Home Automation - Smartkit

CraZee said:
Is doesn't matter. You can just use whatever the trigger normally uses into the relay. Relay outputs are isolated from the power supply anyway.
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We're talking about not using a relay ;)
 
calypso said:
Why would you want to control you geyser? One thats not used often?
I have a POW on a 2kw tumble dryer but i would be apprehensive to add one to a geyser?
Other option it to step the element down to a smaller one.
Click to expand...
Because I had bought those digital major tech timers for the geysers but there is no space to put them in my DB board. Then I saw all of this , and a IOT solution is even better cos then we can remotely turn on out of schedule if necessary - important when you have kids and you are tight like me with electricity .. for us 1- 1.5 hours of geyser on time is all we need . Right now I manually turn on and off the switches in the DB board.

If there is another IOT device that can safely and legally manage 3KW devices and that integrate with Alexa, Hass, I am all ears ! :)
 
CraZee said:
AAh yes you are correct. So why not use the onboard relay on the SV?
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I have tried using the onboard relay of the sonoff SV without success (in fact, I have melted one SV trying).

The problem is that the sonoff does not give the "NO" or "NC" signal, but rather passes the electricity on to the output side. Gate motor requires the use of a "NO" signal to be connected to the trigger input on the gate motor, in order for the gate to be, well, triggered (and thus opened or closed).

Sonoff basic and SV versions give the output in form of output electricity and not NO signal turning to closed by default.

One approach was/is to connect sonoff input + contact and output + contact to the gate trigger contacts (I am talking about the SV version now, which I have tried and melted the contacts on). Thus, when the sonoff SV is triggered, the input + and output + are shorted, which then triggers the trigger contact on gate motor (of course).

The problem with this approach is that the same + (coming from gate motor battery, and used as an input for the sonoff to function) is then effectively shorted directly to the gate motor's trigger contact (through the use of the sonoff SV) which then causes a short circuit within the gate motor. This is because this is also a "common +" on the gate motor.

The purpose of the additional relay is to physically separate the + on the gate motor battery (which is used to power the sonoff SV) and the trigger on the gate motor.

I am not sure if the above makes logical sense but that is the long and short of it.

[MENTION=111453]CraZee[/MENTION] if you have successfully managed to connect either the sonoff SV or sonoff basic without any additional relays, and it works, I would be most interested and grateful to hear how you have done it. thanks,
 
blueowl said:
I have tried using the onboard relay of the sonoff SV without success (in fact, I have melted one SV trying).

The problem is that the sonoff does not give the "NO" or "NC" signal, but rather passes the electricity on to the output side. Gate motor requires the use of a "NO" signal to be connected to the trigger input on the gate motor, in order for the gate to be, well, triggered (and thus opened or closed).

Sonoff basic and SV versions give the output in form of output electricity and not NO signal turning to closed by default.

One approach was/is to connect sonoff input + contact and output + contact to the gate trigger contacts (I am talking about the SV version now, which I have tried and melted the contacts on). Thus, when the sonoff SV is triggered, the input + and output + are shorted, which then triggers the trigger contact on gate motor (of course).

The problem with this approach is that the same + (coming from gate motor battery, and used as an input for the sonoff to function) is then effectively shorted directly to the gate motor's trigger contact (through the use of the sonoff SV) which then causes a short circuit within the gate motor. This is because this is also a "common +" on the gate motor.

The purpose of the additional relay is to physically separate the + on the gate motor battery (which is used to power the sonoff SV) and the trigger on the gate motor.

I am not sure if the above makes logical sense but that is the long and short of it.
[MENTION=111453]CraZee[/MENTION] if you have successfully managed to connect either the sonoff SV or sonoff basic without any additional relays, and it works, I would be most interested and grateful to hear how you have done it. thanks,
Click to expand...
Thanks for the insights . Much appreciated. To be sure, I should therefore us the SV with relay for any type of devices , e.g garage door motor, electric fence on/off trigger instead of a basic (as was my original plan). and to connect it in parallel with the sherlo receivers so that normal remotes and then also Hass io, etc could trigger it.
 
InternetLuddite said:
Thanks for the insights . Much appreciated. To be sure, I should therefore us the SV with relay for any type of devices , e.g garage door motor, electric fence on/off trigger instead of a basic (as was my original plan). and to connect it in parallel with the sherlo receivers so that normal remotes and then also Hass io, etc could trigger it.
Click to expand...

In short, yes. Some other thoughts/things to keep in mind:

- you could use the sonoff basic (with the relay as described previously) but would need to get a different (220V) relay (not sure about the relay price difference, but do think the sonoff basic is slightly cheaper than the SV)
- I have used the sonoff SV on my gate motor (Centurion D5 Evo) and garage door opener (an older pro-alpha 2000 unit) but it should work on most if not all motors that require a pulse trigger to open/close
- regardless of whether you use the sonoff basic or SV, they must be flashed with the tasmota (or similar) firmware, to allow the the "pulse" function (sonoff basic or SV units with factory firmware do not have this feature). Alternative is the sonoff "inching" model which does have the pulse feature with factory firmware and does not need to be flashed

Again, if others have successfully tested the sonoff basic or sonoff SV with the pulse feature, and/or on the gate or garage motor without the additional relay (to separate the relay contacts on the sonoff unit), I would be most interested to see their setups - you learn something new every day!
 
InternetLuddite said:
Because I had bought those digital major tech timers for the geysers but there is no space to put them in my DB board. Then I saw all of this , and a IOT solution is even better cos then we can remotely turn on out of schedule if necessary - important when you have kids and you are tight like me with electricity .. for us 1- 1.5 hours of geyser on time is all we need . Right now I manually turn on and off the switches in the DB board.

If there is another IOT device that can safely and legally manage 3KW devices and that integrate with Alexa, Hass, I am all ears ! :)
Click to expand...
But have you measured to see if it actually saves anything? Because your geyser just has to work extra hard to now heat up water which had cooled down a little. Mine uses 1kw a day to keep warm if there is no draw.
 
calypso said:
But have you measured to see if it actually saves anything? Because your geyser just has to work extra hard to now heat up water which had cooled down a little. Mine uses 1kw a day to keep warm if there is no draw.
Click to expand...
If I use your example, 1kw X 365 days = 365 KW X 2 geysers = 730kw = R1000 minimum so ROI on buying stuff is a factor too.

I have efergy monitoring my house for one year and i can say turning them off and then turning it on, for 60-90 minutes does reduces daily electricity usage by at least 2-3kw (house uses on average 23kw a day) depending on whether who is at home and using water. I need to test it again but the usage of heaters currently screw up my baseline.

The problem with normal timers is that on/off times are pretty static and fixed . Nightmare to change. At least with IOT, more options especially since I can't put normal timers in easy to reach place. Maybe I am looking for a solution where one is not needed .
 
You not saving the 1kw, you just shifting it up until when you turn the geyser back on, as it now as to heat up cooled water. But if you did the maths and it saves you some bucks then cool.
I also did the same experiment with the Efergy's split them onto their own meter and found hardly any saving. For me, I rather save the heat cycles. Different strokes for different folks.
 
calypso said:
You not saving the 1kw, you just shifting it up until when you turn the geyser back on, as it now as to heat up cooled water. But if you did the maths and it saves you some bucks then cool.
I also did the same experiment with the Efergy's split them onto their own meter and found hardly any saving. For me, I rather save the heat cycles. Different strokes for different folks.
Click to expand...
This is a classic example of it using more el electricity. My wife never turned off the geysers last night and they have been running all day, todays utilisation is already over 30kw. There have been spikes to 4-5kw all throughout the the day as hot water was used .. the spikes earlier in the week was a family guest staying over who left a heater on in her room turned on for 3 days .. I noticed the spikes two days ago and found the heater still on ..
Screenshot_20180803-200455.jpeg
 
I gave a sonoff basic to a mate of mine with an iphone.

he downloaded the required app for iphones but could not get the basic to link to his phone?

I connected to his wifi with his user name & password from my android phone and connected easily with the basic.

is there any issues when using iphones?
 
Tinuva said:
[MENTION=97943]SauRoNZA[/MENTION]

I am not sure if this was mentioned, but I believe this is something you been looking for:
https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt

Allows you to connect zigbee sensors to HA without having to buy a bridge device. You just need to get the CC2531 USB sniffer: https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/wiki/Getting-started


I know I am going to look into this!
Click to expand...
Please do. I would love to get rid of that awful Xiaomi gateway. Also means you don't have a WiFi bridge from Xiaomi back to home assistant.
 
calypso said:
You not saving the 1kw, you just shifting it up until when you turn the geyser back on, as it now as to heat up cooled water. But if you did the maths and it saves you some bucks then cool.
I also did the same experiment with the Efergy's split them onto their own meter and found hardly any saving. For me, I rather save the heat cycles. Different strokes for different folks.
Click to expand...

I think that’s why a plain timer is a bit daft as it isn’t temperate aware.

Something like a Geyserwise (or TH16) is this case knows what temperate is and therefore can build some tolerances in.

My Geyserwise for instance ignores a temperature drop of 5 degrees and also turns the geyser off when it reaches desired temperature much more accurately than the built in thermostat I would imagine.

Granted I don’t know what my exact geyser consumption is but at a whole R1000 for my entire electricity bill I’m bargaining on it doing a pretty good job.
 
spiff said:
I gave a sonoff basic to a mate of mine with an iphone.

he downloaded the required app for iphones but could not get the basic to link to his phone?

I connected to his wifi with his user name & password from my android phone and connected easily with the basic.

is there any issues when using iphones?
Click to expand...

Which firmware? Stock?
 
Tinuva said:
[MENTION=97943]SauRoNZA[/MENTION]

I am not sure if this was mentioned, but I believe this is something you been looking for:
https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt

Allows you to connect zigbee sensors to HA without having to buy a bridge device. You just need to get the CC2531 USB sniffer: https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/wiki/Getting-started


I know I am going to look into this!
Click to expand...

Seemed like way too much hassle so figured I would just stick with the TH10’s.

When the Post Office finds their brain that is.

I’ve got all the tools to flash them now anyway.
 
SauRoNZA said:
I think that’s why a plain timer is a bit daft as it isn’t temperate aware.

Something like a Geyserwise (or TH16) is this case knows what temperate is and therefore can build some tolerances in.

My Geyserwise for instance ignores a temperature drop of 5 degrees and also turns the geyser off when it reaches desired temperature much more accurately than the built in thermostat I would imagine.

Granted I don’t know what my exact geyser consumption is but at a whole R1000 for my entire electricity bill I’m bargaining on it doing a pretty good job.
Click to expand...

Testing my theory, so have decided to leave the Geysers on for 1 week to see the difference (if any) ... will post back
 
Still trying to figure out how to use possibly a Sonoff SV or Sonoff TH16 to get Pool Temperature.

Since the power from the pool DB to the pool light is stepped down to 12V, the SV would work but it doesn't support temp probe. So the idea is to perhaps, get rid of the pool light (since we never use it - pool is covered 95% of time). So bypass the step down transformer in the Pool DB to send 220V to the pool light enclosure - then put a Sonoff TH16 installed in a Sonoff IP66 enclosure with probe then coming out near the pool light. This way, I should be able to get pool temp remotely .. But concerned about having 220V near the water.

Was searching to see if there was any iOT pool products out there and some frightening with them putting 220V or 110v into pool!

This one from Australia looks pretty cool ...
https://www.pooledenergy.com/how-it-works/
 
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