Hi All
Hopefully this place looks like a helpful forum as I’m quite new to all this!
I’ve had a few devices all working separately /through their proprietary apps but we’re just finishing off a large house extension and this has added to the list.
I’d ideally like to be able to view/switch a number of different devices on one screen/head end but have no idea where to start.
The devices we have/will have shortly are as follows;
Zigbee Smart Sockets
Zigbee smart switches (for lights)
Heatmiser Neo Underfloor Heating (this runs from a Samsung ASHP but that part is automatic)
Samsung VRF air conditioning (currently using Smart Things App)
Hive (2xLTHW heating circuits in the existing house and Hot Water)
Ring (doorbell!)
Hik Vision PoE CCTV
We have lots of appliances (Neff N70) which we can control remotely but not too fussed about controlling those at the
Moment)
Any help/recommendations would be appreciated!
Thanks
Adrian
I have a legacy home automation set-up running on Windows XP. the computer and software have now died.
I have written a very nice Excel VBA program to replace the software and it can run on any modern Windows system.
My only remaining problem is to output the correct signal to a USB port to trigger the wireless switches.
Has anybody done a similar exercise. Please help.
Hi All,
Kind of new to Home Automation. Started off Using Amazon Echo units and added a Samsung SmartThings hub. I have mostly been using plug in modules for turning lights on and off. I live in a very rural area where the internet goes out a lot. I eventually want to change to to a non internet Hub so things will work without needing an internet connection. But I will post with those questions at a later date.
So, the task at hand is this: I have flood lights at each corner of my house. They are currently controlled by switches at the front and back doors. I would like to add Security Cameras to each corner also. I can easily find small Wifi switches to put into the electrical box where the flood lights are located, then I can terminate the leads together behind the Decora switch to have constant power. Then I can use the constant power up at the lights electrical box to power the security cameras. I would also like to have a wireless switch to take the place of the Decora switch to be able to turn the lights off and on.
I cannot seem to find a product like this. It seems I can find the small wired in switch boxes that will also come with external smart wall switches, but the wall switches are an external box that does not fit in or cover the existing Wall switch electrical box. I can also find Wireless Decora switches that come with a remote wired in small switch box , but they all seem to be RF and do not integrate with a Smart Hub.
I am hoping someone here knows of a product that matches what I am looking for. Any help would be appreciated.
Also any recommendations for Wireless Security cameras are welcome.
Thanks for any help.
Dear Forum,
I am just starting a smart home system. I've wanted to do this for 10 years at most and really would like to get a start. What I have are a couple of SONOFF wifi relays, some 433 (Hz/mHz) switches ( not wifi ) a couple of wifi lightbulbs, and I'd like to expand wifi thermostat, leak/water detectors, garage door openers and what ever else I can think of.
In the SONOFF items I have it's a particular app, the wifi bulbs are another app, and if I do a thermostat there might be another app. My wife is not a Luddite but she damn sure doesn't want to have to trouble shoot if/why a particular app breaks down.
So in what I do understand about smart home things is that I need/want a HUB. I spent 15 years doing some programming so I do have some computer ability, though I'd prefer to stay away from HAVING to line command operate the hub.
I would like a list of HUB's that people have found to be the best. Even better are links to let's say Amazon for that hub.
Regards from Noob Smart Home,
Barry
Hello lovely people. Long time and all that. Hope you're all doing OK.
Bit of a left field one here, looking for extra eyes more than an answer and you're the most logical bunch I know 🙂
Part of our HA system is a Logitech Elite hub and remote control.
This is programmed to control my Cyrus Stereo, our TV, and HDMI switch and our Virgin V6 box.
I've been away for a couple of days. Got back this evening to (eventually) work out that the V6 box appears to be not accepting any commands from the Logitech.
Everything has been rebooted.
Logitech uses IR to control
Cyrus: Fine
TV: Fine
HDMI: Fine
Remote control uses Bluetooth to control Hub.
All commands from the Remote to the hub are executed (one might assume correctly) as the activity LED responds, and if you're controlling (say) the Cyrus, all works fine.
iOS App can be used to control Hub over the WLAN:
All commands from the App re executed (one might assume correctly) as the activity LED responds, and if you're controlling (say) the Cyrus, all works fine.
Native remote (that uses as far as I know bluetooth) to control the V6 box works fine.
V6 box refuses to acknowledge any command other than from the native remote. Remote or app provoke absolutely zero response from the V6 box.
This is annoying, but damned if I can think of any logical reason. One might assume a firmware update on the V6 box, but given that the Hub simply emulates the native remote, that seems unlikely.
I'm struggling to think of where even to start troubleshooting this, so any random thoughts would be appreciated.
My initial approach is to buy another hub in case there's a different radio set that's failed in the hub...
TIA!
C
I currently have an HVAC system in the attic - for heating and A/C. 120v is supplied to the unit to run the gas heating. A/C uses 240v. I have an ecobee thermostat...which sometimes goes offline....not often. When it goes offline, I need to turn the 120v power to the HVAC system off and then back on (the ecobee gets its power from the HVAC system). That resets the ecobee and all is fine. I spend the summer away from this house and if the ecobee goes offine..I have no current method to reset the HVAC 120v power remotely. My idea is to replace the current 120v plug in the attic with a smart plug...then I can remotely turn the 120v power off and the ecobee will reset and come back online. I use Wyze and Lutron Casita in the house currently and was hoping I could find an in-wall smart plug from Wyze or Lutron. Obviously, I don't need diming, etc...just the ability to turn the plug power on/off. I've seen some options...but one problem I have is the attic can reach up to 135F in the summer...many of the smart plugs I've seen are not rated for that temperature. Might any of you have any thoughts on a smart plug I might want to look at? I don't want to invest in anything that would require a new hub - so either WiFi based or Casita HUB based. I need 120v and 15amp ratings. Thanks in advance.
I am trying to run a reaction that turns on lights if a sensor has not been tripped for 2 minutes. Basically, when a garage door is open, turn on inside lights if nothing has been sensed for 2 minutes. My question has to do with the expression/variable for "Last Seen". The variable never gets updated over time since the last seen event never changes.
Screenshot 2024-09-02 191632.png
In the screenshot above, the reaction checks for any garage door as well as the variable called "GarageLastEntry". The expression for this variable is displayed below:
Screenshot 2024-09-02 191651.png
The problem that I am experiencing is that the variable never changes over time. I understand that this is because the "last seen" variable does not change over time when there is no activity. In this screenshot, the value shows 0.029... This can also be seen as the current value in the original reaction screenshot above. After 10 minutes, this value should be 10. However, when a garage door is opened, the variable does not get updated and thus the rule does not become true since .029 is less than 2.
When I go to the variable and click on the > icon, the variable then gets updated as expected as seen below:
Screenshot 2024-09-02 191711.png
So the ultimate question is, how do I use a rule that can use a variable such as "last seen"? Do I need to create another variable or reaction that multiplies this by 1 every minute? From what I read in the manual, a variable is evaluated every time it is included in a reaction. But this is not what I am seeing.
I also want to ask another question related to this variable. It seems like Reactor continuously deletes this variable and I have to keep recreating it? I have never experienced this with MSR so wanted to ask if this is a common problem or if my definition is causing this.
Any info is appreciated!!!
BACKGROUND
I have been using 4 x Yale Contactless Connected Door Locks for several years (they use either a rfid tag or code to enter)
I have also been using 1 x Yale L1 Door Lock on the main front door and this connects via Yale Software
Yale contacted me to advise the L1 Lock software was being withdrawn and I needed to install a Yale Access Module into the existing lock and a Wi-Fi Bridge to link it with the newly released software
ALL of the above was working just fine.
RECENT
Yale emailed to advise I should add a Yale Access Module to each of the 4 other locks as this would link with the updated software via the Wi-Fi Bridge.
They offered a deal of just £4 each for these Modules so I got them.
THE PROBLEM
I found that only 2 of these modules would slot easily into the locks - two of them bent the pins and one of those snapped the female part in a lock (I do have a spare lock but thats not the point).
Anyway, I began to set-up the two fitted Modules with the Wi-Fi Bridge and I eventually found (thanks Google, NOT Yale) that I now need 1 x Wi-Fi Bridge PER LOCK (£50 each).
QUESTION
Does anyone know of a compatible Wi-Fi Bridge which works with Yale AND can handle multiple connections (ie 5 all 5 of my locks) ?
THANK YOU
Hello,
I had an iCOMEN boiler switch that worked for many years. And I used iCOMEN app on my phone to manage it. Short time ago app started to have an error message that it cannot connect to the server, and after some time the device also stopped working.
Some of you may know that I took at shot at building an alternate geofencing solution for Vera. The core of it was system agnostic, using the OwnTracks application and AWS lambdas to track devices and keep a central data, then disseminate that to the Vera via a websocket-based plugin. It worked with other apps as well, including Tasker and GPSLogger, but of the dozen people that were testing it, most used OwnTracks.
A lot was learned in the process, not the least of which is that the success of any such solution is highly dependent on the phone and its settings. Phone manufacturers love to set things up for the longest battery life, of course, but that's usually very anti-geofencing behavior. In the case of at least one brand, it was unusable and the settings could not be modified. It was also cost-prohibitive to maintain on Amazon, as AWS grabs a dime here and a dollar there and before you know it, it added $100/month to my AWS bill, which my wife deducted from my Scotch budget. Unacceptable.
But it's quite reasonable to use OwnTracks to a local endpoint, and I could pretty easily replicate the functionality as a local application, or maybe even as an additional endpoint built into MSR's API (still separate port and process, but in the package).
So the question really is... would you do it, or would you be too concerned about the security risks associated (e.g., dynamic DNS and NAT mapping in the firewall necessary for the phone to contact the service when not on LAN)?
Hello forum instigators.
Not sure who host/runs the forum software but a couple of challenges:
The chat is not currently usable, as the scrolling is all not right and it's not possible to read chats or send chats reliably.
There are a lot of female members that should perhaps be on another forum; where they can advertise their skills more appropriately. Note: I agree it's a job, like any other.
Whoever you are - thank you for your invaluable work.
I run a B&B and am looking for a way to turn the lights off whenever a room is unoccupied for X amount of time. The guest should still be able to turn the lights on and off manually, but should not be able to disable the auto turn off feature if the room is unoccupied.
I guess I am looking for a light switch with a built in presence sensor? I guess a presence sensor would be better as if it is a motion sensor, the lights may go off unwanted if the guest fails to make sufficient movement e.g. if the guest is lying down watching a film.
Are there any products on the market that would work for my application?
Hello,
I am in search of a device capable of using Bluetooth to connect with a smartphone and serve as its primary sound source on demand. This device should function similarly to conventional Bluetooth headphones, which automatically become the phone's sound output upon activation. However, this device should differ in that it transmits the audio signal to an amplifier via a jack, SPDIF, or similar connection. Alternatively, it could be an integrated amplifier that directly sends the signal to passive speakers.
The control of this process should be manageable through an API such as MQTT, REST, MODBUS, or similar. Are you aware of any devices that operate in this manner?
The concept is as follows: upon entering the bathroom, I would press a wall-mounted switch. This switch would send a signal to the Bluetooth device, prompting it to connect to my smartphone and seamlessly continue playing the audiobook I am currently listening to. Instead of using the phone's speakers, it would seamlessly start playing through ceiling-mounted speakers.
Many thanks 🙂
Hi folks,
I currently have some cheap Zigbee hub and some Amazon Alexas running my smart home which mostly consists of Zigbee power strips and Zigbee battery powered switches.
It all worked OK originally, but now whenever I press a Zigbee switch the light in the corresponding plug switches on then immediately off again.
If I ask Alexa to turn the light on it works fine. Likewise if I switch it on from my phone.
Any ideas what the issue could be?
I've tried unplugging the hub a number of times but that doesn't seem to fix it.
I was thinking about getting a Homey Pro 2023 to speed things up (tmas the Zigbee hub seems to be really slow now as well, for some reason) but I'm not sure about that either.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated!
Looking for a recommendation:
Locksmith is trying to talk me into the Yale Assure Lock Touchscreen with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth - the original 1st generation because they said it's built better than the Assure Lock 2. Any thoughts on this? Which would you recommend?
I see Mul T Lock makes a cylinder (KW-KIDYRL) for Yale Smart Locks. Would this fit the 1st gen Assure Lock, as well as Assure Lock 2? Has anyone tried replacing the cylinder with this on either lock?
Other smart lock I was considering is the Schlage Encode Plus.
Thanks!
Hi. So when I had my house build I ran a bunch of stuff, one of which being two pairs of speaker wires to each bedroom and to 4 spots around my living room… Over the years I have used them here and there with different success.. But today they sit in my walls just unused.
I converted all the cat6 or 5e (I don’t remember) over to basically eithernet jacks. The cable coaxial well it’s there but now unused. But I was thinking there has got to be some use for two pairs of speaker wires to each room. Can I make them usb plugs? Not sure so looking for ideas.
Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this.
Kevin
Hey guys...
We are replacing the heat pump and furnace this week and I will also need to replace my nest thermostat at the same time 'cause Nest is ending the cloud thing end of the month.
Anyway, I'm looking to use the
That's what the heat pump installer recommend BUT, using Nest I was also using it to control the home humidifier using a single wire connected to nest... but no low voltage thermostat is able to do that, I checked all of them...
So I need some help on how I can do that, to connect the home humidifier using zwave also....
Hi
We are looking for a solution where we can detect presence of a «thing» (people , car , dog, cat, and more..
We need:
fast detections, 1-3 seconds in range from 0 to 20 m from «base» fysical «client» , chip , transmitter , unit. base , receiver placed at a door, gate, house, etc uniq Identifying wirelessThe client:
no need for pressing any thing (no buttons) battery , hoply 2-5 years battery time.Have someone done anything like this?
What technologi will be best?
Status Board - What’s your HA Information Dashboard ?
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Does anyone here use an alternative to imperihome? the Imperihome bridge doesnt transfer all sensors for some reason.. motion sensors, light sensors, UV doesnt come over..
I want a status panel, but I want to be able to set i.e light schemes, open the garagedoor, etc from these panels.. (Old tab's and phones in 3d printed frames)
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@perh Take a look at Homewave if you are on iOS. It works with Vera, both UI5 and UI7 and it also works for OpenLuup. You can have multiple controllers mapped seamlessly at the same time.
For Veras it works with cellular access, for OpenLuup you need a vpn to access the system when being off-site.//ArcherS
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There is other visualisation software that will do what you want, but it comes with a high price tag...
Possibly the best professional system, IMHO is Eisbaur Scada (google is your friend), there are other professional systems available, it all comes down to price or user familiarity. -
@perh I ended with my own solution.
I searched a lot, but I couldn’t really find something ready. It’s obviously not generic, but I have thermostats, a/c, sensors and much more. It’s running on fully kiosk in fire tablets, that I control via mqtt/api, so I can display cams after motion events and much more.
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I've also rolled my own. It will be included for optional use with the new multi-system Reactor.
Author of Multi-system Reactor and Reactor, DelayLight, Switchboard, and about a dozen other plugins that run on Vera and openLuup.
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@toggledbits said in Status Board - What’s your HA Information Dashboard ?:
I've also rolled my own. It will be included for optional use with the new multi-system Reactor.
Missed this.......tell us more.......
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@black-cat It's a skinnable tile interface that maps properties/capabilities to display controls (widgets). Each widget supports multiple canned layouts, and you can do custom layouts (either as per-device exceptions or globally-available). Widgets are tiled and moveable/sizeable. They are mapped to device properties and you can use expressions to fetch values, map values, etc. For example, the scene widget can be "active" based on the state of any device state or expression, not just the "active flag" on the scene itself--that is, a widget is not limited to sourcing data from one device/thing. So, for example, the thermostat widget can draw current temperature from an in-room multi-sensor, and on-off heating control by a plug-in switch, etc. Basically, instead of having to make a virtual device to collect data to a single object that is then displayed by a canned-appearance widget following rules particular to that device type, the widget just brings all the data together from whatever sources and displays it; actions work the same. If you want your thermostat in the bedroom to display the outdoor temperature in Moscow, you can do it. Easily. If you want a "binary sensor" widget to show tripped/alarm state when the pool pump is running after sunset, no problem. And you can do fun but sensible/expected things like when you activate a scene via a widget, the widget changes to the counter-scene (e.g. when you tap "Kitchen On" the lights come on and the widget then changes to "Kitchen Off"). Colors, fonts, sizes, etc. are all configurate/replaceable (CSS, HTML).
I've used and evolved this dashboard for years in my own home. It actually came into being first in 2017 when I made my first move away from Vera toward HomeAssistant (didn't happen, but that's another story). It was for family use, so right from the start, my idea was that nobody needs to know or care which controller is managing a device. Its hardware abstraction layer served as the launching point for a multi-system Reactor; I'll call it "MSR" here for brevity's sake. This MSR will work in a similar way: knowing the attributes and capabilities of a device, you can create rules using those, and rules that incorporate this data from multiple sources. That is, if your bedroom temperature is controlled by a space heater on a Tasmota-based relay board using control logic driven by input from a ZWay+openLuup-connected multi-sensor's temperature measurement, no problem. You configure any number of "controllers"; each instance announces what devices it has in inventory, and what attributes and capabilities they have. A controller can be an interface to Vera/openLuup, or Hass, or Hubitat, or just an HTTP-based element that fetches weather from OpenWeatherMap, or an interface to your EVL3/4-connect alarm panel, etc. It is an interface that simply says "these are the objects I have and this is what they know and do". So any device could be supported by a plugin in your Vera/openLuup/Hass/HE/other HA controller, or it could come from a dedicated controller crafted just for that device. For example, it currently supports Sonos through the Vera/openLuup plugin, but I (or someone) could write a dedicated Sonos controller that talks directly to the Sonos zones on the network and bypasses the plugin, maybe even uses their new API rather than UPnP. Controllers have a strictly defined behavior/contract, with the intention that others can develop controllers as well. This aspect is making MSR grow legs, a bit... it's really turning into a home automation controller all on its own. I foresee an ecosystem of available add-on controllers for every manner of device in future. This gives you the flexibility to determine what best supports the products you use; for example, if support for a particular Fibaro or Zooz device in Vera/eZLO is lacking/buggy (no--say it's not so!), you can instead include it on your openLuup+ZWay, Hass, or HE controller where the support is better, and MSR can find it there. But when creating your rules and activities, you don't have to know or care where that device lives. To the maximum extent possible, I am also keeping an architecture and implementation in which system objects (devices, groups, scenes, etc.) are entirely overridable and creatable through configuration. If you have a device type on Vera/openLuup that MSR doesn't natively support, you should be able to just go to configuration and say "this device type, or even this specific device, has these capabilities and these attributes". If a capability doesn't exist, you can create it locally immediately. Up and running in five minutes or less (modulo the first-time learning curve, of course). And for all of this, you should be able to contribute the configuration to the community if you wish (or find configurations/capabilities others have done and apply them). And of course, whatever to create/train is available both in the Reactor part and the Dashboard part.
I've focused mostly on the rules and reactions part of MSR for several weeks, and it lives and breathes now. Although algorithmically it shares ideas with Vera/openLuup Reactor, it is an entirely new code base (and not Lua). Huge strides have been made quickly, but of course, there are a lot of "TBD" comments in the code, and I'm sure no shortage of crashes in boundary conditions from things like unfinished input validation and so on. It needs combing out, some deep code reviews (which I prefer to do on paper), and backporting of some evolution of the evolved hardware abstraction to the Dashboard. There's plenty to do. But, with the freedom of creating the environment rather than working in someone else's, it's much faster and easier, and I'm really pleased with acceleration towards something usable over the last month. I'm about ready to cut over my own home's automations to it. There is nothing like the pressure of pleasing my "driving coach" to make sure I get things working well, and quickly.
Author of Multi-system Reactor and Reactor, DelayLight, Switchboard, and about a dozen other plugins that run on Vera and openLuup.
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@toggledbits Wow, sounds really exciting!
Today I use Homewave on my iPhone and on iPad, this sounds like the next step up towards a real dashboard.//ArcherS
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I don't really intend the Dashboard to be a do-all-end-all, but I think it will serve a large number of users adequately, and the entire ecosystem will provide an API and tools from which other dashboards could be built. I know some people don't like tiled interfaces. For me, it was just an easy choice and my family "gets it."
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@toggledbits Thanks for the in depth reply Patrick, it's much appreciated and wets the whistle.
You didn't mention on what type of machine this will run on, Windows/ Lynx or ???
I have noticed over the past 6 months is the overabundance of new WiFi devices being released each with their own App.
Every manufacturer now has their own device with their own App- (I don't like cloud based solutions either) but they are not going to go away, so we are stuck with them whether we like it or not.
If it's within the realms of possibility to control these Apps from MSR as well then you've found the Holy Grail. -
@black-cat The system will run on Windows, Mac, and Linux today. I haven't gotten to hardware requirements, yet, but RPis, NUCS, and small NAS systems are every bit as much targets for me as modest VMs or desktops. I will miss a big goal of my own if it isn't crisp on a wide range of hardware. I'm trying to get through all the "just get something working" level of UI shimming so I can do a preview/demo video. I've gotten used to UI7 with 180+ devices, and even for me, it's a bit shocking to see the difference in performance between my dashboard and theirs.
The concept of a "controller" in MSR is simply a management object that can publish entities (devices, groups, scripts/scenes, etc.). This is done by implementing subclasses of a Controller class. That base class, its contract, and associated utilities make a framework that's pretty well-defined and does a lot of the work that, for example, you'd have to do manually in a Vera plugin. But it's built to take data from any source and turn it into a controller object or set of objects.
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@toggledbits Interesting, when you are ready for Alfa or Beta I am ready to test it out.
