Home Automation - Smartkit

[ipodmusicman]

Hi folks, has anybody got any recommendations for RGB LED strips (addressable or non-addressable) and being able to control them with HomeAssistant that can be obtained locally?

I am strongly considering adding one under my thatch braai area around the top. It will look so cool (maybe tacky, but who cares) LOL

 

[Tinuva]

If anyone is interested in temperature sensors, I ordered these Xiaomi MIJIA Aqara Temp/Humidity sensors and a gateway a while ago, and they work decent.

The reason I chose them:
+ Cost is low enough
+ Very small with battery (Round like a R5 coin, thickness about 4x R5 coins)
+ Looks better than my home made version would have
+ No need to calibrate sensors, which I would have to do with a home made version
+ Has support in Openhab binding

Only negative:
- Gateway speaker, speaks in Chinese

Some pictures!

This is what it currently looks like in Openhab on my phone (this morning, was ice cold outside in Cape Town):


Graphs - Openhab saves the metrics in InfluxDB, and Grafana can then easily create graphs

Last 24 hours





Last 7 days:





Fairly decent.

Next up, add in some automation to automatically trigger heaters in baby room and later will add automation for aircon in main bedroom.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Very fekking cool dude...

Gateway speaker issue, what do you mean by that though?

 

[calypso]

Exactly what he said. It speaks Chinese during setup.
Solution is zigbee2mqtt. Hate that chinese gateway.

Very fekking cool dude...

Gateway speaker issue, what do you mean by that though?

 

[ToxicBunny]

Ahhh I only had a look now and saw the "Gateway"....

Now I feel like a moron...

Out of interest, would you go for the Mijia one or the Aqara one (which has atmos pressure as well)

 

[SauRoNZA]

View attachment 557797



Fairly decent.

Next up, add in some automation to automatically trigger heaters in baby room and later will add automation for aircon in main bedroom.

Bloody hell how do they get so warm this time of year? Or is there some stand alone heater in volved?

Can't comment on OpenHab for automation but I've had great success with HA and hte "Generic Thermostat" with my wall panel heaters and the Sonoff TH10's.

They aren't very pretty though and a little inelegant (would have just stuck the sensor into the Sonoff cover instead of having it wired personally) but they do the job and they were cheap....and don't need a gateway.

****

I do like that OpenHAB graphing though. MUST RESIST SCRATCHING WITH NEW STUFF...

 

[Tinuva]

Bloody hell how do they get so warm this time of year? Or is there some stand alone heater in volved?

There are currently manual heaters in the house, so if you look at the bedroom you can see where it was turned on before going to bed, mostly just warming up the room before wify changes clothes.

Can't comment on OpenHab for automation but I've had great success with HA and hte "Generic Thermostat" with my wall panel heaters and the Sonoff TH10's.

They aren't very pretty though and a little inelegant (would have just stuck the sensor into the Sonoff cover instead of having it wired personally) but they do the job and they were cheap....and don't need a gateway.

****

I do like that OpenHAB graphing though. MUST RESIST SCRATCHING WITH NEW STUFF...

Openhab automation is fantastic, takes some time writing the rules, but very flexible.

Just to point out, the graphs are not generated by openhab, its a standalone application called Grafana.
Openhab is just writing into the InfluxDB, which mean Grafana can also read them. You should be able to use Grafana with HomeAssistant, as long as HomeAssistant can write the metrics into a source like InfluxDB which Grafana can read from. Oh wait, you can: https://www.home-assistant.io/components/influxdb/

Check out Grafana though, people are making some really cool dashboards with it. Its a bit off topic here, otherwise I could show more stuff, like my Fileserver's dashboard.

 

[Tinuva]

Ahhh I only had a look now and saw the "Gateway"....

Now I feel like a moron...

Out of interest, would you go for the Mijia one or the Aqara one (which has atmos pressure as well)

Personally the gateway is not completely horrible, it was just to get it up and running the very first time. Now to add sensors are very easy.

As for the Mijia vs Aqara, I mostly use the Mijia one. You only need 1 pressure sensor to be honest, I dont think the pressure will vary per room. So get like 1x Aqara one for outside, then the rest can all be Mijia. Personal preference I think.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Cool...

Will bookmark this for the moment.. its a small part of a much larger puzzle I want to solve at home

 

[SauRoNZA]

Check out Grafana though, people are making some really cool dashboards with it. Its a bit off topic here, otherwise I could show more stuff, like my Fileserver's dashboard.

Definitely will take a look.

Graphs are just for cool factor and really useless in the home, but I'm keen on turning these old iPad 2's of mine into Smart Home Control Panels at some point so always keen to see these dashboards.

I do restrict myself to UnRAID support Dockers in general though for simplicity sake.
Which both seemingly are so now I can play.

 

[Tinuva]

Definitely will take a look.

Graphs are just for cool factor and really useless in the home, but I'm keen on turning these old iPad 2's of mine into Smart Home Control Panels at some point so always keen to see these dashboards.

I do restrict myself to UnRAID support Dockers in general though for simplicity sake.
Which both seemingly are so now I can play.

Both Grafana and InfluxDB is in docker containers in my setup

Output from glances:

 

[SauRoNZA]

Yeah that was much easier than I figured it would be.

Outside of temperate and humidity what other kinds of stats do you pull into it?

 

[calypso]

Personally the gateway is not completely horrible, it was just to get it up and running the very first time. Now to add sensors are very easy.

As for the Mijia vs Aqara, I mostly use the Mijia one. You only need 1 pressure sensor to be honest, I dont think the pressure will vary per room. So get like 1x Aqara one for outside, then the rest can all be Mijia. Personal preference I think.

I found the more deviced i added the less likely the sync up would be sucessful. I think i have around 15 devices on the gateway, still a way from the limit.

 

[Tinuva]

Yeah that was much easier than I figured it would be.

Outside of temperate and humidity what other kinds of stats do you pull into it?

Currently, some weather stats from weather underground only and the battery levels from the sensors.

Any other values is not really worth graphing for me right now, at least not from openhab.
The on/off states of switches, I save to simpledb in openhab, which doesnt keep history, its only to put back the last state when I restart openhab.

 

[Tinuva]

I found the more deviced i added the less likely the sync up would be sucessful. I think i have around 15 devices on the gateway, still a way from the limit.

Hmm. Good to know. I dont have have that many yet, but I will see how it goes.

When you say sync up, do you mean adding a device, or that they stop updating the current readings?

If I do run into that issue, I will definitely relook at building my own gateway that uses mqtt.

 

[calypso]

Hmm. Good to know. I dont have have that many yet, but I will see how it goes.

When you say sync up, do you mean adding a device, or that they stop updating the current readings?

If I do run into that issue, I will definitely relook at building my own gateway that uses mqtt.

When i say sync up i mean the initial sync up becomes more problematic with the gateway as more devices are added. Once they connected they stay connected. Every now and then will lose a motion sensor temporarily but its infrequent.

 

[ebendl]

I have two gateways, three temp sensors, three buttons, 7 motion sensors (both Aqara and the original Xiaomi), five door sensors hooked to doors, three door sensors hacked to work as normally open sensors (two in my outdoor PIR's), the aqara cube and the new Aqara vibration sensor (which is not supported by HA).


The only one giving me issues are the one I rigged with a bigger reed switch checking if my sliding gate is open. I think it's too far away from the gateway.

The rest works great. Cheap!

 

[calypso]

Cube worthwhile? I was thinking of getting one for the lulz.
Also thinking of the vibration sensor but can't think of a use case.

I have two gateways, three temp sensors, three buttons, 7 motion sensors (both Aqara and the original Xiaomi), five door sensors hooked to doors, three door sensors hacked to work as normally open sensors (two in my outdoor PIR's), the aqara cube and the new Aqara vibration sensor (which is not supported by HA).


The only one giving me issues are the one I rigged with a bigger reed switch checking if my sliding gate is open. I think it's too far away from the gateway.

The rest works great. Cheap!

 

[ebendl]

Cube worthwhile? I was thinking of getting one for the lulz.
Also thinking of the vibration sensor but can't think of a use case.

Cube takes a bit of getting used to - I have:
- single twist to switch through three Light profiles
- shake as a kinda emergency panic button
- flip 90 degrees to disable my alarm
- flip 180 to disarm the motion sensors outside for 10 mins

I haven't used the nudge yet (concerned that it will trigger too often) and double tap is hard to trigger.

I also got it for the gimmicky value.

 

[calypso]

Cube takes a bit of getting used to - I have:
- single twist to switch through three Light profiles
- shake as a kinda emergency panic button
- flip 90 degrees to disable my alarm
- flip 180 to disarm the motion sensors outside for 10 mins

I haven't used the nudge yet (concerned that it will trigger too often) and double tap is hard to trigger.

I also got it for the gimmicky value.

Thanks for the info, think ill give it a skip.