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Home Assistant waters my plants

finnian.io

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Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#81

Post by Larrikin »

randusername wrote: post #31
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…

I also feel overwhelmed with HA homelab stuff. HA on my RPI is just not reliable, requiring a reboot 4-6 times a year for reasons I don't understand. Frustration at being in the literal dark doesn't translate to the right mindset to root cause. What I need is an opinionated guide on minimum viable virtualization, but so much of the resources online are from folks that are homelabing maximalists. I feel the same tempt…

The minimum viable setup is the Home Assistant Green. I run it on a slightly better ODroid, since the green did not exist at the time. Any heavy task, like using Ollama, are passed over to my far more main computer.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#82

Post by kjkjadksj »

cityofdelusion wrote: post #74

After years of doing this, I determined that dumb controllers are superior for my uses. A once a week irrigation with a simple rain sensor results in the same quality lawn/beds and better can run with pretty much zero maintenance burden on the sw/hw side. The vegetable garden is even dumber, just drip lines, a hose bib, and a dumb timer that flips daily in the morning powered by AS batteries. In my apartment days I j…

Yeah when I got to the point he was building a PC for this in the article it was a little shocking given the task at hand. I make do with a little $30 programmable dual zone unit that has lasted several seasons now. All I had to do was add a water hammer arrester.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#83

Post by kjkjadksj »

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…

There are also irrigation controllers that use a ball valve and will work fine under gravity pressure e.g. raised rain barrel. Powered via battery that lasts months and months. No home assistant of course but water usage can be estimated from expected flow and programming.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#84

Post by barbazoo »

tootie wrote: post #58
butz wrote: post #53

More of this, please. Let's automate all tedious chores.

I'd think most people enjoy watering their plants. Growing a garden or even just some nice indoor plants is a hobby unto itself.

It's nice to know the plants are getting the water at the right time when they need it, when the temp is right, etc. But agree obviously it does automate some of the fun.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#85

Post by atoav »

stinos wrote: post #14
atoav wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An art student of mine once needed a way to electrically control precise small amounts of water. We solved that using: 1. Water tank and gravity 2. Medical IV flow regulator¹ 3. Servo hooked up to that IV flow regulator via a 3D-printed part It worked very well. In medical applications off must be really off, so it was also quite safe in that regard as well. Her 3D-printed part had a little bit too much flex in it, b…

> If it is really, really safety critical Your suggestions should be fine for hardware failure but I'd be more concerned about software failure: what if a bug in your software makes it unresponsive and stuck in the state with the flow open? Maybe a watchdog or some other system running in parallel checking for a heartbeat or a max amount of time water can be flowing?

Good point. In my case the program was so simple and the risk low enough that this wasn't needed. The worst thing thar could have bappened was some minor water damage to an exhibition space.

Also my track record of writing stable, bug free embedded software has been pretty solid as of now. But if human life would be on the line (for example) special precautions like multiple independent failsafe mechanisms are non-negotiable.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#86

Post by MintPaw »

dewey wrote: post #55
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…

The happy path is to buy https://www.home-assistant.io/green/ and then go from there. That's what I did and it was a very smooth setup for everything. I've long resisted HA as I thought it's one extra thing to fiddle with but the whole process, the updates, adopting my devices was much nicer than expected. I've since also bought https://www.home-assistant.io/connect/zwa-2/ and got rid of all my third party bridges (I…

I've never heard about "Home Assistant Green". Seems like another step down the slippery slope of "work on my machine". First docker, than a dedicated OS, now dedicated hardware. I wonder why is Home Assistant so complex as to require all this.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#87

Post by Aurornis »

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…

> 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.

I had the same thought after I joined a local group for Home Assistant users.

Everyone always talks about a happy path where you pick the right choices, use the right setup, and everything just works immediately. More often when people come to this local group's shared Slack channel it's because they're 10s of hours into trying to set up something that appeared to be simple. Then all of the old timers remember that they, too, suffered through something similar once and share what they can remember.

I think HA can be a lot of fun for people who like to experiment and debug, but if you're not the kind to be entertained by debugging your home's operation then it can feel like a chore. Some have an easy time setting it up and then get trapped when an upgrade breaks something or they try to add a new device with less than mature support.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#88

Post by rickypp »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #69
93n wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go the container route, and have only had one issue: allowing HA to access my system's Bluetooth adapter. I had some ESP32s lying around, so I used ESPHome to make a Bluetooth proxy, which solved that issue. I don't run addons though, which might be part of it.

Add-ons (now apps) can't be done without HAOS. It's one of those non-obvious things. There's other things I forget which are also more difficult/annoying to manage on the container version. I have a rather large docker compose stack so my first experiments with HA were as running it there. That lasted maybe a week before I went and ran it as a VM instead.

Yeah, I ended up buying a dedicated mini PC ($100 refurb) to install HAOS on. HA is pretty much useless without being able to run add-ons. I run everything on k8s in my home server, I don't have a VM system set up and didn't want to bother just for HA. It's funny, the pattern of a central application that uses docker containers to add plugins seems like a perfect fit for a Kubernetes Operator. I suppose it still misses out on some of the advantages of running everything "on metal" for integrating with physical components like USB dongles.

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#89

Post by rickypp »

MintPaw wrote: post #86
dewey wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The happy path is to buy https://www.home-assistant.io/green/ and then go from there. That's what I did and it was a very smooth setup for everything. I've long resisted HA as I thought it's one extra thing to fiddle with but the whole process, the updates, adopting my devices was much nicer than expected. I've since also bought https://www.home-assistant.io/connect/zwa-2/ and got rid of all my third party bridges (I…

I've never heard about "Home Assistant Green". Seems like another step down the slippery slope of "work on my machine". First docker, than a dedicated OS, now dedicated hardware. I wonder why is Home Assistant so complex as to require all this.

I have no problem with them offering a ready-to-run hardware solution for Home Assistant, but I am annoyed that it's probably a motivating factor for why there isn't a self-installing image for HA on BYO hardware...

Re: Home Assistant waters my plants

#90

Post by bravoetch »

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…

HA on R-pi running for almost a decade without issues here, including moving house a few times. Sounds like you're making it difficult with that setup. Mine is connected to light switches, alarm, duckdns for outside network access, motorized blinds, garage door opener, hvac, landscape lighting. It's magically awesome and takes none of my time to maintain.
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