I'd rather use a few ESP8266... at $3 bucks each, they include WiFi... and support micropython.
Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi
91–100 of 276 posts
Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi
#92Anyone have success with remote cameras? Services like Arlo and Ring seem straight up awful but also rolling my own seems like more effort and headache than it's worth.
Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi
#93Home Assistant[1] is the best approach I've found for this. It's pretty amazing but has a pretty steep learning curve (although they're getting better and better at this). The real power of HA is the rich integration ecosystem[2], the Community Store[3], and that it runs locally (more reliable and much faster for things like motion sensors, etc). It expresses everything from every integration as an entity in various…
I recently set-up HA on a Raspberry Pi, integrating my lights, security system and other devices. You're right about it having a steep learning curve but once it's up and running it's pretty much set and forget. With HA I'm able to use my Hue switches to toggle a TP-Link Kasa smart power outlet. It also has the added benefit of only requiring ONE application on my phone instead of nine.
I'd also suggest to everyone looking into HA to take the time to learn Node-RED. After running HA for a year and a half, but only ever creating basic integrations, NR has really unlocked the power of HA for me. Part of it is the tutorials for NR explained the internal data model of HA in a way that I finally get it. Plus just ergonomically, I find NR MUCH easier to deal with than HA's native automation UI.
Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi
#94Home Assistant[1] is the best approach I've found for this. It's pretty amazing but has a pretty steep learning curve (although they're getting better and better at this). The real power of HA is the rich integration ecosystem[2], the Community Store[3], and that it runs locally (more reliable and much faster for things like motion sensors, etc). It expresses everything from every integration as an entity in various…
How do you handle network security? I wouldn't trust an IoT device on the same network as any of my family's computers or phones for example.
In addition to all of the "use Z-Wave/Zigbee as much as possible" comments (which I personally do), for stuff where there's no choice like Roombas, I have a separate SSID on a VLAN that can only talk to the internet, my DNS server running Adguard, and HA (which is on the main network). I also have stateful rules that allow connections to be initiated from the main network to the IOT network, but not vice versa. I also try to find things with ESP* controllers, as mentioned.
I've really been trying to move away from cloud based stuff not only because of data privacy, but concerns about services going away and (most importantly) latency.
My old wifi smart plugs had 2+ seconds of latency from when I'd hit the button in HA to actually turning on. Zigbee/Z-wave stuff is (from my meatsack perspective) instant. I have a zigbee door sensor on the door to get into my garage, and a zigbee smart plug connected to the overhead florescent lights. By the time the door opens enough for me to actually see inside the garage, the lights are on. Sometimes I think they never turned off. It's fantastic.
Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi
#95Home Assistant[1] is the best approach I've found for this. It's pretty amazing but has a pretty steep learning curve (although they're getting better and better at this). The real power of HA is the rich integration ecosystem[2], the Community Store[3], and that it runs locally (more reliable and much faster for things like motion sensors, etc). It expresses everything from every integration as an entity in various…
Same. I've been a huge Home Assistant fan and minor contributor for many years. My house is among the smartest houses I've ever heard of. HVAC control, security system, air quality monitoring, multi-site IT systems monitoring, lighting controls (including LED strips that update to the right color scheme for the next holiday), whole-house networked audio (including streaming off-site if connected to the VPN), on and o…
Have your written up your implementation? What type of air quality sensors have you used and how are they integrated into the home’s behavior?
Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi
#96Better yet, run your home on Dell/HP micro computers that get decommissioned by enterprises/hospitals/big-orgs every 3 years. Find them on Offerup or FB or Craigslist market place for $100-$200. These are built solid with metal enclosures, fan cooled, UL certified PSU, ~7k CPUbenchmark.net. Usually i5 6thGen Intel CPU, 8GB-16GB RAM and have REAL storage(SSD) and M.2 NVMe. If you are lucky you might find vPro version…
That is not a half bad idea. How loud are those things?
I have an SFF Dell Optiplex I bought for $100 many years ago that’s still my main “homelab” machine. It’s fairly quiet besides the two 12TB spinning hard drives inside but the fan isn’t noticing.
A rack mount server would be out of the question as I live in a small condo, both for size and noise.
Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have had the same problems, though it's always the Pi chewing up the SD card, a new card solves it. These guides really need a warning saying "If you find this useful, switch to using a server that doesn't rely on an SD card after ~6 months" The Pi is fantastic for getting a taste of self-hosting / home automation as it's so cheap but by no means should it be relied on. I moved our Home Assistant install to a docker…
I have my PI running off a USB-SSD instead. It works very well, though initial set up can be a bit of a hassle.
If you dont mind, do you have some link to hand that you used to set that up?
Edit: - sorry, nevermind, I should have read the rest of the comments, there is a link below this comment (at time of writing)
Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi
#98Better yet, run your home on Dell/HP micro computers that get decommissioned by enterprises/hospitals/big-orgs every 3 years. Find them on Offerup or FB or Craigslist market place for $100-$200. These are built solid with metal enclosures, fan cooled, UL certified PSU, ~7k CPUbenchmark.net. Usually i5 6thGen Intel CPU, 8GB-16GB RAM and have REAL storage(SSD) and M.2 NVMe. If you are lucky you might find vPro version…
> fan cooled
As if that is a benefit.
Putting a server in a corner of my home and forgetting about it is an application where I want the machine to be powerful enough to work without active cooling, as small as possible, and with no moving parts. None of these constraints is difficult to accomodate in this day and age.
Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi
#99Home Assistant[1] is the best approach I've found for this. It's pretty amazing but has a pretty steep learning curve (although they're getting better and better at this). The real power of HA is the rich integration ecosystem[2], the Community Store[3], and that it runs locally (more reliable and much faster for things like motion sensors, etc). It expresses everything from every integration as an entity in various…
They've also been pretty hostile to OS packagers trying to let you run it without dedicating an entire device to it, most publicly NixOS but they indicated they planned to insist the same against Fedora and Gentoo too: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/126326
That behaviour kind of makes it hard to trust that it won't lead to the next Marak situation.
Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi
#100Am I the only one who uses Fhem? From my point of view it‘s extremely robust which increases the wife acceptance factor . I‘m running Hue, Z-Wave sensors, Shelly‘s, Homematic and an Echo connection. Sooooo much potential.