with zigbee stuff as well, there's a variety of HA zigbee/zigbee2mqtt hardware/hacks out there for me to try.

I figure I'll start with 1 bulb, get it integrated and working, and then move on from there.

I think I must be weird, or losing my geek credentials, but I just don't get this RGBW home automation stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like lights, I have lots of them in my house, but for the most part they're plain old white LEDs that can be on or off - I'm an IT guy, I like binary. There are a few dimmer switches left in the place but only because I haven't got round to replacing them.

I feel like I'd play around with such things for a day or two and then never change their settings (from white on/off) ever again. What do you true aficionados do with them?

Couple of things, although some plain white can actually do the color temperature shift. The color temp can be very nice, since it can be more yellow (warmer) in the evening which helps your body signal it's not morning, it's evening (circadian rhythm) and also can ease eye strain (especially on a monitor), or more blue (cooler) in the morning to match daylight.

The RGB can just make for fun changes in colors. So say you're doing a theme party, can add ambiance and can even sync up with music potentially. Although I don't plan to have strobing, just color-shift perhaps. That's my thoughts on RGBW vs warm white/cool white or just white bulbs. I feel the WW/CW is definitely something to consider/look into though, vs just 1 color temp.

I'm also aiming to add some sensors so when someone leaves the room, it dims the lights (if currently on), and then brightens them when someone walks into the room. That's a far off project though, although I think it'll be pretty neat.


I'm going to play with Mycroft (Picroft) this weekend, got an RPi4 and Seeed Studio 6-mic array intended for these voice projects. If it works well, I figure I'll probably get at least 2, maybe 3 or 4. Definitely one for outside and one for the apartment (small apartment). Might add 1 for my bedroom separately though.

 

[Vastamious]

OK, light bulbs, I'm thinking Sengled or Lifx. Anyone have experience with either? Or other, preferably moderate cost RGBW bulbs? Needs to play well with https://www.home-assistant.io as that's what I'm planning on using.

While this is from a year ago, the chart with lumens/etc I expect to be largely accurate. The Lifx and Sengled both seem pretty good in terms of lumen/control, although Lifx has a much wider color temp they claim to be able to reproduce which is nice.

I'm OK with zigbee stuff as well, there's a variety of HA zigbee/zigbee2mqtt hardware/hacks out there for me to try.

I figure I'll start with 1 bulb, get it integrated and working, and then move on from there.

I think I must be weird, or losing my geek credentials, but I just don't get this RGBW home automation stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like lights, I have lots of them in my house, but for the most part they're plain old white LEDs that can be on or off - I'm an IT guy, I like binary. There are a few dimmer switches left in the place but only because I haven't got round to replacing them.

I feel like I'd play around with such things for a day or two and then never change their settings (from white on/off) ever again. What do you true aficionados do with them?

Well that was dumb quoting and submitting on my part.

I have strips on my top shelf that reflect off the ceiling that I'll change depending on whatever. I have it on a very slow chase so it changes depending of the holiday/sports team when I feel like it. Currently red/blue for memorial day and likely that way until after the fourth.

 

[ChaoticUnreal]

OK, light bulbs, I'm thinking Sengled or Lifx. Anyone have experience with either? Or other, preferably moderate cost RGBW bulbs? Needs to play well with https://www.home-assistant.io as that's what I'm planning on using.

While this is from a year ago, the chart with lumens/etc I expect to be largely accurate. The Lifx and Sengled both seem pretty good in terms of lumen/control, although Lifx has a much wider color temp they claim to be able to reproduce which is nice.

I'm OK with zigbee stuff as well, there's a variety of HA zigbee/zigbee2mqtt hardware/hacks out there for me to try.

I figure I'll start with 1 bulb, get it integrated and working, and then move on from there.

I have 4 of these which can (could be when I bought them in January 2020 anyways) be flashed with tuya convert and then controlled over MQTT. I also have 4 of these Sengled ones. They were the first bulbs the wife bought me with a smart things hub (~2 years ago now) I had some issues with zigbee range but after adding a zigbee repeaters and zigbee wall plug (both from ikea) they have been rock solid. Those ones don't do color however.

I use Home Assistant with both of those so can attest they work fine.

I've mostly switched off of using bulbs since I didn't need RGB (the 4 RGB bulbs are in side lamps, 1 of which is used as a sleeping clock for my kids (dimmed red when they should be sleeping and green when they can be awake)) besides the specific use I just don't use the colors as much. I've thought of using the ones in the lamps near my bed as an indicator of the weather for the day (blue for rain/snow, red for over XXX temp) but I haven't got around to that yet.

 

[Scotttheking]

OK, light bulbs, I'm thinking Sengled or Lifx. Anyone have experience with either? Or other, preferably moderate cost RGBW bulbs? Needs to play well with https://www.home-assistant.io as that's what I'm planning on using.

While this is from a year ago, the chart with lumens/etc I expect to be largely accurate. The Lifx and Sengled both seem pretty good in terms of lumen/control, although Lifx has a much wider color temp they claim to be able to reproduce which is nice.

I'm OK with zigbee stuff as well, there's a variety of HA zigbee/zigbee2mqtt hardware/hacks out there for me to try.

I figure I'll start with 1 bulb, get it integrated and working, and then move on from there.

I think I must be weird, or losing my geek credentials, but I just don't get this RGBW home automation stuff. Don't get me wrong, I like lights, I have lots of them in my house, but for the most part they're plain old white LEDs that can be on or off - I'm an IT guy, I like binary. There are a few dimmer switches left in the place but only because I haven't got round to replacing them.

I feel like I'd play around with such things for a day or two and then never change their settings (from white on/off) ever again. What do you true aficionados do with them?

I use a mix of white and RGB bulbs. Color helps - red light is easy to sleep through so makes a good night light, going to bed lights is a soft red shift, etc. The hallway, however, is a white bulb.

 

[w00key]

My biggest issue with RGB bulbs is that the white quality is often crap. I use CRI90 bulbs where possible, that means fancy dimmable white bulbs or the IKEA tradfri dimmable whites.

I have some adjustable white bulbs in the bedroom and hallway, they are nice at night at the warmest setting, but the quality of the 2700K middle color temperature is meh. Not really bad, but certainly worse because it runs both the super warm and cold leds together.

IKEA surprisingly upgraded most of their range to CRI90 a while ago, it's my go to vendor now. The only other I have is the Philips MasterLED / ExpertColor range, it's maybe a little bit better but hard to tell the difference unless you have them right next to each other. Costs a lot more too.


So yeah, use colors for colors, but keep main lighting just plain white.

 

[Drizzt321]

Yea, agree, a lot of them don't have very high CRI on the RGBW.

 

[kperrier]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzhLFpG71Rc This Broadlink bulb (and a new upcoming home automation hub) has me excited. I hope its can be work with Home Assistant without flashing firmware.

 

[Drizzt321]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzhLFpG71Rc This Broadlink bulb (and a new upcoming home automation hub) has me excited. I hope its can be work with Home Assistant without flashing firmware.

I can see the utility for most people for the sharing of connection info with each other to automatically join the network. However, I have some serious questions as to the security of it. Also, is there any way to turn OFF the mesh features? Can be useful, yes, what if I don't want/need? I'd prefer not to have a bunch of stuff out there like that.

The having a web-based built-in AP configuration bit I think is awesome though.


Side note, anyone see the hoverboard in the background? DOPE!

 

[Drizzt321]

So just got a little ESP8266 and temp/humidity sensor. How do ya'll log/store that data? What tools? Pull? Push? I'd prefer push from the device, that way it can spend most of it's time sleeping disconnected and eventually possibly do it off a battery, possibly.

 

[w00key]

So just got a little ESP8266 and temp/humidity sensor. How do ya'll log/store that data? What tools? Pull? Push? I'd prefer push from the device, that way it can spend most of it's time sleeping disconnected and eventually possibly do it off a battery, possibly.

I would like to know if anyone does that in prod too. I've played with SensorPush (+gateway), and the Inkbird BT sensor, but both have a combination of crap range, crap app and crap gateway. I now use SensorPush to monitor walk in fridge/freezers, but when they are closed, double layer steel or aluminium plus thick PUR insulation kills the signal.

I briefly played with an ESP8266 but dislike that I need to burn in the SSID into the flash, or need to enter the connection settings using morse code...


I dream of an open source ESP32 thermometer ROM that talks to 1 wire probes, talks BT GATT for configuration (press pairing button, enter SSID/remote MQTT configuration using app), in a sturdy box with 1y+ battery life on a 18650, or POE.


Alternatively, build the cheapest battery powered bridge between 1 wire and NRF24, transmit to a RPi that does housekeeping / discovery and send it to the interwebs. Temperatures are read only anyway, who cares about encryption and security?

 

[Drizzt321]

So just got a little ESP8266 and temp/humidity sensor. How do ya'll log/store that data? What tools? Pull? Push? I'd prefer push from the device, that way it can spend most of it's time sleeping disconnected and eventually possibly do it off a battery, possibly.

I would like to know if anyone does that in prod too. I've played with SensorPush (+gateway), and the Inkbird BT sensor, but both have a combination of crap range, crap app and crap gateway. I now use SensorPush to monitor walk in fridge/freezers, but when they are closed, double layer steel or aluminium plus thick PUR insulation kills the signal.

I briefly played with an ESP8266 but dislike that I need to burn in the SSID into the flash, or need to enter the connection settings using morse code...


I dream of an open source ESP32 thermometer ROM that talks to 1 wire probes, talks BT GATT for configuration (press pairing button, enter SSID/remote MQTT configuration using app), in a sturdy box with 1y+ battery life on a 18650, or POE.


Alternatively, build the cheapest battery powered bridge between 1 wire and NRF24, transmit to a RPi that does housekeeping / discovery and send it to the interwebs. Temperatures are read only anyway, who cares about encryption and security?

Ah, SensorPush is sold as hardware/SaaS stuff. Meh.

Yeah...I really should play/figure out my IoT VLAN and ROAS and getting the HomeAssistant dual-homed. So it sits on both VLANs.

ESPHome would be nice if it could do the same "connect to AP to configure" thing. However, at the same time, if you're doing ESPHome you obviously are flashing stuff and so you're _already_ doing manual setup/work. So unless you're doing a changeover to different SSID/password, you basically are just doing it once.

EDIT: Hmmm, https://www.mysensors.org/ looks interesting.

 

[Amos]

So just got a little ESP8266 and temp/humidity sensor. How do ya'll log/store that data? What tools? Pull? Push? I'd prefer push from the device, that way it can spend most of it's time sleeping disconnected and eventually possibly do it off a battery, possibly.

Push to an MQ server. Here's some code I adapted from a couple of tutorials. ESP8266 + DHT22 with a web page and pushing to an MQ

https://pastebin.com/qZTts6C6


Then I have a script to monitor MQ and save values to an RRD file to make graphs later and send an email if the sensor exceeds a certain value:

https://pastebin.com/FqqSbc8W

 

[Drizzt321]

Perl. How old school

Thanks, although I don't have MQTT up yet, nor even HA up yet. I'm running into big troubles getting the VM image to boot fully under FreeBSD bhyve

 

[kperrier]

How about InfluxDB and Grafana? You can do it inside of Home Assistant now too.

 

[Drizzt321]

How about InfluxDB and Grafana? You can do it inside of Home Assistant now too.

Hmmm, InfluxDB with Telegraf to handle the input endpoint could work. Probably MQTT is best, since that integrates handily with all the rest of the HA system and things like it. But that again, more or less depends on the HA image booting up properly *grrrr* It works fine on FreeNAS11.3, why not on FreeBSD 12?!!

 

[Deleted member 46272]

So just got a little ESP8266 and temp/humidity sensor. How do ya'll log/store that data? What tools? Pull? Push? I'd prefer push from the device, that way it can spend most of it's time sleeping disconnected and eventually possibly do it off a battery, possibly.

I would like to know if anyone does that in prod too. I've played with SensorPush (+gateway), and the Inkbird BT sensor, but both have a combination of crap range, crap app and crap gateway. I now use SensorPush to monitor walk in fridge/freezers, but when they are closed, double layer steel or aluminium plus thick PUR insulation kills the signal.

I briefly played with an ESP8266 but dislike that I need to burn in the SSID into the flash, or need to enter the connection settings using morse code...


I dream of an open source ESP32 thermometer ROM that talks to 1 wire probes, talks BT GATT for configuration (press pairing button, enter SSID/remote MQTT configuration using app), in a sturdy box with 1y+ battery life on a 18650, or POE.


Alternatively, build the cheapest battery powered bridge between 1 wire and NRF24, transmit to a RPi that does housekeeping / discovery and send it to the interwebs. Temperatures are read only anyway, who cares about encryption and security?

Ah, SensorPush is sold as hardware/SaaS stuff. Meh.

Yeah...I really should play/figure out my IoT VLAN and ROAS and getting the HomeAssistant dual-homed. So it sits on both VLANs.

ESPHome would be nice if it could do the same "connect to AP to configure" thing. However, at the same time, if you're doing ESPHome you obviously are flashing stuff and so you're _already_ doing manual setup/work. So unless you're doing a changeover to different SSID/password, you basically are just doing it once.

EDIT: Hmmm, https://www.mysensors.org/ looks interesting.

Can't speak to smart home automation, but I've supported the deployment of various LoRaWAN sensors in large commercial spaces. I'm not 100% sure of the brand of the temperature sensors we use, but the temperature probe is on a long thin wire so that the temperature device "brains" sit on the outside of the refrigerators, freezers, commercial ovens etc while the temp is taken safely on the inside. It's typically stuck on with metal duct tape (not duck tape). I know we pay around $40-50 per sensor, but that sensor includes the 5-7 year battery (depending on how often it broadcasts temp updates) sealed in it.

The cool thing with LoRaWAN tech is that the sensors can run for YEARS on a single battery with updates every 15 or 30 minutes, and the range is fantastic - hundreds of feet, and you can get sensors that measure everything you can possibly image - voltage, distance, light levels, humidity, weight, vibration, etc.

Check out:
https://www.chirpstack.io/project/
http://iotfactory.eu/products/private-lorawan-network/
https://os.mbed.com/docs/mbed-os/v6.2/a ... orial.html

I'll be honest - I set up the networking and routing for the LoraWAN gateways, and an outside vendor supplies the sensors we use. The network traffic goes to our corporate infrastructure over VPN tunnels, and that data is fed to a database that in-house applications act on. It's 100% private. I'm the networking guy that does the Cat5/6 cabling projects and network stuff and don't play with neitehr the Lora sensors nor the data side of things, but I do see how much this kind of automation is taking over in commercial environments.

 

[Drizzt321]

LoRaWAN is way overkill.

I've looked at LoRa in the past for some P2P/Mesh, and it seems great for low bandwidth, but challenging if you aren't explicitly in the commercial accepted use cases without being very DIY.

 

[Drizzt321]

I'm so excited!! I figured out how to boot the "HassOS" (Home Assistant pre-packaged image) in FreeBSD. Not FreeNAS, but stock, bare, FreeBSD. Turns out HA does a weird something with framebuffer or something or other, so that it doesn't output any of the kernel boot console stuff to standard console out which bhyve is expecting. Once I made that realization, using a VNC framebuffer setup on it and suddenly I could see/login at the console. So it was working before, I just hadn't realized this, so I wasn't checking my DHCP server for the MAC address to see if it had pulled an IP.

For those interested, https://community.home-assistant.io/t/installing-home-assistant-hassos-in-freebsd-bhyve-vm/223492

Now I can get some stuff going!

Including figuring out getting it up on a separate VLAN which the IoT stuff can be isolated to, AND my regular network VLAN so that my phone/etc can hit it, and it can reach the Internet for it's usual updates, Add-Ons, etc.

EDIT: Yippee! Got ESPHome on the Sonoff S31. Very cool! Looks like I should order some more And now to figure out the the multi-home or routed IoT non-Internet VLAN to Home-Assistant.

 

[w00key]

Does heating fall under this thread? TIL Honeywell Evohome's OpenTherm implementation is a bit stupid.

I finally stumbled on a thread that explains why the heater goes pedal to the metal every morning:

The real issue here is the fact that ANY zone less that 1.5C less that set point will kick the boiler into full. The OT Bridge then sets the requested flow temperature to 90C. That then makes the boiler ramp up to whatever the max might be. OT really works well when the house is constantly heated and the boiler just needs to tick along. Zones coming on at various times and then rooms cooling down etc all play havoc with the current implementation of OT. (source)

Great. At night when it's coldest outside there's no need to keep everything toasty, that just wastes a ton of gas, but in the morning, I like the bathroom at 22C and living room at 21C (for now, until I acclimatize to the winter season). If any zone has a 1.5C difference between setpoint and current temp, it goes to max.

Even worse, OpenTherm overrides the boiler control, I used to be able to set a heating water temperature value on the heater itself or on the dumber ChronoTherm Touch, but not on this one, this one is "smart".


I'm going to lobotomize it by switching the OT bridge for a wireless relais, it can only say yes heat or no heat, but not fuck up the other parameters like how much heat.

 

[Drizzt321]

Does heating fall under this thread? TIL Honeywell Evohome's OpenTherm implementation is a bit stupid.

I finally stumbled on a thread that explains why the heater goes pedal to the metal every morning:

The real issue here is the fact that ANY zone less that 1.5C less that set point will kick the boiler into full. The OT Bridge then sets the requested flow temperature to 90C. That then makes the boiler ramp up to whatever the max might be. OT really works well when the house is constantly heated and the boiler just needs to tick along. Zones coming on at various times and then rooms cooling down etc all play havoc with the current implementation of OT. (source)

Great. At night when it's coldest outside there's no need to keep everything toasty, that just wastes a ton of gas, but in the morning, I like the bathroom at 22C and living room at 21C (for now, until I acclimatize to the winter season). If any zone has a 1.5C difference between setpoint and current temp, it goes to max.

Even worse, OpenTherm overrides the boiler control, I used to be able to set a heating water temperature value on the heater itself or on the dumber ChronoTherm Touch, but not on this one, this one is "smart".


I'm going to lobotomize it by switching the OT bridge for a wireless relais, it can only say yes heat or no heat, but not fuck up the other parameters like how much heat.

Sure, if it has to do with home automation of basically any kind, stick it in here.

And that sounds like a really annoying, crazy system Why would I want the heating to go full blast if it's just a small increase of heat needed in a single zone? I dunno. Got to be a better way to do it.

 

[w00key]

I went down the rabbit hole with Evohome. So it works with a pretty standard 868 Mhz encoding, which means a ton of things work with it. So far, I've found USB adapters (NanoCUL + evofw3 firmware), a library for decoding (pip install evohome) and a huge thread on home-assistant.io with people duct-taping that to their HA installation.

Maybe there's a way to tame the OpenTherm behavior, I think I'll start by getting an USB stick so I can snoop on what's happening.


If that fails, there's always an option to mangle the OT commands in transit with OpenTherm Gateway, a device that you put between the boiler and the EvoHome RF-OT controller. That's a whole different rabbit hole, people are doing amazing things with that thing, but it seems to be so much work.

There's also an OpenTherm Arduino shield. Arduino's may not be a very deluxe computer but it's still a whole lot easier to program than PIC's. More parts that can fail though than a dedicated MITM board with a serial console.


Anyway, my needs/wants are:
- something that understands low/very low (water) temperature heating for savings.
- smart enough to begin heating in advance, and avoid over/undershooting the target, PID controller style.
- per room/zone control with existing radiator valves; that part seems easy with evohome_rf lib.
- and talks over OpenTherm with the boiler (optimal) or just dumb relay (system should tell me to turn water temp up/down)

EvoHome currently does #3 and a bit of #4. It it said that it learns how to do #2, but it overshoots the target temp because of the boiler running at max, this morning it went from 20.9C to 21.6C in 45 minutes with target=21C in the living room, that's an extreme response for 0.1C difference.

Lobotomizing it (€65 for the relay module) fixes #1-3 I guess, and #4b can be done with a 868Mhz sniffer and listening for how long the boiler runs, like if duty cycle > 4h per day, or inside temp never reaches target temp, water needs to be hotter, send an email.

 

[Badaboom]

Smart lights/switches. Wall of text incoming.

So in the past I've been all in on the "make the switch smart, not the light" train. It's easier for on/off use, and it's cheaper.

Well our basement remodel is one the tail end of completion, and I find myself interested in some of the features available on smart lighting. Nearly all of this will be 4 or 6" downlighting (cans). Phillips Hue makes the gold standard product, but they're expensive as hell unless ($35 white, $56 color) you go with BR30 bulbs and existing trims. Overall I'm looking at ~17 lights to deal with. I say approximately because I don't need color for the office lights, and I could probably do without it for the exercise room as well.

I'm interested in being able to vary the white color in the basement over the course of the day (or for different applications). Our basement does not have a walk out, and there's only one window. During the day a warm/soft white is just too yellow and makes the area feel like a dungeon. At night, I don't really care for the cool/daylight colors. The prospect of different colors (RGB) is interesting as well, but I'm not sure if that's more of a novelty or a real need/want. I do plan on creating scenes for different activities with voice control. This is more of a testbed for other areas of our house, but don't tell my wife that.

Additionally, I'm looking at smart switches that let you bypass the relay to be always on, so the switch will interact with the controller, and the controller will turn bulbs on/off in groups. That way I don't end up with the "the switch is off and the bulb won't turn on with voice control" issue. I've found a few that will do that in the $30/switch range. If I could find a mains powered dummy switch, I'd be fine with that. Nothing in this control group needs a physical disconnect. The switches are solely for wife/kid/visitor approval factor.

Questions:

How awful of an idea is it to go with wifi smart devices? I can get downlights (I bought one of these to play with and it works reasonably well) that are wifi smart for like $20 apiece. 90% of my stuff is z-wave and will ultimately be controlled with smartthings/iftt.

Is there a recommended switch that I'm missing? Just a mains powered plate that can talk to a hub? If it's not cheaper than $30 apiece I'll just go with the z-wave ones. I see a hue one, but it's like $70. I have two 3-gang locations, one 2-gang location, and 1 single-gang location (plus a few other options to make things more complex for no reason ).

Are there better products for the downlights than the ones I linked above that are more reasonably priced than Hue stuff? I'd like to stay away from wifi smart (z-wave/zigbee/etc preferred), but I also don't have the green light to drop a grand on lights.

 

[Drizzt321]

So there are some BR30 WiFi bulbs, you probably can find one that Tuya-Convert can convert, and install ESP-Home or Tasmota to connect into your HA system. That's my plan, although not necessarily the BR30 bulbs, but in general.

 

[Badaboom]

I had seen some stuff about tasmota on those bulbs elsewhere, but I was completely lost at the time. So I guess I'll start with a question and then roll into what I did. Is the point of tasmota to provide an alternate interface to the vendor's software/cloud tool to control your devices from? Prior to screwing with it I had to run their software and then tie it into smartthings. It worked, but it was "yet another random web service required for my stuff to work."

Now on to what I did.
I found this page:
https://banica.org/articles/globe-rgbw/index.html

It pointed me to tasmota as well. While the specific unit I have isn't listed, the 4" version of it is (model 50078 instead of 50079). I found an old wifi adapter, plugged it into my ubuntu server, manged to get drivers sorted out, then I got the git version of tuya-convert to work. The instructions worked pretty well, and after some additional troubleshooting due to me being barely functional with ubuntu, I managed to flash the bulb.

I used the template for the 4" light, and things seem to be working. I've set them to be non-obnoxious colors for now while I figure out WTF I'm doing now.

{"NAME":"GlobeRGBWW","GPIO":[0,0,0,0,37,40,0,0,38,41,39,0,0],"FLAG":0,"BASE":18}

Time to figure out how to actually use this and set it up so that I can use voice integration.

Edit:
Got it working. That was far easier than I thought it would be.
Followed these instructions:
https://github.com/hongtat/tasmota-connect

I added it to smartthings as a generic light (rgbw). I'll need to go back and set a static IP for the device, and then I need to set a non-trivial password. But right now voice control works through Alexa just like it did before flashing any firmware.

So for $20 and a little bit of effort, I've got a product that I'm relatively happy with. I'm not looking forward to flashing 17 of them, but I'll make it work.

 

[Drizzt321]

You bought them just recently? Because in at least some cases some of those Tuya devices have a newer firmware which can't be OTA flashed. The 13W Novostella I bought wouldn't work, sadly.