Home Automation

thanks @zilog6128. I’m definitely expending too much brain energy on this. Currently looking at intel N95/N100 based NUCs which look pretty good but now I. don’t. know.

Currently looking at intel N95/N100 –

new ones on me, a quick google suggests it’s a fairly mediocre mobile CPU. Is this in one of the cheap Chinese brand mini-PCs that are suddenly everywhere, as opposed to a genuine NUC? I know they’re very popular on HA groups purely down to price, no idea how great or reliable they really are though!

Like I can’t think of anything I have heard or read that even remotely interests me in a “that’s useful”-

sounds more like a terminal lack of imagination more than anything else 😂 but fair enough 😀

a fairly mediocre mobile CPU. Is this in one of the cheap Chinese brand mini-PCs that are suddenly everywhere, as opposed to a genuine NUC?

Yes, they are no-name PCs but in comparison the chips stand up well against older gen i5s. Also I am trying to do this without splurging too much! Struggling to find a >9th gen i5 for a decent-ish price 😞 

sounds more like a terminal lack of imagination more than anything else 😂 but fair enough 😀

🤣 🔥

I’d love to be able to justify it but for core jobs like turning lights on and off I’m not for doing that when we frequently get visitors.

Curtains and blinds would be handy though, put them on a light/temperature sensor. Boiler is obvious. Only thing that bothers me is relying on Google and other providers not to just can something with little warning, I’d want to do as much as possible self served.

PC hardware isn’t really something I expend a lot of brain energy on, but at least Intel make it simple! The 2 main differentiators are the “i” number (i3 being most basic and i9 most powerful) and then the first 1 or 2 numbers of the rest, which indicate generation number, 14 (I think) being the most recent.

😂

You’re going to love their new convention, they’re zeroing everything, taking away numbers and basically smearing shit on the walls so nobody knows what the hell they’re getting.

sounds more like a terminal lack of imagination more than anything else 😂 but fair enough 😀

Oh cont rare

My imagination pictures perfectly that I can open the curtains and turn off the lights without needing to have a computer to help me! We need to be using less energy not more!

We need to be using less energy not more!

True but closing curtains when you’re not there keeps heat in the house. In an ideal world I’d have those integrated shutters that Germans seem to love, cover the job of blackout blinds and extra insulation.

Agree with you on the rest, a lot of the logic could probably be accomplished without a computer.

I’ve got automations for turning off the radiators near the bathroom when the bathroom window is open. When the humidity drops in the bathroom the speakers send out an alert to tell someone to shut the window. Then the radiators go back to their usual programme.

And turning lights off when no-one is in the room. And telling me when the garage door is open when no-one is at home.

Basically it’s more satisfying playing with home automation than getting annoyed at your family for leaving windows & doors open and lights on.

But I really want to figure out what birds and other animals are in our garden.

Only thing that bothers me is relying on Google and other providers not to just can something with little warning, I’d want to do as much as possible self served.

That’s what Home Assistant allows you to do. It can even bridge to the Google/Apple apps so that the rest of the family can carry on using what they are used to without suspecting a thing.

You’re going to love their new convention, they’re zeroing everything, taking away numbers and basically smearing shit on the walls so nobody knows what the hell they’re getting.

WTF 🤣 marketing by confusion?

I’d love to be able to justify it but for core jobs like turning lights on and off I’m not for doing that when we frequently get visitors.

Yeah. It’s perfectly possible to have smart lighting that outwardly functions exactly the same as it ever did – i.e. mine uses the same switches we always had, you can turn them on/off by hand & this still works without wifi or the HA server running etc (so if visitors come round all they see are “normal” lights/switchs) but probably not with kit you can buy off the shelf in Currys!!

Only thing that bothers me is relying on Google and other providers not to just can something with little warning, I’d want to do as much as possible self served.

as mentioned, this is literally the point of HA & why it exists, and why it’s a far better idea than just buying a bunch of Hue/Alexa/Google Home etc compatible stuff (even if HA is slightly more technical to set up initially) and trying to cobble together a “smart” house from all kinds of disparate, cloud-based services.

My imagination pictures perfectly that I can open the curtains and turn off the lights without needing to have a computer to help me! We need to be using less energy not more!

just realised you are the guy who doesn’t even have a smartphone which leads me to question this statement:

I’m not a luddite I don’t think

So I am refusing to get drawn into it 😂

Only thing that bothers me is relying on Google and other providers not to just can something with little warning

I used to have one of the free Google Suites accounts. They announced they were pulling it something like 18 months in advance, gave you the tools to migrate and the old account still works (although not receiving mail) a long time later, I have no idea how long ago it was now 🙂

I’m less confident with Amazon but I only have a couple of hundred quid of Echoes accumulated over the years so I’ll take that risk. The lighting stuff is Zigbee which is an open standard meaning it’s not tied to any one manufacturer. We have a mix of Philips and Ikea; the former are better – more range and more vivid colours than the latter, but much more expensive. But they do come in B22.

Like I can’t think of anything I have heard or read that even remotely interests me in a “that’s useful”

My heating turns itself off when the house gets to a selected temperature.

Ah okay, that makes a bit more sense. Cheers.

When the humidity drops in the bathroom the speakers send out an alert to tell someone to shut the window.

Humidistats are already built into fans, if the one built in is crap you can probably quite easily wire in the same one you’re using.

Lights can be PIR logic controlled.

That’s the thing, a lot of these don’t need a computer interface to work.

Lights can be PIR logic controlled.

PIR sensors don’t work for residential lighting. Your mrs will complain loudly if she’s still in the bath & all the lights go out. This is learnt from bitter experience 😂 In fact the logic required is way more complicated than people assume, before they actually try it for themselves. One of the most difficult things to get right (I’m still working on it myself!!)

That’s the thing, a lot of these don’t need a computer interface to work.

they do if you want them to work well, that’s the difference 😃 (i.e. without any manual intervention at all)

We have a mix of Philips and Ikea; the former are better – more range and more vivid colours than the latter, but much more expensive.

I have to hand it to the Philips marketing team, they really earn their salaries when Philips stuff is still 10x* more expensive despite everything else using exactly the same Chinese-made SMD LEDs – and people are happy to pay it!! (* or whatever, no idea what the actual “Philips tax” is lol)

That’s the thing, a lot of these don’t need a computer interface to work.

I do realise most folk just do without all of this stuff. I think that’s pretty obviously the case? I don’t need to justify my hobby but here goes anyway: I enjoy messing around with home automation, actually find it fascinating to understand how to use hardware and software in a living, physical environment in a way that is invisible and useful or fun, or whatever.

But honestly this is like arguing over whether mountain biking is “useful”. You get it, and enjoy it and maybe it fulfils you in other ways too. Plenty of people don’t go mountain biking, and that’s fine too, it’s not for everyone.

If you think home automation is weird and pointless, maybe just note we’re mostly harmless and then go and find another thread to start an argument on.

I don’t think Hue are the same as Ikea. They are definitely better all round – they go dimmer, brighter, they go redder, bluer, purpler etc, but not 5x better!

Like I can’t think of anything I have heard or read that even remotely interests me in a “that’s useful”

I’m not an evangelist – I don’t insist that everyone needs it. We’d be better off if no-one had it, because it’s needless tech junk. The things we use it for:

– Playing music, both on the standalone speakers and as a streaming solution for hi-fi
– Intercom around the house – it’s got three floors, and teenagers with closed doors, so it’s much better than shouting at the top of your lungs around the house
– My daughter used to use it to play music to get her to sleep when she was younger
– We have lots of lights – so for example we put the hallway lights on a low setting in the evening so the house isn’t black but it’s not using much power. This is done on three floors and four lights with a single command, it’s a lot easier than turning them all up and down individually.
– Group actions – for example, “I’m watching TV” turns on the LED lights around the telly and two concealed uplighters which would involve rummaging around behind stuff otherwise.
– Scheduled stuff like having the coffee machine on and warmed up when I get up.
– Doing stuff ahead of time like making a house announcement asking people to put the hot water on as I’m coming home from a long freezing bike ride; also putting the coffee machine on again.

My next one will probably be a smart switch for the immersion heater. I’ve just fitted a dumb timer so I can heat water overnight for cheap but it’s shit, and now Octopus have announced Octoplus I may be able to heat water for super-cheap or even get paid to do so.

It’s worth noting that I originally thought voice control for stuff was pointless – I argued that very point on here a long time ago – but I quite like it now.

just realised you are the guy who doesn’t even have a smartphone which leads me to question this statement:

Ahaha.

If you recall that’s because the bloody thing was having a very serious effect on my mental health. I’m better now though thanks. Got myself a smart phone and everything again. I stand by the fact it’s quite nice to not have one sometimes.

I am all for tinkering, I think the problem solving aspect is interesting I just am not convinced by alot of the projects being actually useful.

IE

My heating turns itself off when the house gets to a selected temperature.

If a computer is doing the job of a single analogue component… It’s not an improvement?

The smart thermostats do more than just turn it off and on, which is the point, but it’s more effective the more modern and/or smart your other stuff is.

If a computer is doing the job of a single analogue component… It’s not an improvement?

My point was that we all have home automation to some degree, even if it’s just a timer on the heating.

But honestly this is like arguing over whether mountain biking is “useful”. You get it, and enjoy it and maybe it fulfils you in other ways too. Plenty of people don’t go mountain biking, and that’s fine too, it’s not for everyone.

yeah, it’s 99% hobby for me tbh. Was always interest in messing around with computers/coding etc and this allows me to do something that actually has a “point” rather than just farting around in Python etc for the sake of it! Although I’ve very much gone off the deep end and probably the things that most people are doing like lights/heating etc are just a distant glimmer now 😂 Current interest/obsession is leveraging AI & big data.

I don’t think Hue are the same as Ikea. They are definitely better all round – they go dimmer, brighter, they go redder, bluer, purpler etc, but not 5x better!

possibly just the relative age of the (tech in the) bulbs? Things tend to move on very quickly, and no-one advertises what generation of LEDs they’re using, they just update the product range. I got some £10 WiFi GU10s recently, they are so much better than my (original, from when they were £50 per bulb when on offer!!) Hues it’s ridiculous.

I’m better now though thanks.

great to hear 😃 I’m still not going to try to convince you though 😂

PIR sensors don’t work for residential lighting. Your mrs will complain loudly if she’s still in the bath & all the lights go out.

So what do you use? Short of everyone carrying a token of some sort there’s nothing else I can think of that would be appropriate for a domestic system. Cameras in particular.

I do realise most folk just do without all of this stuff. I think that’s pretty obviously the case? I don’t need to justify my hobby but here goes anyway: I enjoy messing around with home automation, actually find it fascinating to understand how to use hardware and software in a living, physical environment in a way that is invisible and useful or fun, or whatever.

Not looking to start an argument, just found it odd you would go to the trouble of doing something yourself that has an easy existing solution. Never considered the “because I can” argument which is fair enough. I’m more of a “keep it simple” pov which although isn’t as expensive has a higher reliability.

I think there really is too much InternetofShit in devices these days. It’s not the functionality that bothers me but the implementation and the fact you’re nearly always reliant on someone else at some point in the chain. And at the end it’ll all be e-waste. There’s a balance to be struck and enthusiasts probably have a better chance of getting it right.

I’ve very much gone off the deep end and probably the things that most people are doing like lights/heating etc are just a distant glimmer now 😂 Current interest/obsession is leveraging AI & big data.

Sounds like an utter waste of your life. You should apply that knowledge to something genuinely useful like Elite (AI **** > spreadsheet ****)

😉

So what do you use? Short of everyone carrying a token of some sort there’s nothing else I can think of that would be appropriate for a domestic system.

MMwave radar is what people are using these days. It’s much more sensitive (would be triggered by you breathing), zoned and also detects direction of motion (i.e. are you leaving or entering a room). Hence not at all suitable for just on/off control!

But that’s just the start of it… if you’re in the bath or living room & have lit some candles for example, you might not want the lights to come on automatically. Same if you’re watching a movie, or just happen to sit up in bed at night. Do you always want all your lights to be off when you’re away? What if burglars are scooping the place out? What if one family member prefers some lights being left on at night if they’re the only ones in the house, rather than everything just going dark at bedtime? It’s a lot more nuanced than people imagine when they’re just thought-experimenting it, when you actually come to implement it you’ll find you’re still using manual controls a lot until you can account for all the edge use-cases (of which there are a lot!!)

All these scenarios can be handled, but you need more data (from other sensors, etc). One of the really interesting things (to me lol) about AI like ChatGPT is it can still make correct decisions based on fuzzy or incomplete data… obviously this was possible before but CGPT makes it really easy i.e. no programming.

I think there really is too much InternetofShit in devices these days. It’s not the functionality that bothers me but the implementation and the fact you’re nearly always reliant on someone else at some point in the chain. And at the end it’ll all be e-waste. There’s a balance to be struck and enthusiasts probably have a better chance of getting it right.

yup. Most simpler devices probably have a DIY option which is a) way cheaper b) way better and c) doesn’t rely on the cloud. I have built a few myself, it’s a fun part of the hobby. It’s probably obvious but the sole reason a lot of commercial devices operate the way they do is to attempt to tie you into their ecosystems. (although that is something HA can help with!)

Sounds like an utter waste of your life. You should apply that knowledge to something genuinely useful like Elite

probably 😂

I don’t get HA.

Like I can’t think of anything I have heard or read that even remotely interests me in a “that’s useful”

Do you have a TV remote, or do you get up to change channels and adjust the volume?

“Alexa, dim the lights.” I have a voice routine attached to “goodnight” which shuts down whatever crap my partner’s left on without having to trail through the house end-to-end throwing switches.

Shopping list management is a killer app which even my technophobe girlfriend loves. “Alexa, add bananas” and it appears on my app when I’m in the supermarket.

I’m not a luddite I don’t think… Although I do believe car windows are perfectly functional with little arms you turn…

As a passenger perhaps, it’s a pain when you’re trying to drive at the same time.

But in the spirit of the subject: walking across the carpark on a hot summer’s day you can press & hold the unlock button to open all the windows, get some air through for a minute before you get into the car. You can’t do that with winder handles.

MMwave radar is what people are using these days. It’s much more sensitive (would be triggered by you breathing), zoned and also detects direction of motion (i.e. are you leaving or entering a room). Hence not at all suitable for just on/off control!

Huh, the more you know…

But in the spirit of the subject: walking across the carpark on a hot summer’s day you can press & hold the unlock button to open all the windows, get some air through for a minute before you get into the car. You can’t do that with winder handles.

Good point… Not mUCH of a problem in Peebles 😁 but it seems daft to me to stuff cars with motors and extra weight that could be used to increase range.

I’m not saying HA is a bad idea just most of the ideas seem frivolous.

Now if someone can make myhouse read the surplus supply on the national grid and tell everything now is a good time to turn on/refresh/charge cheaply so it can be rolled out across all homes reducing peak demand… I am in.

I think someone actually said something about that already…

That’s the thing, a lot of these don’t need a computer interface to work.

They do if you want to make the logic context based. I have different routines for lights, sound etc based on if i’m eating in the dining room, watching TV, working, cooking, getting up in the middle of the night, getting up in the morning, and so on.

Now if someone can make myhouse read the surplus supply on the national grid and tell everything now is a good time to turn on/refresh/charge cheaply so it can be rolled out across all homes reducing peak demand… I am in.

One of my colleagues, a very early adopter of home automation, has stuff that’s been running since the mid 90’s.
He has his solar, GSHP, ASHP, UFH, EV charging, external supply and home electrical storage all integrated into one model based on his internal demand, instantaneous cost from supplier, output from the solar, internal and external temps and local load, plus a degree of smart learning (i’ll be waking up at 6:30 as it’s tuesday, lets turn the heating up and make sure the car is charged to a minimum of 30% before 7:30 when you leave for work.) It’s all there. Not forgetting lights, sound, blinds… Initial investment was, errrr, significant. But his current heating/electrical costs are almost zero, house is always “right” for him, wife (she hasn’t left him) and kids.

Like I can’t think of anything I have heard or read that even remotely interests me in a “that’s useful”

Isn’t it just fun programming for nerds? I mean I make plastic models which essentially serve the same purpose as this, keep me from sitting on the sofa going blind from watching the idiot box when I can’t be (or don’t wanna be) outside on my bike. I mean none of things are life changingly important, but it’s still just kinda neat, no?

Now if someone can make myhouse read the surplus supply on the national grid and tell everything now is a good time to turn on/refresh/charge cheaply

Not so hard.

I do this on the Agile Octopus tariff.  My current daily consumption is about 8kwh but in the early hours of Sunday morning the wholesale price of electricity was negative and the electric underfloor, various heaters, dishwasher and tumble drier all switched on. I used 45kwh that day!

Has anyone on here set up evohome to record to some kind of historian? (I’ve looked at domoticz but never got round to implementing it.

I’d love to record temperature demand/boiler use etc… so I can try and optimise/minimise our oil usage (and understand system performance for moving to something like ground source/air source). I’m not sure if that would be better done by putting sensors on the oil tank or boiler or both!

I’d love to record temperature demand/boiler use etc… so I can try and optimise/minimise our oil usage (and understand system performance for moving to something like ground source/air source). I’m not sure if that would be better done by putting sensors on the oil tank or boiler or both

wiser does that natively and its very useful – you can see which rooms are sucking heat very quickly and also which rooms the Rads are possibly undersized in.

Has anyone on here set up evohome to record to some kind of historian? (I’ve looked at domoticz but never got round to implementing it.

nope but this is in ideal use for HA. By default it doesn’t keep sensor readings indefinitely – the database isn’t designed with that in mind – but you can install another database (InfluxDB) to run alongside specifically for this. You can then use the open-source tool Grafana to analyse the data/detect trends/make graphs etc. Loads of tutorials etc online, this is a really popular use-case (probably more re. solar energy but effectively the same thing!)

I’ve heard of Domoticz but had no idea what it was till I googled it just now, I’m sure it has it’s hard-core fans but looks pretty awful/clunky/hard-to-use vs HA!

I’d love to record temperature demand/boiler use etc… so I can try and optimise/minimise our oil usage (and understand system performance for moving to something like ground source/air source). I’m not sure if that would be better done by putting sensors on the oil tank or boiler or both!

I’ve a setup on a RPi that accurately records oil use by recording when the burner is actually running and multiplying this time by the nozzle volume capacity.

All the data is uploaded to a Google Sheet.

I’m just getting started with HA and have so far managed to get lt connected to my Givenergy battery – it’s not exactly user friendly is it? Admittedly I’ve probably not been helped by cold induced brain fog today, but is there a simple guide to creating a dashboard from all the entity data I now have available?

I’m having a whale of a time in the new house, new bulbs in most of the rooms connected to Alexa, along with the TV & heating. Got a couple of plugs on the way for the crimbo lights so I can further walk around in my pant sshouting for things to turn on like a 1960’s sci-fi movie! 

I’m just getting started with HA and have so far managed to get lt connected to my Givenergy battery – it’s not exactly user friendly is it?

surely the fact you’ve got that far actually points to it being pretty user friendly? 😃 Imagine if you didn’t have HA and were just sat in front of a Rasperry Pi and a blank Notepad file and had to start writing Python code to do the same thing… where the **** would you even start 🤣 Regardless, it’s come on massively in the couple of years I’ve been using it to the point where people with limited hacker skillz can actually achieve a lot, entirely from the GUI without having to actually get their hands dirty and code anything!

re. dashboards – this is IMO weakest point of HA so far actually and something they need to do a lot of work on. The GUI for this is genuinely appalling 😂 I would just spin up some YT videos (try not to watch anything over 6 months or a year old as it is evolving very rapidly so info is quickly out of date!) It’s actually pretty easy to knock up simple dashboards for specific things once you get your head around the whole concept, you should be able to do everything from the GUI.

If you create a new dashboard it should load EVERYTHING on there including your Solar stuff (although I believe the very latest version which I’m not actually running yet gives you a bit more control over the default dashboard?) which shouldn’t actually be loads if you’re only just starting out. You can then “take control” over the dashboard and delete everything you don’t want. It also allows you to see how the dashboard stuff works & you can even inspect the raw code if you like (which I actually find easier/quicker than navigating the dashboard editing GUI)

If you have any specific questions the HA FB group is extremely active and actually generally very helpful/supportive so you could ask there, or the forum on their webpage, or here or even shoot me a PM.

Thanks zilog – TBH I’d normally be all over this sort of thing – for instance I recently brute forced my way through learning how to build an automated Google Sheet to work on mobiles using Google App Script, so I think it’s more to do with me having an off day. I’ll try again when the brain fog lifts.

Just dipping my toe into the HA space having bought a Beelink N100 mini PC as opposed to a Pi.  Pretty easy to setup by creating an Ubuntu image which I booted from then installed HAOS.  The biggest issue I had was trying to get access to the dashboard until I finally realised that HAOS is designed to run headless – doh!  Anyway, the Reolink security camera is up and running and it automatically found my Sonos stuff.  Any recommendations for a smart immersion heater?

I’ve got this one.  Relatively inexpensive, and very easy to fit if you’ve got the right kind of immersion heater currently, because you can just swap it in as a replacement thermostat.

I wrote the HA integration for it 🙂  (available via HACS)

This has popped up at a convenient time. Had automation for most lighting in my old house but the bulbs in the new one were all different and it was too much hassle. However, we have a couple of lights in the hall, one of which has no switched live to it. While I’m redecorating, I’m trying to figure out a way of using this second light. Shelly controllers seem like the perfect solution, however, I’m not keen on giving up the wall switch control. What do people use to replace the normal switches (if anything)? Ideally I’d like something to fully replace this switch on the standard wall box, even better if it could power from the lighting ring (there is obviously power here to provide the switched live back to the light so I could get live and neutral easily enough).

Shelly controllers seem like the perfect solution, however, I’m not keen on giving up the wall switch control.

What Shelly(s) have you been looking at? With most of them (unlike Hue, etc) you still use them with your standard wall switch!

If you don’t have a neutral then the only current options are the Dimmer2 (which you’d probably locate behind the switch) or the Pro Dimmer (which is bigger & DIN rail mountable so would have to go somewhere else!) You don’t have to use them as dimmers (although the light they control must be dimmable for them to work!) and indeed they can’t be used with a normal, analogue dimmer switch but instead are designed to be used with 1 or 2 on/off style switches (or ideally momentary switches).

They used to do a module called Shelly1L but I think a lot of people had problems with it and they’ve discontinued it. (Although I’m running a few & they’ve been fine!).

The other (non-Shelly) option is to go down the Zigbee route – of which Hue is one but there are probably better (certainly cheaper!) options. Philips sell a module now allowing you to use your existing switches with Hue lights although it’s relatively expensive.