home automation hardware/software

[eFestivals]

I've just woken up to the fact that my NAS will run a home automation system, so I thought I'd ask if anyone has done it, and what's good and what's not.

My NAS is a Synology, and the Home Automation server software I've installed (tho there might be something better...?) is https://home-assistant.io/
(I know there's other stuff out there, tho I'm not sure whether they'll run on the chip my NAS uses)

I've just ordered a Belkin WeMo lighting starter kit (a hub, and 2 bulbs) - which I know is supported by by NAS and that software (and likely to be supported by other software, if I used something else).

I've also ordered an Aventek wifi power socket, but don't know whether that will work from the HA server.

Anything useful anyone might be able to tell me about anything home automation, I'm all ears.

Thanks.

[carlosj]

I never thought about using my NAS for this, I'll check out that link later on to see if my Sinology is supported. I'm thinking about something like Google Nest, but it would involve WiFi thermostats on the radiators to be most effective so more than I'm wanting to do at the moment. We're getting the loft converted properly so that will reduce the heat loss substantially (I've seen the polystyrene insulation boards the previous owners used), and it's Summer (I think) so we've no heating on.

Are you looking to control it remotely and VPN to your NAS?

[eFestivals]

20 hours ago, carlosj said:

I never thought about using my NAS for this, I'll check out that link later on to see if my Sinology is supported. I'm thinking about something like Google Nest, but it would involve WiFi thermostats on the radiators to be most effective so more than I'm wanting to do at the moment. We're getting the loft converted properly so that will reduce the heat loss substantially (I've seen the polystyrene insulation boards the previous owners used), and it's Summer (I think) so we've no heating on.

Are you looking to control it remotely and VPN to your NAS?

my synology is a 214play, which has an intel chip - so some 3rd party packages don't work on that. While it's hard to find a clear answer, it seems that what I linked to above doesn't work, but that Pulse Station (https://www.pulse-station.com/) does - so I now have that installed.

I'm not planning on external control as I work at home anyway, so I was planning on setting up a schedule within the server software.

From what I've found, the options for packages for the Synology are these:-

- Pulse Station (https://www.pulse-station.com/)

- Home Assistant ( https://home-assistant.io/ )

- Open Remote ( https://pcloadletter.co.uk/2011/10/25/openremote-package-for-synology/)

- Domoticz (https://synocommunity.com/package/domoticz )

... but if you know of other options I'd like to know them. I don't really have much of a clue about any of this.

I don't have any smart devices to test it with - should have some (lights, and a socket) delivered tomorrow - so I'll see how that goes.

My bruv works for a German company that does wifi thermostats (and perhaps more, I'm not sure) so I ought to tap him up for some freebies.

[carlosj]

Cheers for those pointers.  I've no real information on this at the moment. My initial aim is to manage the heating better and ensure each room is up to the right temperature, rather than lights.

Would you mind asking your brother if the WiFi thermostats work on both frequencies, as I turn off the 2.4GHz broadcasting each night so the girls go to sleep, and leave the 5 GHz on.

I'll see if some of the geeks at work use this and let you know. I've not had much success with some packages for my synology though, I had presumed I'd control it via my laptop or phone.

[eFestivals]

I've now got my wemo lights, and have them running via the wemo app.

Apparently wemo isn't supported by default on pulse station tho can be made to work via IFTTT, or can be made to work directly via a bit of programming. The programming doesn't scare me, but the lack of info about how to do it has me stuck. As I'm pushed for time before Glasto I guess I might set the lights up via IFTTT for the short-term.

I'll have a word with my bruv sometime soon about thermostats, tho I don't have much contact with him on a regular basis so it might be a while.

 

[carlosj]

Ha ha, this is soooo much more than I was planning to do.  My light sensor method is a clunky 24 hour timer with a lamp in the front room when we're on holiday.

I know what you mean about general silence on this, and yes, I need to avoid geeking and crack on with work before I leave on Weds morning.  I did a quick search and found this, which you may have read already https://github.com/iancmcc/ouimeaux/issues/31, that has some stuff, and manuals/instructions here http://www.openremote.org/display/docs/OpenRemote+2.0+User+Tutorial.  I don't code, I'm IT literate, (but did MSI development in apps, rather than write VB/SQL/Java etc) so I'm going to have to train myself up on that if it gets in-depth.  Have you checked out the Synology forums, they've always been good for my queries.

No rush on contacting your bruv, as thinking about it, I should google the answer myself if I pull my finger out.

See you for those canapés on Weds.

[eFestivals]

have raised a few queries with the pulse station peeps and they're responsive - but they assume a level of knowledge and understanding, while the interface gives you no clues at all.

I've pointed out my numptie state and suggested they wise up to the fact that people using their system might be numpties.I'm hoping they might wake up to themselves a bit.

 

 

 

[thegremlin_1999]

Only time I've looked at such things is from a more "maker" POV. Ie raspberry pi/arduino (and other microcontrollers). 

A pi zero is only £4 (plus power and adaptors) so could be entertaining to use/geek with. My mate runs a mini cctv type thing through his which pushes an image to his phone/iPad when he requests it (it's setup to see who's at the door). 

 

Seen folk use stuff like an ESP8266 Thing (made by sparkfun) for lighting etc. 

 

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13231

 

that link is US but loads of UK suppliers!

 

i appreciate ate none of this is entirely relevant! 

[eFestivals]

change of plan again, but probably the right choice - I'm now using https://domoticz.com/. It seems like the smart choice, as it seems the most widely used and with enough info out there for numptie me to work out what to do.

There's not a 'proper' compilation of the package for my Synology NAS, but managed to find one that'll work here:-
http://www.jadahl.com/index.html

I've just installed the ouimeaux libraries for that (http://ouimeaux.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html), as Domoticz doesn't support Belkin WeMo's by default, and while I've not managed to do anything within Domiticz yet I've just turned the lights on and off from the commandline.

So tomorrow I'll try and do something interesting with Domoticz, and I'll get round to hassling my bruv for any freebies I can get out of him.

[eFestivals]

Ha! Change of plan again last night.

When random googling for stuff on Domoticz I discovered that OpenHab (http://www.openhab.org/) supported Belkin WeMo's by default, and also had compiled packages for synology - so I've no installed that. It looks a good choice too, as it seems to have the biggest default-supported list of hardware.

Like many of these packages it doesn't actually work until the NAS has been rebooted. It also (weirdly) wants a minute or two after rebooting before it'll work properly.

OpenHAB is about to release v2, and there's a public beta. As it apparently has a much better interface I went for that rather than the older version, and it's installed and runs fine.

Annoyingly, it's one of these packages that still needs some fiddling with after install, to put the 'demo.sitemap' in place so that the interface actually has something to present to you.

Anyway, a fair amount of fiddling to get it working, but then dead simple to get it to control my lights (with a simple on/off) - the whole thing took about an hour including the googling for answers.

It's also auto-detected all devices on my network too.

And it's the only one I've looked at where I've not stared blankly at the screen wondering how I might do the most basic things.

Onwards and upwards.

[eFestivals]

just heard back from my bruv, so it looks like I have some product picking to do later.

(I'm not entirely sure if the product range goes beyond hearing systems just yet).

I've just double-checked, and OpenHAB supports the devices.

He does say - probably with a bit of self promotion ) tho...

Just so you know, eQ-3 have 18 million wireless devices in 600,000 homes in Europe (mainly Germany) and as a consequence have the largest market share in Europe. Many competitor solutions will not exist in 3 yrs. time, so be careful what you choose.

Having read up on the four main hardware-wireless systems being used currently - wemo, z-wave, zigbee, and thread - I'm already regretting my choice of WeMo, and wish i'd gone for the Philips stuff instead as it's zigbee. As Zigbee is the open standard it looks to be the one most likely to gain legs in the short-term and probably have the widest range of products at the best prices.

The eQ-3 stuff uses Homematic & MAX! so my bruv says. There's a few bits on Amazon of both types if you search for them.

[carlosj]

Cheers Neil. Daft question, are these lights overridden by someone turning them on and off manually as well as the programming? TBH, I don't think I'm going to use this for lights, but was just thinking of how fault tolerant the system is. Particularly with 1 haphazard step daughter.

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, carlosj said:

Cheers Neil. Daft question, are these lights overridden by someone turning them on and off manually as well as the programming? TBH, I don't think I'm going to use this for lights, but was just thinking of how fault tolerant the system is. Particularly with 1 haphazard step daughter.

The lightswitch has to be on all the time for the wemo bulb to be controled via the app (etc).

If you turn the switch off and back on again, the light will come on and remain on, and if you refresh the app screen it will (eventually, when everything's re-hooked itself up) reflect the changed 'on' status, and can be controlled from the app again.,

(hopefully that's clear )

------

Had a few more email from my bruv. He's strongly warned me away from getting any zigbee stuff, saying the signal strength is too weak for many real-world situations - so I guess the next best to buy (because of the number of devices) is z-wave.

[eFestivals]

3 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Is it all really worth it ?

Who knows? Really?

I started off thinking about how to help make the house look occupied when i was at Glasto, and ended up buying some wemo stuff. I then discovered there was lots of other stuff, and it could all be linked together into 'the internet of things'. So I thought i'd check it out a bit further, knowing I might have a route to some free kit (not looking so likely now, but never mind).

I've just had my bruv recommend some kit I could add to my heating system, which he's done, and then he finished with this (presumably a part of his work patter)....

Before currency movement following Brexit, traditional 3 bed semi (Cube, BCA, 5  eTRV’s (assuming existing TRV’s), 1 ECO switch, 2 window sensors) retail GBP 300. Payback: 3yrs +/- 1yr (dependent on previous controls, lifestyle etc.) Based on what you’ve told me your payback could well be nearer the 2 years.

So yep, it looks like it could be worth it.

But I'm looking at what could be done just because I can.

[eFestivals]

Gave up on trying to blag from my bruv for the moment, as I really need to spend a bit of money on the heating system before I hang pretty things on it. Hopefully I'll get back to that in a few months.

Getting to grips with OpenHAB2 is mighty difficult, as there's sod all documentation for v2 (the docs for v1 are OK), and the set-up on my NAS appears to be different to the standard. I've spent an age just trying to find out how I can load the demo sitemap, because of how the config is different and it being located nowhere that's documented.

So, for a random reading this...
it's in /volume1/@appstore/OpenHAB2/conf/sitemaps and not /volume1/public/OpenHAB2
but you also need to edit /volume1/@appstore/OpenHAB2/conf/services/addons.cfg to add package = demo.

You can build your own sitemap and put it in /volume1/@appstore/OpenHAB2/conf/sitemaps, and then call via the Basic UI settings in (PaperUI) Services (with an OpenHAB2 server restart needed to pickup the chame

Gawd, it's slow and hard going, but I think I might be finally making progress.

[eFestivals]

I now have a pretty sitemap, of my house & rooms along with switches/dimmers for the lights, plus the local weather, and some indicators for the mobile phones, etc, that connect in the house (so I can see what's connected, and who is home).

What I can't get to work is some indicators for the Win10 PCs, unless I turn off the windows firewall on each device. I obviously need to allow the right thing thru the firewall but I can't work out what.

I've also succeeded in running some simple rules, to turn the lights on and off - which is really all I can do with hardware until I buy some more hardware.  I need to develop those rules, to have a 'switch' for 'away mode' that will then turn the lights on and off at certain times when we're away.

Once I've sussed that, I can start looking at what clever things I can do with software events.

[eFestivals]

I now have some 'scenes' set-up, with 'home' & 'away' settings for the house, and (if 'home') some 'work', 'play' & 'away' settings for my office.

I just press a (software) switch, and the devices are set into the state I want (on/off, and dimming levels for lights), with some of those settings also controlled via timers (so when away, the lights come on/off at certain times to give the impression of people in the house, for example).

That sounds a lot for the couple of bulbs that I have currently, but i've just ordered some more wemo kit (more bulbs, plus some sockets) that'll get tied into the scenes I've set-up.

I was nearly tempted to buy z-wave devices instead - I will if/when I buy some more kit - but decided to stick with wemo for the moment, because I'm a bit skint and managed to find some good prices, that saved me £30 over the previous-best prices I'd seen for wemo and £70 over buying z-wave (tho £35 of the z-wave cost would have been on a controller). The wemo stuff will always be good for my office even if I go with other systems for the rest of the house.

Why have I done this? Because I can.

[The Nal]

I just flick the light switch on whenever I want the light to come on and then switch it off when I want the light to go out. 

[eFestivals]

31 minutes ago, The Nal said:

I just flick the light switch on whenever I want the light to come on and then switch it off when I want the light to go out. 

that doesn't work when you're not home.

[eFestivals]

I've recently expanded the kit I have, so that I now have a z-wave controller (a USB stick, the Aeotec Z-Stick), and two z-wave devices for that, a plug socket, and a Aeotec Multi Sensor 6 which senses motion, temperature, humidity, and light levels.

The z-stick was a right bugger to set-up and get working, as OpenHAB needs the rights to be able to access it - which took loads of googling to find the solution. Once it was working, connecting the devices thru it was a breeze.

So now I have a number of lights (both the main centre lights as well as plug-in ones) that trigger at specific times, or at a time related to the daily sunset time, or via a motion detector, plus office sockets that are only powered on during my working hours. What exactly each device might be doing at what times is controlled via a number of 'scenes' (such as 'home' and 'away').

The only thing I want to add to the current set-up is a 'presence detector' system, that will automatically switch the 'scene' back from 'away' to 'home' on certain conditions - if the TV gets switched on, or if our mobiles connect to the home network, that sort of thing. It's easy enough to do in theory, but always a bit harder in practice.

I've got lots of ideas for more stuff - for the heating system, for powered blinds and curtains, and more - but no cash to do it for the mo

[eFestivals]

have just got an Amazon Echo Dot .... and it's rather amazing.

The voice recognition is very very good - it mostly understands what I've asked it (the weather, "play some Daft Punk", "who is the manager of liverpool", etc) and gives an accurate answer.

I particularly like "where can I hide a body?", but was disappointed that it didn't act accordingly when I asked it "roll me a spliff".

At the moment it's a standalone thing, but hopefully I can integrate it into my main automation set-up.

[eFestivals]

Wow, basic integration was easy, and I can now turn my home automation kit - lights and sockets - on and off with my voice.

 

 

[The Nal]

28 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Wow, basic integration was easy, and I can now turn my home automation kit - lights and sockets - on and off with my voice.

Are you trying to setup a Matrix/Lawnmower Man type scenario?

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, The Nal said:

Are you trying to setup a Matrix/Lawnmower Man type scenario?

Yep ... or that what the missus thinks, anyway. She hates it.

The Echo Dot really is brilliant tho. If you love your gadgets and can spare fifty quid I highly recommend it, particularly if you also have a Spotify account or have bought loads of music from amazon, as it'll play from those libraries by default (I'm not yet sure if i'll be able to get it to see my home music library). And if you buy some wemo sockets it's dead easy to use Echo to switch them on and off (without any of the more complex setup I have).

It is a little bit like it's a solution looking for a problem tho. I'm sure i'll have lots of fun with mine, but how much serious use it might get I'm not really sure because talking at things is a bit weird.

 

[eFestivals]

There's a list of the sort of stuff you can (by default) do with the Echo Dot here:-
https://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/the-complete-list-of-alexa-commands/

There's also a list of 'easter eggs' - stupid questions that you'll get answers for - at the link below.

I've managed to find one that's not listed, smut that I am. I asked it if it has sex, and got the reply "that's not the sort of conversation I'm capable of having".

https://www.reddit.com/r/amazonecho/comments/2v15fx/list_of_known_easter_eggs_for_amazon_echo_so_far/