Your Latest Home Assistant Project

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4227 posts

Uber Geek

#3039178 20-Feb-2023 01:35

My last Home Assistant project? Hmmm, yes, everything unnecessary and too power-hungry has fallen victim to Occam's Razor and I'm happy to now only have important functions installed. You really have to be careful not to integrate every piece of plastic crap that is put in front of you as important. I switched off the internet access as a test and everything works self-sufficiently - just like my analog big Stelton petroleum ship's lantern. 🙂

- NET: FTTH, OPNsense, 10G backbone, GWN APs, ipPBX
- SRV: 12 RU HA server cluster, 0.1 PB storage on premise
- IoT: thread, zigbee, tasmota, BidCoS, LoRa, WX suite, IR
- 3D: two 3D printers, 3D scanner, CNC router, laser cutter

jonherries

1395 posts

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#3043754 1-Mar-2023 19:40

jonherries: Have been sitting on a project board to build an rf broadcaster for 4 years so just went and bought one of the broadlink pro devices.

Will be controlling skylights in our house.

Jon

So this arrived, the app can be trained to collect the codes and this works when I use the broadlink app to trigger the skylight.

However when I try to collect the hexcodes using a homebridge plugin I’m not having any luck collecting a code that works when I then broadcast using the plug in?

Using this homebridge plugin:

https://broadlink.kiwicam.nz/

Any thoughts? I wonder if maybe the learning process doesnt run long enough or the broadcast doesnt go long enough.

Will try the learning process a few more times to see how consistent the codes I am receiving are.

Jon

MonolithNZZ

20 posts

Geek

#3044386 3-Mar-2023 17:35

I've finally received my 2x Shelly Plus Smoke (smart smoke detectors). Not long after ordering them I decided I'd prefer a hard-wired solution. If anybody is interested in purchasing them then send me a PM. $80 each including shipping (that's what I paid for them) FYI they sold out and recently removed them from their store as they're currently waiting on having them UL listed.

Handle9

11388 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#3044412 3-Mar-2023 20:36

jonherries:
jonherries: Have been sitting on a project board to build an rf broadcaster for 4 years so just went and bought one of the broadlink pro devices.

Will be controlling skylights in our house.

Jon

So this arrived, the app can be trained to collect the codes and this works when I use the broadlink app to trigger the skylight.

However when I try to collect the hexcodes using a homebridge plugin I’m not having any luck collecting a code that works when I then broadcast using the plug in?

Using this homebridge plugin:

https://broadlink.kiwicam.nz/

Any thoughts? I wonder if maybe the learning process doesnt run long enough or the broadcast doesnt go long enough.

Will try the learning process a few more times to see how consistent the codes I am receiving are.

Jon

Are you running home assistant or just homebridge? Home assistant has a painful but pretty simple way to learn RF codes.

jonherries

1395 posts

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#3044420 3-Mar-2023 20:56

Running homebridge, I think the learning process is a bit broken. 5 runs at collecting codes produced 5 different outputs. I might need to make a home assistant instance to get the codes…

Jon

Handle9

11388 posts

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#3044425 3-Mar-2023 21:05

jonherries: Running homebridge, I think the learning process is a bit broken. 5 runs at collecting codes produced 5 different outputs. I might need to make a home assistant instance to get the codes…

Jon

It's probably easier. I ended up giving up on homebridge a while ago. It just isn't being developed in the same way home assistant is and the HomeKit integration on home assistant is pretty good.

peejayw

1841 posts

Uber Geek

#3044465 4-Mar-2023 08:43

Setting up presence detection using a LD2410B and ESP32 Bluetooth Proxy. A work in progress but at least I have printed the cases 😄

I'm supposed to respect my elders, but it's getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

Tradepub

Free professional, reference and technical white papers (affiliate link).

MonolithNZZ

20 posts

Geek

#3045962 5-Mar-2023 09:27

I'm new to Node-Red and spent a few hours yesterday putting together an automation for our robot vacuum.

At the end of each clean, the vacuum will check to see if total area cleaned has increased by a multiple of 60M2. If it has, and one of us is home during daylight hours, and the battery level is greater than 20%, it parks next to our bin and the person at home is notified. If we don’t empty it and then send it home within 3 hours, it returns itself to dock. If it finished a clean outside of daylight hours, it will go back to the dock, and when motion is detected in our living room the next morning, it will return to the rubbish bin. If we fail to empty it, we’re again notified.
If nobody was home when it finished cleaning, it will check to see if someone is home once a minute, and if someone arrives home during daylight hours, it will head back to the dustbin, once again for a max of 3 hours. If someone arrives home outside of daylight hours, it will wait for motion in the living room the next morning.

I've tested it a fair bit this morning and I think I've got all bases covered. It's funny how involved automations can become when you start to scrutinize all the different possibilities.

reven

3743 posts

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#3045965 5-Mar-2023 09:31

I was using node-red for rules instead of home automation, but I ended up having way too many flows, and the flows were getting out of hand. Switched over to use home assistant automations, im happy. I still have a couple in node-red for mqtt stuff thats just easier in node-red, but 95% of my stuff is now in home assistant.

And the blueprints are handy

MonolithNZZ

20 posts

Geek

#3045966 5-Mar-2023 09:32

peejayw:

Setting up presence detection using a LD2410B and ESP32 Bluetooth Proxy. A work in progress but at least I have printed the cases 😄

Awesome! Will be interested to hear your progress. I've ordered a zigbee MMwave detector to play with.

MonolithNZZ

20 posts

Geek

#3045969 5-Mar-2023 09:41

reven:

I was using node-red for rules instead of home automation, but I ended up having way too many flows, and the flows were getting out of hand. Switched over to use home assistant automations, im happy. I still have a couple in node-red for mqtt stuff thats just easier in node-red, but 95% of my stuff is now in home assistant.

And the blueprints are handy

Fair enough too. I'm really enjoying the visual representation of Node-Red, and I love the simplicity of copy/pasting groups of nodes around from flow to flow. I'll have to check out the HA automation blueprints 👍

eonsim

398 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#3045970 5-Mar-2023 09:47

I also had a go with NodeRed and didn't like it (too similar to the bad visual programming languages I've had to use), so switched to AppDaemon to code the automations in python which works better for me. However, over the last year have generally moved to the builtin HA automations for most simpler things, with appDaemon for more complicated ones.

SpookyAwol

626 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3045971 5-Mar-2023 09:51

I have a budget HRV which Ive never really got how it could be effective, transferring heat or cool at the right times.
Even with the control unit, it would blow hot air into a house when already hot, and cold air in when I wanted to keep it hot.

With HA, Ive automated it with a simple powered switch to turn the unit on / off. (It turns on to default speeds)

Now it operates based on the roof / internal temps and I can quite easily see when its cycling on and off with better temp control. Happy days :)

MarkM536

309 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3046003 5-Mar-2023 12:45

I have bought a DC voltage/current/watt meter which communicates over RS485.

This is connected to an ESP32 through a RS485 to serial module and the ESP32 is running code from ESPHome in Home Assistant.

Device is already supported through ESPHome https://esphome.io/components/sensor/pzemdc.html

This particular meter cost about $22 off AliExpress, and claims up to 300v and 10A. They make other units with an external shut resistor for higher current measurements.

The RS485 module is about $1.20 and ESP32 about $8.

Total: ~$30 NZD.

I plan to use this for many different projects as a way to measure a device and log over time.

My projects use a maximum of 65v DC and 5A, which is good because I don't trust this device's isolation! (Fuses will also be used).

I get data measurements out of Home Assistant by using the Google Spreadsheets integration.

SpookyAwol

626 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3046005 5-Mar-2023 12:54

reven:

I was using node-red for rules instead of home automation, but I ended up having way too many flows, and the flows were getting out of hand. Switched over to use home assistant automations, im happy. I still have a couple in node-red for mqtt stuff thats just easier in node-red, but 95% of my stuff is now in home assistant.

And the blueprints are handy

I did the same, love the graphical NR interface, but as HA automations mature, they are a lot more flexible than they used to be, and I get bored with controlling flows to the n'th degree after a while ;)

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