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Turtles, a Shelly/Zigbee home automation tool in Elixir

joisig.com

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Re: Turtles, a Shelly/Zigbee home automation tool in Elixir

#11

Post by alangibson »

pmlnr wrote: post #10
smt88 wrote: post #4

> * Rationally, I might have been better off going with Home Assistant, which has ready-made integrations with Shelly, Zigbee dimmers, and probably thousands of other device types, but I wanted complete control and hackability, and I preferred to spend time building my own system rather than learning and customizing Home Assistant and maybe never getting it to work like I want it to.* This thought was correct. Home A…

I have different opinion on Home Assistant. It's surprisingly heavy compared to alternatives, the YAML configs are insanely overcomplicated, they move too fast with Python versions (phasing out 3.9 when it was still the default on the then stable Debian, etc). My 2 cents go for Zigbee2MQTT, Mosquitton, and Domoticz. Domoticz has it's problems, but it's been a faithful workhorse for me for the past 6 or more years.

HA is phasing out yaml integration config. They'll only accept core integrations with UI based setup now.

AFAIK you still need to do everything else in yaml tho.

Re: Turtles, a Shelly/Zigbee home automation tool in Elixir

#12

Post by gempir »

pmlnr wrote: post #10
smt88 wrote: post #4

> * Rationally, I might have been better off going with Home Assistant, which has ready-made integrations with Shelly, Zigbee dimmers, and probably thousands of other device types, but I wanted complete control and hackability, and I preferred to spend time building my own system rather than learning and customizing Home Assistant and maybe never getting it to work like I want it to.* This thought was correct. Home A…

I have different opinion on Home Assistant. It's surprisingly heavy compared to alternatives, the YAML configs are insanely overcomplicated, they move too fast with Python versions (phasing out 3.9 when it was still the default on the then stable Debian, etc). My 2 cents go for Zigbee2MQTT, Mosquitton, and Domoticz. Domoticz has it's problems, but it's been a faithful workhorse for me for the past 6 or more years.

If you want yaml based configs and running on a non HomeAssistant provided OS you are already making it hard for yourself.

This is not the most popular route and therefore also less supported my advice:

- use a raspberry-pi with Home Assistant OS or buy one of their self made raspberry-pi alternatives Home Assistant Yellow etc.

You can run docker but it's still not straightforward because then you need to passthrough like USB Devices etc, I would recommend against it.

And from there use the yamls to define a very basic config like language, location etc (I'm not sure that you even need to do that). But only use the GUI from there on.

Everything can be done with the GUI, I haven't touched my yaml files in years.

And I regularly upgrade versions too, haven't had any upgrade issues either.

Re: Turtles, a Shelly/Zigbee home automation tool in Elixir

#13

Post by joisig »

BluSyn wrote: post #2

What light switches did you use, if any? I also want to use Shelly dimmers, but I haven’t found simple stateless light switches. I want automation and app control in many cases, but also want simple tactile button for on/off or hold for brightness control. Amazingly hard to find.

OP here, the switches we used are push-button Berker switches. I can't say I'm 100% happy with them, they look nice and are tactile but they are the "toggle" type - push and hold to either dim or brighten (never really know which) then again for the other direction, or quick push for on/off. My other annoyance is that sometimes a quick push does not register, but I don't know if this is because of the switch or because of the Shelly dimmer... I think more likely it's the dimmer.

Re: Turtles, a Shelly/Zigbee home automation tool in Elixir

#14

Post by Toutouxc »

gempir wrote: post #12
pmlnr wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have different opinion on Home Assistant. It's surprisingly heavy compared to alternatives, the YAML configs are insanely overcomplicated, they move too fast with Python versions (phasing out 3.9 when it was still the default on the then stable Debian, etc). My 2 cents go for Zigbee2MQTT, Mosquitton, and Domoticz. Domoticz has it's problems, but it's been a faithful workhorse for me for the past 6 or more years.

If you want yaml based configs and running on a non HomeAssistant provided OS you are already making it hard for yourself. This is not the most popular route and therefore also less supported my advice: - use a raspberry-pi with Home Assistant OS or buy one of their self made raspberry-pi alternatives Home Assistant Yellow etc. You can run docker but it's still not straightforward because then you need to passthrough…

> Everything can be done with the GUI, I haven't touched my yaml files in years.

Command line sensors, REST sensors, some types of virtual sensors, groups (I think), there's a lot of stuff you still can't do in the GUI, and even if you don't mind writing their stupid YAML-based config, the documentation isn't very friendly and in places outdated and contradicting itself.

Re: Turtles, a Shelly/Zigbee home automation tool in Elixir

#16

Post by BigJ1211 »

BluSyn wrote: post #2

What light switches did you use, if any? I also want to use Shelly dimmers, but I haven’t found simple stateless light switches. I want automation and app control in many cases, but also want simple tactile button for on/off or hold for brightness control. Amazingly hard to find.

I just use the Ikea trådfri dimmers[1] and have them bound to the lights I want them to control. That way they can do on/off and dim.

They no longer seem to offer them. But the replacement might work as well. Support for the device was merged into Z2M last month so not sure if it's already included in the latest release.

1. Predecesor of this: https://www.ikea.com/nl/en/p/somrig-shortcut-button-white-sm...

Re: Turtles, a Shelly/Zigbee home automation tool in Elixir

#17

Post by bo0tzz »

What a great coincidence to see this. I've been doing something pretty similar over the past few weeks, slapping together an Elixir app [0] that controls lights in my house via zigbee2mqtt. For now it only handles a motion sensor nightlight, but I have grand plans of course.

[0] https://github.com/bo0tzz/machinekamer/

Re: Turtles, a Shelly/Zigbee home automation tool in Elixir

#18

Post by philjohn »

BluSyn wrote: post #2

What light switches did you use, if any? I also want to use Shelly dimmers, but I haven’t found simple stateless light switches. I want automation and app control in many cases, but also want simple tactile button for on/off or hold for brightness control. Amazingly hard to find.

Shelly 1 and Plus 1 (the gen 2 device) allows you to separate the relay from the switch and expose both via API or MQTT.

That's how I have my lights setup - normal light switches (switched live) will toggle the switch sensor which is picked up by HomeAssistant which then either toggles the relay (for non smart lights) or sends a command to a light group (Zigbee IKEA Tradfri bulbs, using a Sonoff Zigbee dongle for comms) to turn on or off.

The only issue you might have is that they require a neutral, so unless you have a neutral behind each switch you'll need to put the Shelly elsewhere, either in the light fitting or ceiling (in my case).

Re: Turtles, a Shelly/Zigbee home automation tool in Elixir

#19

Post by ErneX »

Towaway69 wrote: post #8
pmontra wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got some Shelly Plugs. I decided to operate them with a self made web app running on my home server. That app makes HTTP calls to the API of the plug. It's very simple, just a curl from bash would work. One call to turn on the plug, one to turn it off and one to read the power meter. I put buttons on the web page and it does what I need. There are no dependecies from other services and especially no dependency f…

I don't myself but I know that many use Node-RED[0] for home assistant applications. It comes with thousands of plugins, easy to construct web frontends and it's completely open source. I believe one can also combine it with Home Assistant, I think there are interfaces. Learning curve is initial exponential (think of visual Unix pipes) but once understood, there are limitless things that you can do with Node-RED. It'…

This is what use for my home automations, including some Shelly 1s. It's pretty neat.

Re: Turtles, a Shelly/Zigbee home automation tool in Elixir

#20

Post by zegl »

pmlnr wrote: post #10
smt88 wrote: post #4

> * Rationally, I might have been better off going with Home Assistant, which has ready-made integrations with Shelly, Zigbee dimmers, and probably thousands of other device types, but I wanted complete control and hackability, and I preferred to spend time building my own system rather than learning and customizing Home Assistant and maybe never getting it to work like I want it to.* This thought was correct. Home A…

I have different opinion on Home Assistant. It's surprisingly heavy compared to alternatives, the YAML configs are insanely overcomplicated, they move too fast with Python versions (phasing out 3.9 when it was still the default on the then stable Debian, etc). My 2 cents go for Zigbee2MQTT, Mosquitton, and Domoticz. Domoticz has it's problems, but it's been a faithful workhorse for me for the past 6 or more years.

+1 for Zigbee2MQTT. I've been using it at the core of my home automation for a few years, and it's incredibly reliable.
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