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Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3

home-assistant.io

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Re: Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3

#91

Post by programbreeding »

Klathmon wrote: post #12
Djvacto wrote: post #5

I have a raspberry pi where I installed Home Assistant a few months ago when I moved into my new home. I did a little bit of messing with it, but stopped while waiting to have more devices that could communicate with it. What are some of the more useful things people have found they are able to accomplish with this, and what was the best way to go about them? Ideas I currently am toying with: presence sensors to turn…

some of the stuff i've wired up around my house: * zwave motion sensors that can turn on the stairs lights at night when I start to walk down * door/window sensors that will automatically turn the AC off if they are open for more than a minute. * several methods of presence detection for anyone in the house, and ensuring the doors are locked, lights out, and garage doors down if nobody is home (after an announcement…

>* a vibration sensor combined with a tiny hall sensor on the door of the washer/dryer to notify me when laundry is done (trying to measure power usage on 220v wiring was looking to be more annoyance than it was worth, so i went a different route!)

Your option was likely much less expensive, but aeotec does make a clamp-on energy sensor[0]. It's made for reading your whole-home energy but it should work for your purposes. But like I said, your solution was likely much cheaper (these are about $99).

[0] https://aeotec.com/z-wave-home-energy-measure

Re: Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3

#92

Post by wjp3 »

Lightbody wrote: post #54

Since this comment thread involved a lot of people talking about their smart devices, I’ll just put out a PSA: don’t bother with cheaper zwave light switches and dimmers :) if you’re looking for a high quality decent price option, just get Lutron Caseta. Or if you want higher end / better style, get Lutron’s RA 2 Select hub (basically Caseta++) for $100 more and then you can use Caseta dimmers or higher end Maestro d…

The range of the smart hub is what concerns me. I see you can buy the plug-in dimmer switch to extend, but only one is allowed per hub. Otherwise the reliability of Caseta is attractive. Do you also have the hub integrated with other things like a thermostat? I'm curious as to how that's working out.

Re: Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3

#93

Post by alias_neo »

I've been using Home Assistant for a couple of years now. I won't go too much into what I use it for, there's a bunch of info about that, and the guys on the Discord have entire public repos full of all their cool automations (on Github).

What I would share is that in the couple of years I've been running it, I've been through a dozen Sandisk and Samsung MicroSDs on my Pis _even though_ I was running my time-series database, and my MQTT server on a separate server.

Running on Raspberry Pi it's a nice toy, but when you get serious, install it on a proper box with an SSD/spinning rust.

I bought a NUC-like device which is what most people will recommend to run it on, installed Arch (you can use whatever you like, Debian is probably best supported) and get going.

Briefly though, I log all of the temperatures and light levels in each room of my home using Z-Wave sensors, store them in Influx and graph them in Grafana.

I have my desk lamp turn on when motion is detect at or around my desk, I have my cameras start recording when nobody is home (based on location reporting from our mobiles using Owntracks back to my self-hosted MQTT server).

I have hue lights in every light socket in the home so I can switch them to various moods based on motion, time of day, lux, whether the TV is on, the weather, the temperature, etc etc.

The Home Assistant dashboard shows my server load in my rack , temperature in my rack (via a temperature sensor connected to an ESP8266 talking MQTT back to the server), all info on my UPS, load on various power meter wall plugs (Z-Wave) which can also be controlled on/off via HA, it shows the current temperature and light level and motion in each room via Z-Wave motion sensors.

Most importantly, the community that sit on Discord are a friendly and helpful bunch so it's nice and easy to get started.

Re: Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3

#94

Post by orthecreedence »

I have a question for the home automation crowd. Are there any wifi switches (wall-wart style that don't need to be embedded in the wall) with an open spec or open source that I don't need a custom app with a weird protocol to talk to?

I'd really like to wire up some automated switches but after days of research, found that just about every wifi-enabled switch requires some bullshit android app that requires phoning home to a third party. I'd like to keep everything LAN-only.

Re: Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3

#95

Post by Klathmon »

programbreeding wrote: post #91
Klathmon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

some of the stuff i've wired up around my house: * zwave motion sensors that can turn on the stairs lights at night when I start to walk down * door/window sensors that will automatically turn the AC off if they are open for more than a minute. * several methods of presence detection for anyone in the house, and ensuring the doors are locked, lights out, and garage doors down if nobody is home (after an announcement…

>* a vibration sensor combined with a tiny hall sensor on the door of the washer/dryer to notify me when laundry is done (trying to measure power usage on 220v wiring was looking to be more annoyance than it was worth, so i went a different route!) Your option was likely much less expensive, but aeotec does make a clamp-on energy sensor[0]. It's made for reading your whole-home energy but it should work for your purp…

I thought about that, and like you said it was pretty expensive, plus it would require me to cut the power line for the dryer to pull one of the lines out.

And then I was back at square 1 for the washer, which turns out uses little enough energy in a lot of cases to be hard to tell when it's "done" vs when it's just pausing between cycles or swapping water out.

I also wanted to have the notifications continue until you actually empty it, and that required a door sensor anyway!

I really want to get one of those for the oven though, my wife tends to worry that she left the oven on (she never has!) and something like this connected to it might help ease that worry. And I REALLY don't want to do anything invasive to the oven, as that's one thing that i REALLY do not want accidentally turning on or shorting out.

Re: Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3

#96

Post by bcrescimanno »

Lightbody wrote: post #54

Since this comment thread involved a lot of people talking about their smart devices, I’ll just put out a PSA: don’t bother with cheaper zwave light switches and dimmers :) if you’re looking for a high quality decent price option, just get Lutron Caseta. Or if you want higher end / better style, get Lutron’s RA 2 Select hub (basically Caseta++) for $100 more and then you can use Caseta dimmers or higher end Maestro d…

I’ve had the opposite experience. Just had a Caseta switch installed to control some LED recessed lighting.

* the switch itself feels very flimsy and low quality.

* dimming only sort of works.

* the control is extremely laggy. Hit the buttons and wait up to a second before something happens.

* sometimes, the lights just don’t turn on. I’ll watch the LEDs on the switch light up, and then turn off. And then try again. And fail again...

I’ve had it a week and I’m ready to throw it out a window.

Re: Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3

#97

Post by borisian »

gallokot wrote: post #53
gypsysoul wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! Snips is the bomb, been tinkering around with it past week or so and really enjoying it. What are your thoughts / experiences towards snips? Anything cool I should try out

I am using it for basic stuff mostly and the experience was very positive. Also have a dev friend that introduced me to snips, who ordered a maker kit and can’t wait to code some stuff for the platform

If only there were giveaways or competitions to win one. It's not too pricy but my wallet disagrees atm

Re: Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3

#98

Post by emeidi »

orthecreedence wrote: post #94

I have a question for the home automation crowd. Are there any wifi switches (wall-wart style that don't need to be embedded in the wall) with an open spec or open source that I don't need a custom app with a weird protocol to talk to? I'd really like to wire up some automated switches but after days of research, found that just about every wifi-enabled switch requires some bullshit android app that requires phoning…

MyStrom has a simple web interface which I talk to with a bash script — but they come with Swiss plugs only AFAIK

Re: Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3

#99

Post by hirundo »

jvolkman wrote: post #89
hirundo wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My initial experience with Home Assistant has been very frustrating. I filled my house with HomeSeer HS-WD100+ and HS-WS100+ wall dimmers/switches. I thought I was safe as they are best sellers in zwave devices. But Home Assistant doesn't seem to support them without elaborate workarounds that, as a noob, I haven't been able to penetrate. The forums have been talking about a solution coming soon ... for years now. In…

Home Assistant should offer basic support (on/off/dim) for your switches out of the box - I've also got a house full of them. The work around should only be required if you want to use multi-tap gestures that the switches support. What's not working for you? The multi-tap workaround is not terribly involved. If I recall correctly, it consisted of pasting a couple of lines of XML in the "zwcfg" file for each switch.

I can't get specific because my house was struck by lightning a month ago and fried my pi and a half dozen switches (among lots else), and I don't remember the details. Replacements are on the way. Important tip for home automators: don't get struck by lightning. The affected switches didn't just turn off, they started to strobe the lights in the connected fixtures. I had to turn off the circuit and pull them out of the wall to stop the disco dance party.

I did get a few other zwave devices connected, and these do pair with the zwave hub, but otherwise Home Assistant can't see them at all. I messed with zwcfg with no difference.

Re: Home Assistant: Open-source home automation platform running on Python 3

#100

Post by vvanders »

rufugee wrote: post #83
bradfitz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lutron devices don't form a mesh network, though? And a limit of only one range extender. And only 50 devices? http://www.casetawireless.com/Pages/faqs.aspx I'll stick with Z-Wave, even though it's not perfect. And it's true that there's some terrible Z-Wave hardware but there's also better (and pricier) gear.

I've tried both Z-Wave and Insteon, and have settled on Insteon. It forms a mesh network over both powerline and RF and it's been extremely reliable so far. With Z-Wave, I had quite a few range problems.

> over both powerline

Ack. Please don't tell me this isn't a widely supported thing. powerline communication wreaks havoc on RF spectrum, esp in the HF range.

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