Advice on starting out with basic smart home

V

Vetseun

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2007
Messages
124
Reaction score
26
We’re just about to finish up some renovations and I want to implement a few basic smart things around the house to control a handful of lights, a plug for switching on espresso machine and our geyser.

For the light switches and plugs shelly seems like a good solution as I have neutral wires behind all light switches.
For the geyser I want to install a CBI astute isolator next to geyser in roof.

My wife and I both use iPhones and I want to make the as simple as possible to use. I was thinking:
  • Run Home Assistant on a Rpi4 to connect to relays and isolator for geyser
  • Configure Home Assistant to be accessed via Apple Home app, so that we can use it natively on iPhone.
Will that work? Am I missing anything here? This is obviously still wifi based, while all the cool kids on the internet are all punting zigbee or z-wave, but I don’t see anything locally that allows for either of zigbee/z-wave?
 
Looks like you are on a good road there. You could consider sonoff instead of Shelly, but both will do more than adequately.

I'm not an iPhone guy so can't comment on that although the home assistant app for Android is great. I'm sure the iOS one will work well too.
 
MidnightZA said:
This may be a problem if your internet is ever down and you need manually switch on the geyser.
Click to expand...
If he's using home assistant he won't need internet. But yes, if his server is down he'll need to hop in the roof.
 
Another option for the geyser is a Shelly 1PM which will allow you to turn it on/off as well as measure the power usage. It's good for 16A or 3.5kw.
 
Speedster said:
If he's using home assistant he won't need internet. But yes, if his server is down he'll need to hop in the roof.
Click to expand...

Does the official tuya intergration have local support now?
Im using localtuya and it took a internet outage for me to actually get it set up.
 
Vetseun said:
We’re just about to finish up some renovations and I want to implement a few basic smart things around the house to control a handful of lights, a plug for switching on espresso machine and our geyser.

For the light switches and plugs shelly seems like a good solution as I have neutral wires behind all light switches.
For the geyser I want to install a CBI astute isolator next to geyser in roof.

My wife and I both use iPhones and I want to make the as simple as possible to use. I was thinking:
  • Run Home Assistant on a Rpi4 to connect to relays and isolator for geyser
  • Configure Home Assistant to be accessed via Apple Home app, so that we can use it natively on iPhone.
Will that work? Am I missing anything here? This is obviously still wifi based, while all the cool kids on the internet are all punting zigbee or z-wave, but I don’t see anything locally that allows for either of zigbee/z-wave?
Click to expand...

Similar to what I had setup, except we have a gas geyser so I mainly had lights and appliances along with our garage door connected via various Sonoff smart switches, until the RPi I was using had it's SD card fail at the same time our main WiFi router decided the admin password was no longer the admin password despite being the admin password. I never bothered to get it back up and running so have just been using eWelink which works OK but no where near as well as HA so I'll get HA up and running again in our new house after we have moved and settled in.
 
Thanks for all the feedback!!

Wifi stays up during loadshedding, but the astute switch in the roof will lose power, so I'm assuming the wifi connection will still drop and therefore still be an issue and need resetting?

I actually haven't thought about keeping the Rpi powered / home assistant running during loadshedding. Will need to look into that.
 
Muffin said:
Another option for the geyser is a Shelly 1PM which will allow you to turn it on/off as well as measure the power usage. It's good for 16A or 3.5kw.
Click to expand...
I hadn't thought about this, but it just feels like the little shelly isn't beefy enough for a geyser? Or am I being paranoid?
 
Alternative water should be top of mind. Second to that, alternative power (along with power use reduction / savings). Then security, ensure that the perimeter is well secured, and that cable runs are done for monitoring devices.
 
Vetseun said:
I hadn't thought about this, but it just feels like the little shelly isn't beefy enough for a geyser? Or am I being paranoid?
Click to expand...
It's rated for that and other people on this forum have used it as well. I've been using it for almost 2 months and its magic smoke has not escaped yet nor have I observed any melted puddles of plastic. My house is still standing too. :)
 
Muffin said:
It's rated for that and other people on this forum have used it as well. I've been using it for almost 2 months and its magic smoke has not escaped yet nor have I observed any melted puddles of plastic. My house is still standing too. :)
Click to expand...
Cool! Installed at db or in roof?
 
MidnightZA said:
Does the official tuya intergration have local support now?
Im using localtuya and it took a internet outage for me to actually get it set up.
Click to expand...
I don't think official guys has local support, but why would he use that instead of localtuya?
 
Vetseun said:
Cool! Installed at db or in roof?
Click to expand...
Mine is installed in my DB. The feed into the geyser switch was redirected to the Shelly 1PM. The output from the Shelly 1PM goes into the geyser switch, which then feeds power into the roof where my geyser is situated. You can even add an additional push button switch onto the Shelly 1PM to trigger the geyser on/off if your wifi is down. My wifi stays online during loadshedding so I didn't need anything like that yet. Besides, if the power is off then the geyser will be down anyway. Once you have that you can schedule any running times you like. Feel free to ask me if you need guidance on the wiring on the Shelly 1PM since there's conflicting information out there.
 
Mzezman said:
Which guide did you use?
Click to expand...

Either of these 2 videos. Both show as watched when I searched for localtuya. The video is a year old. I doubt the process changed much, but IIRC the tuya dev site layout changed in that time and one of the parameters was difficult to find.


 
Muffin said:
Mine is installed in my DB. The feed into the geyser switch was redirected to the Shelly 1PM. The output from the Shelly 1PM goes into the geyser switch, which then feeds power into the roof where my geyser is situated. You can even add an additional push button switch onto the Shelly 1PM to trigger the geyser on/off if your wifi is down. My wifi stays online during loadshedding so I didn't need anything like that yet. Besides, if the power is off then the geyser will be down anyway. Once you have that you can schedule any running times you like. Feel free to ask me if you need guidance on the wiring on the Shelly 1PM since there's conflicting information out there.
Click to expand...
Hi any advise I tried wiring this up and for some reason I just can't get a correct reading. Shelly is report 4-6w any idea what I'm doing wrong? Did the same with my pool pump and it works a treat..!

I have neutral from the DB, then I'm taking the Live after the isolator into "L" then returning to the 150L Geyser on "O". I will try my clamp meter tonight, and check whats on each line, unless someone knows what going on..???


1.jpg2.jpg3.jpg
 
Black to N, Red to L (or L1). These are to supply power to the Shelly as well as switch L outbound on Blue, ie. Red runs via the Shelly to your output on Blue. You need to run a separate N to the geyser. You can use L or L1 on the Shelly for Red since apparently they're connected internally, but I prefer to use L since it's physically further away from N.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X