Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

pragprog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 276 posts

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#51

Post by bliteben »

alufers wrote: post #27
iandanforth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I personally just flash everything possible with open-source software. All my light switches and Wi-Fi lightbulbs run Tasmota, which I password protect and semi- regularly update. The one odball is my Gree AC unit, which is on a separate WiFi network and subnet (I just run hostapd on my RPi since it's close-by). But it's more to protect it from the outside, not the other way, because it's controlled with JSON sent ov…

What lightbulbs do you find are best for running tasmota? I'd prefer not to have to setup a zigbee setup in addition to my zwave.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#52

Post by Inversechi »

phreeza wrote: post #47
kkielhofner wrote: post #5

Home 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…

Does anyone have some experience to share with integrating home assistant with Homematic devices? I'm stuck with those for controlling my heating but really dislike the interface.

They have a really welcoming community from my experience. Try either their forum or discord.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#53

Post by magicalhippo »

nerdjon wrote: post #24
h2odragon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got "TV Pis" that idle LibreELEC/Kodi most of the time and have been running for 4+ years on the same SD cards (updated them a couple times in that time, not recently). My "server Pi" is >3yo old, only turns off when the power fails, and doesn't do a lot with its SD card but the OS, but has never had an issue. What kind of power are you using? I've got these on little 2.5a wall warts; the "server" has a scrounge…

Maybe the power supply is the issue. Every time I have setup I pi I would get the Canakit sets so maybe it is just not suitable?

Make sure to check the USB cable you use. I have a few which has ~1 Ohm resistance, and given that the Pi can use 1-1.5A under load that translates to a 1-1.5V cable drop.

This can cause the Pi to shut down, and SD cards are not happy losing power while writing AFAIK.

I've had multiple Pi's run for years off the same SD card without issue. My Home Assistant install has a 3GB database with updates every few seconds due to some chatty Z-Wave modules. Been running just fine since 2018.

I also had a few with issues, and all of them were down to cables with too high resistance. Some were sold as charging cables, yet were rubbish.

I got a USB cable tester from AliExpress, alternatively buy some known good ones.

For SD cards, make sure they're class A1 or A2.

[1]: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32973869742.html

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#54

Post by melenaos »

I just implemented the foundation of my home automation.

I installed NodeRED on a raspberry pi and it communicates with arduino through MQTT.

The good thing with this is that i control the hardware parts woth arduino and the automation logic with NodeRED.

NodeRED is much easier to use than HomeAssistant because of the extensibility and the use of NodeJs.

I have implemented an arduino library that makes the development on that an easy task.

I wanted to have everything on the local network and dont depend on the internet. We had some internet outage the past years and i dont want to lose the control of my house for that. Also, everything is much faster.

Every arduino can run on its own, that way even if the raspberry pi is out of order, i can open and close the lights using a button or a switch.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#55

Post by m4tthumphrey »

Slightly OT:

> Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

If you can get hold of one!

I've been looking for a Pi4 for ages to use with PiHole but sold out everywhere, some have back orders for 2023 O_O

Anyone got any recommendations of other devices that work well with PiHole? I have a Mac Mini acting as a home server but from what I've read, PiHole does not run great on it via Docker...

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#56

Post by clownpenis_fart »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #41
iandanforth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One, I avoid WiFi products entirely if there is a good alternative. Zigbee and ZWave are two good ecosystems, you get a USB radio, plug it Home Assistant machine and you're up and running. A second option is finding devices that can be flashed with Tasmota or ESPHome. This could also mean putting together your own devices with an ESP8266, ESPHome is basically plug and play for simple things like temperature sensors.…

No post body was provided.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#57

Post by scottlamb »

kkielhofner wrote: post #5

Home 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'm still figuring out Home Assistant. I love that it has a real ecosystem and that it seems to have a decent HTTP/WebSocket API (that I just started playing with).

Some things I don't love:

* A lot of the integrations seem half-baked or to not quite fit the generic Lovelace cards. I think to some extent this is an inherent problem in supporting a lot of devices that have crappy, non-standardized APIs. Example: if I bump up the low temp on my Venstar thermostat on the Home Assistant dashboard, Home Assistant will immediately set it back. If I dig through logs, I see the thermostat complained that in auto mode (heating or cooling as needed), the low set point and the high set point have to be (at least) six degrees apart. When I adjust the thermostat through its own touch screen, the high set point automatically raises to meet that constraint. Home Assistant should do the same. I've been meaning to look into fixing it myself, but there seem to be weird things like this on every integration.

* You need multiple automation rules to do almost anything. I think it's common to want the state of one thing to match another (for example, garage door open => sticky notification on my phone, person in driveway after sunset within last 5 minutes or switch on => driveway light on). You need a rule in their YAML DSL to for the off->on transition and another for the on->off. It'd be nice to set a rule that defines a level rather than an edge and have it internally do the transformation. It'd also be nice to define the actions of a notification's buttons inline, rather than as a separate automation.

* The companion Android app's notifications seem to be flaky. At least, they're sometimes slow. I think they can be delivered out of order and possibly are lossy, which aggravates the problem with not having something that just sets the state reliably. I assume it's pretty hopeless to have it reliably be in the right state if your phone was off when a notification was supposed to be delivered or Home Assistant was down on state transition or the like.

* Some things seem to be only checked at startup, so my house has race conditions after power outages. For example, if Home Assistant starts up more quickly than my Yamaha AV receiver (+ network switch + DHCP server), I can't control my home theater setup until I restart Home Assistant.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#58

Post by billfor »

kkielhofner wrote: post #5

Home 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…

If you don't have any need for bleeding edge devices, Openhab still works on a rpi4 as an alternative to HA. I like that I can just install it as an apt package onto an existing rpi with other things and java just does its stuff, rather than dedicating the entire rpi4 to it or running in a container.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#59

Post by clownpenis_fart »

alufers wrote: post #27
iandanforth wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I personally just flash everything possible with open-source software. All my light switches and Wi-Fi lightbulbs run Tasmota, which I password protect and semi- regularly update. The one odball is my Gree AC unit, which is on a separate WiFi network and subnet (I just run hostapd on my RPi since it's close-by). But it's more to protect it from the outside, not the other way, because it's controlled with JSON sent ov…

No post body was provided.

Re: Run Your Home on a Raspberry Pi

#60

Post by wjdp »

nerdjon wrote: post #21
wjdp wrote: post #11

Earlier 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 a TV PI that seems to so far be running just fine after about 6 months. But I also have it reboot once a day so maybe that may be some magic. I have PiHole running myself, my original plan was to use a Pi but the last thing I wanted for that thing to die and my internet stop working. An easy enough fix, but a frustrating one. Mine is also running on the my media server. Which... is fun. When I reboot it I have…

Mix of things mean I haven't changed it (yet) - As you point out having on a shared server isn't great. I do want a separate device for DNS, I don't want the network down because the 'everything server' needs a reboot. - aand when it breaks I don't tend to be in the mood to fix it. Usually late in the evening when watching telly. It usually needs a reboot or `pihole-FTL.db` has gotten to several GB in size and needs deleting. But I'm sure it's getting closer to being unrecoverable.

I've also got it doing DHCP so every device gets a ..uk domain, plus it handles some static records as well. Means it's not just a quick swapout, need to find and migrate the custom stuff I've done to it. Most of this should be in a git repo but unsure if all of it is.

The joys of overcomplicating home networking!

Post reply on HN