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Home Assistant waters my plants

finnian.io

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Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#21

Post by H8crilA »

davemp wrote: post #18
H8crilA wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run HA on an RPi, but eventually migrated it to a similar NUC. The RPi eventually just wasn't powerful enough (peak compute needs), while the NUCs are still quite cheap. And you can run a surprising amount of Proxmox VMs and LXCs on barely a few cores and gigabytes of RAM.

I use an RPi 4 w/ 4GB of RAM and a 1TB usb 3.2 SSD and it flies through all my workloads. Though I don’t do any video encoding things.

The cool thing is that it's very easy to migrate it to better hardware. HA backup and restore system is highly reliable. For this reason I can definitely recommend an RPi to start with, and who knows perhaps it will be enough forever, but if not then moving is a matter of ~one evening.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#22

Post by briHass »

davemp wrote: post #17

Fun project. Though it’s kind of unreal how complicated it is to set up HA and I literally do this for a living, both embedded sw and backend web dev. Docker compose with a zwave management server, reverse proxies for TLS, vlan isolation for the server, macvlan for HA container so it does see the host network, etc, etc. All to turn on and off a lightbulb with the sun. All the while AI is telling me to configure thing…

You're making it complicated with all the VLANs. HAOS in a VM (proxmox helper scripts for one-line install), and HA has plugins for all the other things.

Just deny WAN access to the IoT junk you don't trust at the router, or for things like cameras, a separate switch for those. That usually makes sense, since they're one of the few devices that must be powered with PoE and doesn't require gig+ bandwidth. A cheap 100mbit PoE switch will handle a good number of cameras.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#23

Post by briHass »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #20
H8crilA wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to run HA on an RPi, but eventually migrated it to a similar NUC. The RPi eventually just wasn't powerful enough (peak compute needs), while the NUCs are still quite cheap. And you can run a surprising amount of Proxmox VMs and LXCs on barely a few cores and gigabytes of RAM.

Wow, not sure how to interpret your experience that a RPi wasn't powerful enough to manage watering a few plants. I can only suspect the overall software setup is massively bloated.

If you want to run EspHome inside HA, and you recompile the devices (every release of EH), you want a decent processor/disk. The ESP stuff is a surprisingly heavy compile for a puny microcontroller.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#24

Post by denkmoon »

H8crilA wrote: post #15
denkmoon wrote: post #12

Cron waters my plants :)

HA is essentially a better cron. It unsurprisingly uses the cron syntax where appropriate.

HA is monstrously complex. cron just works. The same can’t be said for my homebrew esp32 pump relay controller, but at least scheduling is never the problem.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#25

Post by mmsimanga »

zerof1l wrote: post #8

I wanted home assistant compatible plant watering solution that works on a solar panel and does not require being connected to the water line and is Zigbee compatible. Unfortunately, I could not find any. So I did a DIY solution: a big barrel which I manually fill with water, a 12V pump (usually sold for camper vans), some rechargeable batteries, 10W solar panel, a solar charging controller, and Tuya ZG-2002-RF switc…

I dabbled in hydroponics for some years. Due to my inability to get my Rasberry Pi and Arduino working I ended up using a 12V pump and one of those cheap $10 electric timers on Aliexpress. I estimated how much time it took for my hydroponics system to drain and that's what I set on the timer. Other people I followed had all sorts of sensors rigged up, which I would have done if I had the time and skill but I failed, so in the end it was just the timer. I too had single solar panel and battery and the system worked for over 7 years with no issues. I just replaced the pump once or twice.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#26

Post by rubzah »

liam_krewer wrote: post #10
calgoo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! I prefer the small power plugs that lets me control fans and other power systems as relays. Family has a habit if switching of light bulbs using light switches and i have not gotten the change approval to disable the physical switches in the house :)

I can recommend Shelly for light switches over smart bulbs. It's a relay that fits inside the wall switch with zigbee to sit between the light and the switch.

That's what I am doing too, though I did have to drill out some wall to fit it, in some cases.

There is another option that I don't think many people are aware of: You can put a battery powered relay downstream of the (dumb) switch, and have it broadcast events when power comes on and off, to control other smart devices, which just have to listen for the events (via a broker like HA).

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#27

Post by stavros »

yoavm wrote: post #6
calgoo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! I prefer the small power plugs that lets me control fans and other power systems as relays. Family has a habit if switching of light bulbs using light switches and i have not gotten the change approval to disable the physical switches in the house :)

For me the best solution was to use smart switches (mainly dimmers) and dumb lightbulbs. People can use the switches like any other if they want, but I can still have my automations and remote control.

Agreed, people get very frustrated if they have to remember to not use certain switches. Using smart switches fixes this.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#28

Post by davemp »

briHass wrote: post #22
davemp wrote: post #17

Fun project. Though it’s kind of unreal how complicated it is to set up HA and I literally do this for a living, both embedded sw and backend web dev. Docker compose with a zwave management server, reverse proxies for TLS, vlan isolation for the server, macvlan for HA container so it does see the host network, etc, etc. All to turn on and off a lightbulb with the sun. All the while AI is telling me to configure thing…

You're making it complicated with all the VLANs. HAOS in a VM (proxmox helper scripts for one-line install), and HA has plugins for all the other things. Just deny WAN access to the IoT junk you don't trust at the router, or for things like cameras, a separate switch for those. That usually makes sense, since they're one of the few devices that must be powered with PoE and doesn't require gig+ bandwidth. A cheap 100m…

I’m not giving untrusted devices unfettered access to my lan and an airgapped network sounds more complicated tbh. VLANs aren’t really that bad with good networking gear.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#29

Post by H8crilA »

briHass wrote: post #23
mytailorisrich wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, not sure how to interpret your experience that a RPi wasn't powerful enough to manage watering a few plants. I can only suspect the overall software setup is massively bloated.

If you want to run EspHome inside HA, and you recompile the devices (every release of EH), you want a decent processor/disk. The ESP stuff is a surprisingly heavy compile for a puny microcontroller.

A recent RPi is sufficient to handle a few plants - though, yes, recompilation will take time. The ESP is a beautiful piece of software, hence I highly recommend it. My native language has an expression that describes this situation perfectly: the appetite grows with eating. Next thing you know you have 2k or more entities, and your HA even handles some video feeds.

The important thing is that it's pretty much always easy to make an upgrade thanks to the good design of the backup system. Don't forget to set up backups in either case, it's a sin to not use such a complete system :)

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#30

Post by vladvasiliu »

davemp wrote: post #28
briHass wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making it complicated with all the VLANs. HAOS in a VM (proxmox helper scripts for one-line install), and HA has plugins for all the other things. Just deny WAN access to the IoT junk you don't trust at the router, or for things like cameras, a separate switch for those. That usually makes sense, since they're one of the few devices that must be powered with PoE and doesn't require gig+ bandwidth. A cheap 100m…

I’m not giving untrusted devices unfettered access to my lan and an airgapped network sounds more complicated tbh. VLANs aren’t really that bad with good networking gear.

I have HASS running on a dedicated VLAN, IoT junk on its own, separate VLAN without internet access, through a managed switch. OPNsense sits in between and does the routing. Didn't have to mess around with anything, just ran the "vm appliance" or whatever it's called for hass and I was off to the races. Wireguard on the firewall gives me access from outside the house.

Actually, both OPNsense and Hass are VMs on the same machine, with the latter's network not even connected to any physical port outside the box. I'm not even running Proxmox or anything fancy, just libvirt on Arch. The only "fancy" thing is a 2nd hand Mellanox NIC I got off eBay for 30 €, which presents virtualized interfaces to the VMs, but HASS doesn't actually use those.

There's also no need to manually screw around with any reverse proxy for TLS; HASS does it with the Let's Encrypt add-on. The only missing piece when I set this up a while ago was something to regularly renew the cert (the add-on would only get started at boot-up).

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