Automation Planning

[Pocster]

10 hours ago, Temp said:

Didn't know there are two versions/voltages. I went for Hikvision POE cameras and a 8 port hub with built in POE support, hooked them up and they worked, no injectors or strippers.

 

If doing so again I think I would investigate cameras with an alarm input and use a separate PIR sensor to trigger recording because motion detection either in the camera or server has problems.

 

Possibily also separate IR illuminators  to try and draw spiders away from the camera?

Or go for 940nm infra red . Not many cameras support it and the range is more limited .

[Jeremy Harris]

I've been tempted to fit separate IR illuminators, as a way to try and reduce the spider problem.  I've also stopped using motion detection in the camera system and installed a separate system that uses microwave doppler sensors and an RF link to switch the DVR on.  That seems to work very reliably, but will still get triggered by anything the size of a cat or bigger (funny thing is that large ducks don't trigger it, but even a small cat will).

[MJNewton]

15 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

But which standard ..?? I’ve seen loads of PoE cameras that turn out to need 12v not 48v, and there is an injector and splitter with each camera. They are essentially using the spare pairs for 12v but doesn’t help me when I have 48v PoE switches. 

 

The type with injectors/splitters should be regarded as "poor man's PoE" (no slight intended; I use a lot of it) and is not standardised (unlike 'true' PoE). It does have the benefit of enabling non-PoE devices to be powered (over Ethernet) though. 

[Jimbouk]

Slightly off topic, but I have finally managed to get my Fakro z-wave roof windows to link to my Vera management system. 

 

Strangely satisfying being able to open my windows via my phone 100 miles away from the house, even better it is intergrated with the Heatmiser thermostats, so automically opens the roof windows when the room gets too hot.

Edited May 22, 2019 by Jimbouk
Grammar

[puntloos]

Just as a general thought, currently I have:

 

- Google Home stuff (home mini, JBL screen)

- Nest hello, nest thermostat

- Samsung Smartthings driving ikea tradfri

- ewelink (sonoff) wifi power sockets

 

Most of these still work or at least have basic functionality, even if internet is down. And most of these also support physical buttons

[Gooman]

My design goals were:

• Main lights should always be operable with a standard(ish) wall switch. Important for any visitors or house sitters, or even any regular occupant in a panic! But only add automation for those lights where it's actually useful.
• Accent lighting doesn't necessarily need a wall switch at all - app/automatic control is fine. No biggie if it doesn't come on, can always be turned off at the CU. Default to off when power comes on.
• "In-use" detection for main appliances, mainly so that I can get an alert if we both leave the house when they're on. Currently includes washing machine and tumble dryer, still thinking about on cooker/oven detection.
• Window/door open detection for commonly used windows and doors, again for notification when we leave the house. All avoids that awful "Did you shut the back door?" discussion when you're half-way to Cornwall.
• Presence detection (linked to the above two). Easiest route is via mobile phone detection on the local WiFi.
• Camera motion detection, active when we're not home.
• Everything removable and portable so we can take it with us when we move.
• Integration with Google Home so that you have hands-free lighting control in the kitchen, and a simple way to turn everything off at night.

Key components I've used are:

• Itead Sonoff devices for simple on/off. This is a WiFi gizmo that you wire inline (requires neutral). Flashed with the far superior open-source Tasmota firmware. I've used these for kitchen accent lighting and patio lighting.
• Koogeek plug-in WiFi devices for simple on/off and power consumption detection. These are based on Tuya hardware, and again flashed with Tasmota. I used these for the washing machine and dryer.
• Magichome WiFI RGB LED strip controller for accent lights in utility. Dirt cheap, again flashed with Tasmota.
• LightwaveRF dimmers. Only one 3-way at present - they're not cheap, but they look damn good and are usable by anyone. Controlled either with the LightwaveRF WiFi Hub (again, not cheap) or with a self-build RFlink Arduino-based RF controller (which is what I'm using now). Will be adding more.
• Yi Home WiFi webcam, flashed with the Yi-Hack firmware.
• Raspberry Pi running OpenHAB. This is the main "brains" of the system, communicating with and controlling everything. Provides me a control panel on my phone and remote alerting. 

I'm planning to add more 433MHz RF devices, such as door/window sensors, door bell, and smoke/heat detectors, and an electricity meter pulse counter.

 

[jack]

Interesting mix of gear, thanks for sharing.

 

10 minutes ago, Gooman said:

• Itead Sonoff devices for simple on/off. This is a WiFi gizmo that you wire inline (requires neutral). Flashed with the far superior open-source Tasmota firmware. I've used these for kitchen accent lighting and patio lighting.

 

I'm familiar with this from the Loxone group I'm on. It's very highly rated with that firmware.

[Pocster]

58 minutes ago, Gooman said:

My design goals were:

• Main lights should always be operable with a standard(ish) wall switch. Important for any visitors or house sitters, or even any regular occupant in a panic! But only add automation for those lights where it's actually useful.
• Accent lighting doesn't necessarily need a wall switch at all - app/automatic control is fine. No biggie if it doesn't come on, can always be turned off at the CU. Default to off when power comes on.
• "In-use" detection for main appliances, mainly so that I can get an alert if we both leave the house when they're on. Currently includes washing machine and tumble dryer, still thinking about on cooker/oven detection.
• Window/door open detection for commonly used windows and doors, again for notification when we leave the house. All avoids that awful "Did you shut the back door?" discussion when you're half-way to Cornwall.
• Presence detection (linked to the above two). Easiest route is via mobile phone detection on the local WiFi.
• Camera motion detection, active when we're not home.
• Everything removable and portable so we can take it with us when we move.
• Integration with Google Home so that you have hands-free lighting control in the kitchen, and a simple way to turn everything off at night.

Key components I've used are:

• Itead Sonoff devices for simple on/off. This is a WiFi gizmo that you wire inline (requires neutral). Flashed with the far superior open-source Tasmota firmware. I've used these for kitchen accent lighting and patio lighting.
• Koogeek plug-in WiFi devices for simple on/off and power consumption detection. These are based on Tuya hardware, and again flashed with Tasmota. I used these for the washing machine and dryer.
• Magichome WiFI RGB LED strip controller for accent lights in utility. Dirt cheap, again flashed with Tasmota.
• LightwaveRF dimmers. Only one 3-way at present - they're not cheap, but they look damn good and are usable by anyone. Controlled either with the LightwaveRF WiFi Hub (again, not cheap) or with a self-build RFlink Arduino-based RF controller (which is what I'm using now). Will be adding more.
• Yi Home WiFi webcam, flashed with the Yi-Hack firmware.
• Raspberry Pi running OpenHAB. This is the main "brains" of the system, communicating with and controlling everything. Provides me a control panel on my phone and remote alerting. 

I'm planning to add more 433MHz RF devices, such as door/window sensors, door bell, and smoke/heat detectors, and an electricity meter pulse counter.

 

Quite a mix ! . I go for z wave or Poe with indigo on Mac . Nice and reliable !

[PeterW]

1 hour ago, Gooman said:

Itead Sonoff devices for simple on/off. This is a WiFi gizmo that you wire inline (requires neutral). Flashed with the far superior open-source Tasmota firmware. I've used these for kitchen accent lighting and patio lighting.

 

How difficult was that flash of the Sonoff and does it make them more reliable ..?

 

Got a thought about using one with IfTTT control on the humidistat for an MVHR but allowing it to be manually controlled via a phone and also being able to set the humidity threshold without a faff 

[MJNewton]

4 hours ago, Gooman said:

My design goals were:

• Main lights should always be operable with a standard(ish) wall switch. Important for any visitors or house sitters, or even any regular occupant in a panic! But only add automation for those lights where it's actually useful.

 

I have just started on the road of 'smart' lighting and also have this as one of my key requirements. I must say I have been very disappointed, and somewhat surprised, in the limited range of 'standard(ish)' wall switches (ideally with controls I can feel for, not a touchscreen that I need to look at) that provide an open remote interface. I have found I am certainly not alone in this search so there seems to be a demand.

 

One product I have stumbled across is the Aurora AOne dimmer module which provides a Zigbee interface:

 

 

At £35 I might give it a go and see how well it works.

 

Quote

• Itead Sonoff devices for simple on/off. This is a WiFi gizmo that you wire inline (requires neutral). Flashed with the far superior open-source Tasmota firmware. I've used these for kitchen accent lighting and patio lighting.

 

Have you seen the Shelly range of smart relays? I was considering trying out a Sonoff but stumbled across the Shellys which are designed and built by Allterco Robotics in the EU which made me feel a bit more comfortable about stuffing inside a backbox out of sight. I bought a Shelly 2.5 which provides two independent channels that can switch upto 10A, and it has built-in overtemperature and (adjustable) overcurrent protection which appealed. So far I've been mainly playing with it via the Shelly cloud but with its built-in webserver and HTTP/MQTT interface it can be operated without any external connectivity dependency. With its support for switched inputs it can operate entirely in standalone mode too.

 

 

As you can see it is tiny and easily fits inside a single backbox (that's got four 1.5mm twin+earth cables in with it too). Incidentally, this is the first time I've used Wago's relatively new '221' lever connectors and they are a considerable improvement over their existing 222 range what with them being much slimmer and having a transparent body so you can easily confirm proper insertion - highly recommended!

Edited July 31, 2019 by MJNewton

[Ed Davies]

3 hours ago, PeterW said:

How difficult was that flash of the Sonoff

 

Some notes on my blog about programming recent ones: https://edavies.me.uk/2019/07/sonoff/

[puntloos]

Hmm the sonoff flashing is a bit more hands-on than I had in mind, but it might be worth it.

My main question - with tasmota firmware, will the sonoff devices be switchable by an "offline" switch - using the direct connection rather than through the internet (so it'll work hard-wired style..)

[Gooman]

15 hours ago, pocster said:

Quite a mix ! . I go for z wave or Poe with indigo on Mac . Nice and reliable !

 

Less of a mix than you'd think, since all of the Sonoffs, Koogeeks and MagicHome LED controller are all now running the same firmware (Tasmota).

 

Tasmota communicates over MQTT, as does the RFlink 433MHz gateway.

 

So my main control integration point in OpenHAB is just MQTT.

[Gooman]

14 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

How difficult was that flash of the Sonoff and does it make them more reliable ..?

 

Got a thought about using one with IfTTT control on the humidistat for an MVHR but allowing it to be manually controlled via a phone and also being able to set the humidity threshold without a faff 

 

You do have to get your soldering iron out (or use Pogo Plugs) to add a header, and use an RFDI interface. On a geek scale of 1-10 (where 10 is highest) I'd put it at a 3.

 

Can't say I've seen it be more reliable - the recent original ITEAD firmware now allows local control, so you can overcome failures of their Cloud server.

 

Main bonuses are *far* more features and finer control, plus never sending your data back to China.

[Gooman]

7 hours ago, puntloos said:

Hmm the sonoff flashing is a bit more hands-on than I had in mind, but it might be worth it.

My main question - with tasmota firmware, will the sonoff devices be switchable by an "offline" switch - using the direct connection rather than through the internet (so it'll work hard-wired style..)

 

Yes, with a huge variety of configurations possible. See these two links:

• https://github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Tasmota/wiki/Buttons-and-Switches
• https://www.superhouse.tv/21-six-sonoff-secrets/

[Gooman]

11 hours ago, MJNewton said:

 

I have just started on the road of 'smart' lighting and also have this as one of my key requirements. I must say I have been very disappointed, and somewhat surprised, in the limited range of 'standard(ish)' wall switches (ideally with controls I can feel for, not a touchscreen that I need to look at) that provide an open remote interface. I have found I am certainly not alone in this search so there seems to be a demand.

 

One product I have stumbled across is the Aurora AOne dimmer module which provides a Zigbee interface:

 

 

At £35 I might give it a go and see how well it works.

 

 

Have you seen the Shelly range of smart relays? I was considering trying out a Sonoff but stumbled across the Shellys which are designed and built by Allterco Robotics in the EU which made me feel a bit more comfortable about stuffing inside a backbox out of sight. I bought a Shelly 2.5 which provides two independent channels that can switch upto 10A, and it has built-in overtemperature and (adjustable) overcurrent protection which appealed. So far I've been mainly playing with it via the Shelly cloud but with its built-in webserver and HTTP/MQTT interface it can be operated without any external connectivity dependency. With its support for switched inputs it can operate entirely in standalone mode too.

 

 

As you can see it is tiny and easily fits inside a single backbox (that's got four 1.5mm twin+earth cables in with it too). Incidentally, this is the first time I've used Wago's relatively new '221' lever connectors and they are a considerable improvement over their existing 222 range what with them being much slimmer and having a transparent body so you can easily confirm proper insertion - highly recommended!

 

Yep, I'd seen the Shellys. 

 

They need a neutral feed in the light switch backbox, which means rewiring for most houses. The LightwaveRF dimmers by contrast don't need neutral - they keep a tiny current going on the load just to power the circuitry. Neat trick.

 

If you have your own Home Automation server, you can also use LightwaveRF remote switches (as opposed to dimmers) to control something like a Sonoff inline elsewhere ... though as that's likely to be hidden, it starts to fail my design goal of "removable".

Edited August 1, 2019 by Gooman

[Ed Davies]

2 hours ago, Gooman said:

and use an RFDI interface

 

Do you mean FTDI?

 

(Other USB-to-serial interfaces are available.)

 

2 hours ago, Gooman said:

The LightwaveRF dimmers by contrast don't need neutral - they keep a tiny current going on the load just to power the circuitry. Neat trick.

 

Could that not cause some LEDs to blink? There have been cases where very small leakages can slowly charge the capacitors in the LED electronics resulting in occasional but regular flashes of the light. E.g., the capacitive coupling between the line and switched line in traditional wiring can be enough to do this.

[Gooman]

14 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

 

Do you mean FTDI?

 

(Other USB-to-serial interfaces are available.)

 

Sorry, yes ... working from memory. Was a while ago!

 

14 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

 

Could that not cause some LEDs to blink? There have been cases where very small leakages can slowly charge the capacitors in the LED electronics resulting in occasional but regular flashes of the light. E.g., the capacitive coupling between the line and switched line in traditional wiring can be enough to do this.

 

The older LightwaveRF dimmers (no longer available) did suffer from that, but all currently available ones are fine with LEDs.

[MJNewton]

3 hours ago, Gooman said:

 

Yep, I'd seen the Shellys. 

 

They need a neutral feed in the light switch backbox, which means rewiring for most houses. The LightwaveRF dimmers by contrast don't need neutral - they keep a tiny current going on the load just to power the circuitry. Neat trick.

 

Yes, a neutral is indeed required in the relay's location but this wouldn't necessarily have to be the backbox in all cases. Fortunately ours have them so I didn't give that aspect much thought and I've always made a point of wiring lighting circuits that way as even leaving 'smart' lighting aside I find it far easier to manage the loop-in/loop-out/switching connectivity within a backbox than at the light fitting itself.

 

Quote

If you have your own Home Automation server, you can also use LightwaveRF remote switches (as opposed to dimmers) to control something like a Sonoff inline elsewhere ... though as that's likely to be hidden, it starts to fail my design goal of "removable".

 

It's mainly the cost of the Lightwave range that put me off as I don't know how confident I can be in its longevity in any future solution, mainly because I am right at the beginning of this journey and still have a lot to learn about what options there are I where I want to go (your list has been very helpful with this). I am really keen to use as much open standards/products as possible to mitigate this uncertainty.

Edited August 1, 2019 by MJNewton

[puntloos]

19 hours ago, Gooman said:

My design goals were:

• Main lights should always be operable with a standard(ish) wall switch. Important for any visitors or house sitters, or even any regular occupant in a panic! But only add automation for those lights where it's actually useful.
• Accent lighting doesn't necessarily need a wall switch at all - app/automatic control is fine. No biggie if it doesn't come on, can always be turned off at the CU. Default to off when power comes on.
• "In-use" detection for main appliances, mainly so that I can get an alert if we both leave the house when they're on. Currently includes washing machine and tumble dryer, still thinking about on cooker/oven detection.
• Window/door open detection for commonly used windows and doors, again for notification when we leave the house. All avoids that awful "Did you shut the back door?" discussion when you're half-way to Cornwall.
• Presence detection (linked to the above two). Easiest route is via mobile phone detection on the local WiFi.
• Camera motion detection, active when we're not home.
• Everything removable and portable so we can take it with us when we move.
• Integration with Google Home so that you have hands-free lighting control in the kitchen, and a simple way to turn everything off at night.

Key components I've used are:

• Itead Sonoff devices for simple on/off. This is a WiFi gizmo that you wire inline (requires neutral). Flashed with the far superior open-source Tasmota firmware. I've used these for kitchen accent lighting and patio lighting.
• Koogeek plug-in WiFi devices for simple on/off and power consumption detection. These are based on Tuya hardware, and again flashed with Tasmota. I used these for the washing machine and dryer.
• Magichome WiFI RGB LED strip controller for accent lights in utility. Dirt cheap, again flashed with Tasmota.
• LightwaveRF dimmers. Only one 3-way at present - they're not cheap, but they look damn good and are usable by anyone. Controlled either with the LightwaveRF WiFi Hub (again, not cheap) or with a self-build RFlink Arduino-based RF controller (which is what I'm using now). Will be adding more.
• Yi Home WiFi webcam, flashed with the Yi-Hack firmware.
• Raspberry Pi running OpenHAB. This is the main "brains" of the system, communicating with and controlling everything. Provides me a control panel on my phone and remote alerting. 

I'm planning to add more 433MHz RF devices, such as door/window sensors, door bell, and smoke/heat detectors, and an electricity meter pulse counter.

 

 

This is awesome, and sounds decidedly cheap (I mean that in a positive sense) compared to the fancier options. 

 

I wonder what the downsides are. More specifically, and I say that with all the love for tech in the world, but I find many of these ecosystems surprisingly flaky, stuff randomly not responding, behaviour changing because of some auto-update, evil hackers from $country_of_the_week listening in, etc etc.

 

In short, how stable is your stuff day to day? How often do you have to powercycle anything etcetc.

[Gooman]

19 minutes ago, MJNewton said:

It's mainly the cost of the Lightwave range that put me off as I don't know how confident I can be in its longevity in any future solution, mainly because I am right at the beginning of this journey and still have a lot to learn about what options there are I where I want to go (your list has been very helpful with this). I am really keen to use as much open standards/products as possible to mitigate this uncertainty.

 

I know what you mean, but all the other potential solutions I could find at the time fell well behind in terms of aesthetics.

 

If you're happy with needing a neutral line, and you're OK with white glass finish, there's now a lot more options. ITEAD themselves have the Sonoff T1 line (https://www.itead.cc/smart-home/sonoff-t1.html), plus there's others available on Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07FMJHQFF). Both are flashable with Tasmota (the latter being easier as it can be flashed "over the air" without using a soldering iron, if you're savvy with Linux).

 

If you want chrome finish to tie in with other stuff, I've not yet found anything other than Lightwave ... but that also needs a 433MHz RF gateway (either Lightwave's expensive one, or a homebrew using RFlink).

 

[Gooman]

7 minutes ago, puntloos said:

 

This is awesome, and sounds decidedly cheap (I mean that in a positive sense) compared to the fancier options. 

 

I wonder what the downsides are. More specifically, and I say that with all the love for tech in the world, but I find many of these ecosystems surprisingly flaky, stuff randomly not responding, behaviour changing because of some auto-update, evil hackers from $country_of_the_week listening in, etc etc.

 

In short, how stable is your stuff day to day? How often do you have to powercycle anything etcetc.

 

It is *very* low cost compared to the main branded solutions.

 

If I was starting again now, I'd use Tuya-based devices as they can be flashed OverTheAir (OTA) rather than using a soldering iron. For me, that would be the Koogeek plug-in sockets (very low profile) and the Tuya-based dimmers I mentioned from Amazon in the last post. That way you avoid the need for a 433MHz gateway (until you want to hook into smoke/heat alarms and window/door opening sensors).

 

I've found the Tasmota firmware to be rock-solid. OpenHAB is quite a learning curve in terms of configuration and tweaking (I'd rate it a 7 on the Gooman Geek Scale), but once it's set up it's solid. There are alternatives to OpenHAB, but they don't have good mobile control options.

 

The system is sound and easily usable by non-techies - they just use the switches or Google Assistant (Alexa reportedly works just as well). Most of my light controls I now have on timer as well, so I have a set of lights that always comes on at dusk. If we're not home, they're set to go off at 1am. If we are home, I turn them off with "Hey Google, night-night"!

 

[puntloos]

21 minutes ago, Gooman said:

 

It is *very* low cost compared to the main branded solutions.

 

If I was starting again now, I'd use Tuya-based devices as they can be flashed OverTheAir (OTA) rather than using a soldering iron. For me, that would be the Koogeek plug-in sockets (very low profile) and the Tuya-based dimmers I mentioned from Amazon in the last post. That way you avoid the need for a 433MHz gateway (until you want to hook into smoke/heat alarms and window/door opening sensors).

 

Am I assuming correctly that you're not actually using the Tuya services (e.g. their 'gold' service, which I think is a monthly $$) but instead just flash the hardware to tasmota?

 

21 minutes ago, Gooman said:

I've found the Tasmota firmware to be rock-solid. OpenHAB is quite a learning curve in terms of configuration and tweaking (I'd rate it a 7 on the Gooman Geek Scale), but once it's set up it's solid. There are alternatives to OpenHAB, but they don't have good mobile control options.

 

Ha, frankly as I get older my time to 'geek around' is less and less, but it might be worth the time and mildly fun.

 

21 minutes ago, Gooman said:

 

The system is sound and easily usable by non-techies - they just use the switches or Google Assistant (Alexa reportedly works just as well). Most of my light controls I now have on timer as well, so I have a set of lights that always comes on at dusk. If we're not home, they're set to go off at 1am. If we are home, I turn them off with "Hey Google, night-night"!

 

 

 

 

[Gooman]

9 minutes ago, puntloos said:

 

Am I assuming correctly that you're not actually using the Tuya services (e.g. their 'gold' service, which I think is a monthly $$) but instead just flash the hardware to tasmota?

 

Yep, that's right.

[Gooman]

One more point with Tasmota - you don't *have* to run a Home Automation server like OpenHAB. You can control each device independently via it's own web interface, and set on/off timers on the devices. There are also various apps that will control all Tasmota devices on the same LAN when you're home.

 

Although that approach is much simpler, you don't get remote control away from the home, nor integration with presence detection, nor Google Home/Alexa control. But it's an easier way to start.