Home Assistant Thread

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hairy1

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#278498 19-Oct-2020 17:25

I thought some GZ'ers might like to share their Home Assistant set ups and use cases.

I have been dabbling with Home Assistant for a while now and it has come a very long way. It's not for mainstream yet however the frustration levels have definitely dropped significantly over the last 12 months.

I have the following integrations in my set up:

Konnected burgler alarm
Smart lock front door
Heaps of LED light strips (I think I have some sort of addiction problem with this...)
A few Shelly's behind switches
Person tracking with Life360
Smart Garage door with OpenGarage
Camera integration via Blue Iris and AI detection with Deepstack (best thing ever)
Time to and from work from Google
Smart Heat pump via SmartIR and Broadlink
433 MHz RFlink

Plus more probably.

The best integration is the heat pump....

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

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#2587902 19-Oct-2020 17:59

My favourite integration isn't an integration at all - I'm using RESTful to pull the current state from my Zappi EVSE. That gives me the current power draw and solar generation for the house, as well as charging speed for my Electric Car.

The Zappi automatically adjusts how fast it charges the car to match spare capacity of the solar - but this lets me go just the extra step further and turn on / off other devices in the house where there's spare capacity. Also to change the colour of a few LiFX Lights to show that there's excess power available if you need to run the dishwasher etc.

I'm also running deCONZ for my Zigbee network

deCONZ Docker Container + Home Assistant Integration
Philips Hue Outdoor Bulbs
Xiaomi Door / Window Sensors
Xiaomi Temperature / Humidity Sensors

Other basic integrations:

Brother Printer (Toner Status)
Daikin Heatpumps
Denon Receiver
VMware Lab Status (Can also shut it down overnight)
Google Chromecasts
iPhone (For Location Tracking)
Apple Homekit (For Siri Control)
iSmartGate Garage Door Opener
LiFX Light Bulbs
Nanoleaf Panels
Plex
Ring (Doorbell & Security Cameras)
Samsung & LG TVs
Solaredge Solar Panels
Spotify
TP Link Power Switches
Unifi (Presence Detection & Bandwidth Graphs)
Volkswagen (Car Status Tracking & Remote Climate Control)
myenergi (Car Charging & Energy Monitoring)
Netatmo (Temperature, CO2, Rain)
Rollease Automate (Blinds)

I'm still waiting very patiently for my Konnected pro to arrive. Very soon hopefully!

My favourite Automations are:

Close the blinds in the Family Room based on the Azimuth and Elevation of the sun
Turn on / Off the Air Conditioning based on the average temperature throughout the house or if any doors and windows are open
Clone the temperature across multiple Heat Pumps so they aren't accidentally fighting against each other

A couple of tips for newbies!

If you haven't found Microsoft's Visual Studio Code yet - it makes yaml an awful lot easier
Don't argue, just use Docker
Switch to a Mariadb sooner rather than later. It's SOO much faster than then built-in sqlite
"Choose" got added to native Automations in a recent release. It's like Case statements for the programmers out there

I work for a global Data Protection Software company - But my opinions are my own.

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mattenz

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#2587967 19-Oct-2020 18:55

I'm just kind of starting out, mainly got a few TP-Link smart switches, temperature sensors, and a Valetudo vacuum. Running in Docker under Unraid, MariaDB was definitely a performance improver (and good for using the data down the line).

Really hoping to get more PoE stuff going, but that's a bit niche, so there will be abit of DIY.

dt

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#2587973 19-Oct-2020 19:05

hairy1:

Camera integration via Blue Iris and AI detection with Deepstack (best thing ever)

I watched a setup vid of this a few weeks ago, really looking forward to my new POE cameras to arrive so I can give it a crack because it looks frikken amazing !

hairy1

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#2587980 19-Oct-2020 19:29

dt:
hairy1:

Camera integration via Blue Iris and AI detection with Deepstack (best thing ever)

I watched a setup vid of this a few weeks ago, really looking forward to my new POE cameras to arrive so I can give it a crack because it looks frikken amazing !

I am using a DeepQuest custom component in HACS so this avoids having to use the PC based app that The Hook Up video is using. Let me know if you get stuck.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

hairy1

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#2587981 19-Oct-2020 19:30

Also... Node-red is great for automations. Very intuitive.

My views (except when I am looking out their windows) are not those of my employer.

Killerkiwi2005

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#2588009 19-Oct-2020 21:16

Setup for my cousin with visual disability

Amazon echo
Zigbee light switches
Fujitsu aircon
Garage door opener
Tv control
Sky control / irb hub
Ifttt / sms to control garage door

Gotchas... 5g wifi alot of devices dont like it
Sometimes suppliers will upgade there apps/firmware and the alexa connections will break

davidcole

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#2588014 19-Oct-2020 21:31

Killerkiwi2005: Setup for my cousin with visual disability

Amazon echo
Zigbee light switches
Fujitsu aircon
Garage door opener
Tv control
Sky control / irb hub
Ifttt / sms to control garage door

Gotchas... 5g wifi alot of devices dont like it
Sometimes suppliers will upgade there apps/firmware and the alexa connections will break

another huge gotcha - more an issue when your whole house is vm rolled, is devices using the internet. Avoid it if you can and look for local controllable devices. If you can shut off your internet and still run your house, this is the IMO, goal.

Previously known as psycik

Home Assistant: Gigabyte AMD A8 Brix, Home Assistant with Aeotech ZWave Controller, Raspberry PI, Wemos D1 Mini, Zwave, Shelly Humidity and Temperature sensors
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kiwifidget

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#2588019 19-Oct-2020 21:41

hairy1:

Heaps of LED light strips (I think I have some sort of addiction problem with this...)

Put some on the outside and you've got xmas sorted.

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hairy1

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#2588025 19-Oct-2020 21:59

I guess it will complement the 70 odd metres that are already out there.... Hehe

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kiwifidget

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#2588028 19-Oct-2020 22:04

I left some of mine up from last year, and they've gone rusty.

Must turn them back on and see if they still work.

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Loudsilvereel

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#2591963 26-Oct-2020 09:46

I’ve been growing my Home Assistant setup since starting it this year.

Previously I was doing most smart home things via HomeBridge for HomeKit, and a few off the shelf integrations with Alexa (e.g. Philips Hue)

HomeKit was just way too restrictive for custom automations, so I moved to Home Assistant.

Home Assistant set up now:

Running on Raspberry Pi 4
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries heat pump by serial data to MQTT over WiFi
Philips Hue Lights
Sonoff Basic with Tasmota for some kitchen lights and an outdoor spotlight (relay)
Sonoff LV with Tasmota for Garage door opening and status
ESP-01 with Tasmota and a custom PWM driver for brightness control of some generic 12v led garden lights
Zigbee2MQTT on CC2531 stick for some bulbs, window/door contact sensors, buttons, PIR, and temp/humidity sensors.
Wemos D1 with Tasmota for a microswitch to see if my front door dumb deadbolt is locked
Shelly 1 on a couple of towel rails
Shelly 1 to convert a generic motion spotlight to a ‘smart’ one by decoupling the light from the sensor
Shelly1PM on my hot water and heat pumps to measure the power usage
Read HRV status from serial data to MQTT (work in progress using Chimera’s instructions)
Logitech Harmony Hub for living room tv, media etc
Camera feeds and motion events from BlueIris to display on dashboard and send push notifications
Optical pulse counter on the power revenue meter for kWh data via ESPHome
PZEM by current clamp on the incoming power (Power, Power Factor, Voltage)
Bunnings Arlec wifi smart socket with power metering (TUYA) on the Dryer
ASUS RT56 router integration for some presence detection and stats
Sony Bravia TV Integration
Some WLED (aircookie) controlled addressable LED strips
InfluxDB and Grafana for graphs / dashboards
HomeKit Bridge to bring everything back to HomeKit for Siri control (phones and HomePod)

Getting waaay too carried away with this, it’s got me hooked.

Louis

joemate

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#2592010 26-Oct-2020 13:31

After ~2 years of HA, here's a list of the devices, integrations and addons I am using:

My HA is running on proxmox, hosted on my IBM x3550 M4 server.

Garadget to control and monitor the garage door
- 10 minutes open garage reminder + IPcam snapshot alert to Telegaram
a lot of IKEA tradfri bulbs
4 Xiaomi RGB bulbs
Xiaomi LED strip
Nanoleaf
PWS, capturing packages with weewx and feeding HA via MQTT
- wind and temperature alerts via Telegram
multiple noname 5v LED strips controlled by WLED
7 xiaomi BLE flora sensors - communicating with 2 ESP32's
2x Sonoff basic
4x xiaomi push buttons (round)
4x Tradfri remotes (5 button)
deconz zigbee usb stick
multiple xiaomi window/door sensors
multiple xiaomi motion sensors
xiaomi vacuum gen1 running Valetudo
influxdb/grafana
AdGuard integration (running in a separate CT)
my own waste sensor based on the scrape platform
hikvision NVR integration
ESP home
- xiaomi flora
- heat pump
- multiple temp and humidity sensors
geonet integration
Goldair Climate integration
Google cast integration
- audio alerts on door/window open and the A/C is on
- doorbell
MQTT
PLEX integration
Scheduler integration - I think is the most discussed and developed integration during the last week. HA really needs this integrated
Speedtest
Unifi integration - to monitor my two APs
HACS
BWAlarm
a bunch of cards to improve the lovelace experience

To do:

solenoids and sprinkler system
Bunnings DETA switches and downlights, in case it can be flashed with Tuya Convert - if not, it is FTDI time (again)
eventually some xmas LED show - pending WAF
find out if the mitre-10 Orbit bulbs (ex iGlo) are flashable with any custom firmware

prob

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#2626635 25-Dec-2020 09:00

How difficult is it to connect the house power to a PZEM current clamp ? I assume I will need help from an electrician ?

Merry Christmas !

Loudsilvereel

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#2626640 25-Dec-2020 09:22

prob:
How difficult is it to connect the house power to a PZEM current clamp ? I assume I will need help from an electrician ?

Merry Christmas !

It’s probably not a straight answer.
You could have an already built box with the PZEM’s 230v wiring completed and fitted with a standard plug, and just plug it into an extension lead. The making of box is probably subject to some rules.
The current clamp itself can be clipped on to the main phase wire without touching anything live.

prob

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#2626773 26-Dec-2020 08:21

Loudsilvereel:
prob:

How difficult is it to connect the house power to a PZEM current clamp ? I assume I will need help from an electrician ?

Merry Christmas !

It’s probably not a straight answer.
You could have an already built box with the PZEM’s 230v wiring completed and fitted with a standard plug, and just plug it into an extension lead. The making of box is probably subject to some rules.
The current clamp itself can be clipped on to the main phase wire without touching anything live.

Thanks for that. Was thinking of monitoring household use rather than via extension lead.

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