The locksmith is trying to persuade me to purchase the BE-TECH K35 touchscreen lock with both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, claiming it's better than the Yale Assure Lock 2. What are your thoughts on this? Which one would you recommend?
Here is the link to the Chinese brand BE-TECH: BE-TECH Smart Deadbolt K3S.
The other smart lock I am considering is the Schlage Encode Plus.
Thank you!
Hey,
I’m curating a list of smart home automation ideas, and here are 15+ ones (and still counting).
What do you think?
smart home automation ideas.png
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The smart home trend is dramatically evolving with at least 69% households in US owing at least one smart device.
So how could they ease your work and life?
I gathered and asked 15+ smart home professionals a same question:
“What’s your most favorite automation (ideas) for smart homes that is improving your life?”
Let’s check their ideas:
(source: https//www.leadsrating.com/security-cameras/smart-home-automation-ideas/)
Routine Checking Smart Curtain and Blinds Smart Interaction Smart LED String Lights Turn Outdoor Water On/Off Automation NFC Tags Automation Remote Control and Scenes Smart Interoperability Reducing Your Home Cleaning Job Light Control Automation Smart Blinds Light Management Adjusting Natural Light Automation Seamless Connectivity Simple Switch Bot Changing My Overall Everyday Process
The promise of "all available devices will be supported" gave me hope for including more Zigbee devices into to my home as Vera was not a good option for Zigbee devices.
Despite the support for new devices is extremely slow, the implementation of Zigbee has a lot to wish for and it seems a low priority at Ezlo I managed to include 22 of my 23 Zigbee devices as generic. But after 2 years of devices still missing attributes and randomly/every controller reboot loosing connection to the controller and had to be power cycled to connect again, and some even dropping off the network completely without any reason, I decided to give up.
The positive outcome of all this:
I bought a Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus and installed Zigbee2MQTT and never been happier.
Suddenly the pairing were no pain and took a few seconds per device, all my devices were recognized, all capabilities of the devices were exposed and it never misses a signal to/from a device ever.
I'm surprised how stable and configurable my new setup is. I can set device parameters, offsets, send messages handled by the bulbs them self like effects, broadcast for groups, transition time for power on/off. I can handle debounce for MQTT messages, do OTA firmware update on devices and much more! Most of this is probably standard for the common branded hubs like Hue etc but I never had one so this is new to me.
A big plus for me is the MQTT part of Zigbee2MQTT as I'm migrating as much as possible to MQTT.
My Ezlo Plus is now serving as a modified WiFi access point to my network and only have the VistaCam 1203 Doorbell still connected for evaluation. Time will tell if I ever move my Z-wave devices to it.
Conclusion:
I could really recommend both the Sonoff 3.0 USB Dongle Plus and Zigbee2MQTT to anyone going the same path!
So cool to find the forum of all the banned vera gurus!
I've had a Vera Plus for about 6 years now, and have had a fairly problem free time with it compared to many other stories. The last years have however been lacking in progression in many fields i'd like to explore, so now i'm looking closely at Openluup.
Other systems have been tested as well, but i find that the community and plugins made for vera is kind of special, and something i'd like to contribute to as well. (getting older and not wanting to change to new stuff probably plays a part too!)
So, my stab at opeluup starts with an HP Chromebox 1 i got for free. Its a fairly powerfull thing, but as google wants to sell new ones, its now EOL.
I wiped it clean and installed debian, as it seems to be the closest thing to raspberry which many use for openluup.
Openluup installed fine, and i got the vera bridge working fairly well by bothering ppl at the vera forum with questions. Its now running OK, but there seems to be an issue with Icons?
f0e29622-0397-4b84-819c-f1b632daab41-image.png
Also at the devices tab:
2892faff-a3ee-4f21-9db8-2a03f604fc74-image.png
I did the "GetFiles", and I see the /icons/ is populated, but no icons. In the luup log says that its trying to GET the icon, but returns no packages.
2020-09-15 17:04:30.818 openLuup.server:: GET /cmh/skins/default/img/devices/device_states/dimmable_light_off.png HTTP/1.1 tcp{client}: 0x55eca8d90cb8 2020-09-15 17:04:30.819 openLuup.server:: request completed (0 bytes, 0 chunks, 0 ms) tcp{client}: 0x55eca8d90cb8I do have a UZB stick on the way, but before i go down that road i'd like to be sure that the installation is stable and sound.. Do I have all the nessecary packages/background processes? I did install cjson which helped on some things..
Also fairly new at linux in general, so bear with me. 😉
Roadmap:
Get the openluup/AltUI running smoothly
Transfer Z-wave devices
Transfer 433 devices (RFXtrx plugin)
Transfer Zigbee devices (Vera or mabye ezlo plus? zigbee stick?)
more questions will follow!
In a quest to further stabilize my Vera before I'll move to Z-Way+openLuup or something else later this year (I'm tempted to go the Home Assistant route, since all my friends are here, apparently), I've spent a couple of days removing HTTP calls from the system and I'm now fully using the UDP sender @akbooer has written in the past, to push all variables (and custom events/request as well) to my MQTT broker, then to some code doing the actual work.
Responsiveness seems to be at its maximum now, and stability has improved. There's still a lot of code locally on my Vera, but it's mainly doing variables comparison/scenes, while all notifications and heavy logic are now running in my linux box.
So, maybe, not insisting on the sockets and just use the same UDP server is the way to go for me.
My Home Automation Journey
Well here we go. A slow, considered migration from Vera to something (I hope) more reliable.
Hopefully we'll end up with a decent documented process for people as right now I'm still not quite clear 🙂
Starting point:
I have a 'mature' Mios set up running on an extrooted Vera Plus with roughly 100 devices, both physical and virtual
Integration with Alexa both voice control and TTS
iPhones for Geolocation
Volumio devices for music playing around the house.
I have no user defined scenes, all automation is run from Reactor.
My impetus is final dissatisfaction with the quality of UI7 software delivery and operational rigour (for full disclosure I am a senior IT Operations leader with circa 20 years experience delivering properly stable systems, so I probably have un-realistic expectations 😄 )
So initial steps:
Raspberry Pi 3 B+ (I think this is my 5, and 6th Pi in total. I may have a problem) Raspbian OpenLuup VerabridgeThat I think is stage 1
C
...but I now only have house mode scenes left on Vera. All other automation is by Reactor and Switchboard / Alexa routines.
WAF may be low tomorrow if it doesn't work 😄
C
I am a Electrician. I installed hundreds of smart devices for others prior to having my own home automation. In 2013 I bought a new house and decided to make it smart. I did some homework and settled on Z-wave and VeraPlus.
My installation comprises of
25 Z-wave dimmer/switch inserts
3 Z-wave door sensors
10 sonoff devices(basics,TH16 and Mini) ,
4 Tuya(lamps and RGB strips) ,
6 shellys(connected to motion sensors and 2 controlling dead DIY bolts )
3 Amazon Dots(gen2)
2 Broadlink (RMPro's)
4 DIY RF Venetian Blinds
2 Multi button DIY remotes
1 NVR
1 Network drive/Media server/ftp server.
1 smart thermostat heating and hot water
4 wired 240v/battery Aico smoke and heat detectors (connect to zwave via Relays)
1 robot hover.
1 Siren
Node-red server running on android.
Testing openluup on android.
Automate App running on andorid Boxes/phones.
All tv's are connected to android boxes.
No windows PC.
Debian running on android box.
Plugins Reactor, AlexaTTS, Switchboard and Virtual HTTP Switch.
I can control all of my devices from anyone of these platforms Vera/OpenLuup, Node-red, Automate(phone/tv box) or Alexa.
All devices have a standard/manual switch for anyone to control, and can be controlled even if my VeraPlus stopped working or internet out. My system is stable and may get a luup reload every couple of weeks.
None of my sonoff's or tuya have been flashed. I found Shelly very late into game and will be using these more now i found them, as they offer local control.
I have some coding knowledge from the 90's, but have never worked in the industry.
Well, if I see further, it's because I stand of the shoulders of giants. I've got where I got because of the experts here. I started about 15 years ago with some really basic X10 stuff. When we moved in 2011 for some reason it simply would not work in the new house, so z-wave was the thing. Vera lite then Vera Plus.
I'm a child of the 70s. I want the car on the drive to be KITT and my lounge a cross between the bridge of the enterprise and the Lars farm on Tattoine.
Not there yet, but with about 250 devices (virtual and real) things are fun (when they work!)
The absolute killer app for me is Alexa bi directional speech. To the extent that I've walked into hotel rooms and said 'Alexa turn the lights on....'
I'm within a spit of never buying another control and doing everything via Alexa and Reactor (had to drop that in)
So that's pretty much me.
C
Let start maybe something useful for others. Maybe it will give you some idea!
Here's a summary of my setup!
I'm having :
VM#1 that runs openLuup VM#2 that runs Zway 1x raspberry that I use to connect the RaZberry board using socat/ser2net to send "raw data" to the VM#2, this setup allow me to have all my stuff in the data center in the basement while having my zwave antenna on the first floor and send back the data! A couple of pine64 and raspberry around the house, most of the pine64 are use for "smart display" around the house that show data from various source (will post picture later). I have also a raspberry that I used for openSprinkler in the "Shed" Each room in the house + Garage + on the patio is having a SONOS speaker that I use for music of course but that I use with the TTS to send some notification around the house based on the presence!For example, I can welcome people on the front door based on motion detection + IP camera motion!
I decided a long time ago that all "sensors" will be handle by the DSC alarm. Currently I'm having over 40 sensors in/out divided in 5 partition (main/2nd floor, basement, office and shed and a partition for non-alarm sensor)I connected my DSC using the DSC plugin from Vera to handle all that traffic that of course is send to openLuup!
On the zwave network, I would say that I'm having every room in/out done!
I'm using also this setup to welcome kids in the morning based on motion detection in each room and I have some time-based reminder using TTS mostly for the kids.
We also "named/called" our Home, SARAH, based on the TV Show Eureka that means "Self Actuated Residential Automated Habitat".
** openLuup handle ALL the logic, I have no scene and logic in Vera and Smarthome/Zway
More to come...
That's our main screen in the center of the house!
IMG_20200428_110740.jpg
Inside the main screen, I'm having a bunch of stuff, like 2 Veraplus, and a RaZberry and of course a pine64 for the screen!
IMG_20200428_110755.jpg
That's an uncomplete setup in the kitchen for screen #2, need to finish the "wood" part!
IMG_20200428_110846.jpg
That's the touch screen monitor in the basement, so kids can use the Sonos app to play some music in the basement! The wood part is done, need to finish some "paint"!
IMG_20200428_110824.jpg
My migration from Vera, or what I did on my holidays
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Hmmm, not sure what to do then chap.
Open AltUI
More > PluginsType 'development' into the update box (is that case sensitive? I've tried both)
Hit the update button and wait. Refresh browser and it's still 2.4.30
Force a luup reload, and nothing changes
Is there an manual install?
Cheers
C
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So what are my next steps, gents?
I assume a UZB stick will need to be purchased and I can look at migrating some of the devices that are easy / non critical over.
Or perhaps a better direction would be to go for the HA Bridge plug in and then get Alexa skill working?
Thoughts?
C
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Dived in to get HA-bridge up and running. Not too hard, but getting the config was a bit trickier. Using the base instructions here:
GitHub - bwssytems/ha-bridge: Home automation bridge that emulates a Philips Hue light system and can control other systems such as a Vera, Harmony Hub, Nest, MiLight bulbs or any other system that...
Home automation bridge that emulates a Philips Hue light system and can control other systems such as a Vera, Harmony Hub, Nest, MiLight bulbs or any other system that has an http/https/tcp/udp int...
I installed in my home directory on Debian so
mdkir /home/catman/ha-bridge cd /home/catman/ha-bridge wget https://github.com/bwssytems/ha-bridge/releases/download/v5.3.0/ha-bridge-5.3.0.jarCreating the service file gave me a choice, I could either change the file or make symlink the folder referenced, which was what I actually went for
sudo mkdir /home/pi chmod 555 /home/pi cd /home/pi sudo ln -s /home/catman/ha-bridge/ ha-bridgeThe systemctl was all fine but it failed on start with the pretty obvious fact that java was missing!
sudo apt-get install default-jdkThen it fired up fine, but going to my IP address gave me the Debian apache2 landing page. So that needed fixing. I decided to change the port number to 8080 using:
-Dserver.port=<port number>So my service command is now:
ExecStart=/usr/bin/java -jar -Dserver.port=8080 -Dconfig.file=/home/pi/ha-bridge/data/habridge.config /home/pi/ha-bridge/ha-bridge-5.3.0.jarQuick demon reload and ha-bridge reload and there it is on port 8080;
Excellent!
C
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@rafale77 said in My migration from Vera, or what I did on my holidays:
They are at the right place. It's gotta be something else. Unless the device json file indicates a completely different path... Or altui can't read the json files?
I don't know what it was. It all started working when I checked in another browser on another machine.
FWIW some of the ones originally in 'icons' had had 0b file size. I supect there was an abortive copy at some point and then subsequent 'get Vera files' took a safe option. I manually scped them all over, but still didn't work when I posted that message.
I guess some odd caching (even though I was very rigorous with my cmd-R
So another challenge has reared its head.
Tried to start migrating some of my Reactor sensors over per my other thread.
Turns out that Vera Bridge seems to poll Vera every 80 seconds or so. That causes reactor to see an update sl_Central_Scene change and thus triggers. This took some time to work out!
This puts something of a crimp in my plans. My understanding is this:
I can plug my (soon to arrive) UZB into my Vera and move all my devices on to it. Then plug it into the NUC and there they all all. That was the big bang I was rather hoping to avoid.What I suspect I can't do is plug the UZB into the NUC. Un pair the controllers from Vera, pair them to the NUC, confirm a stack of functionality and then plug the UZB into Vera.
Or am I being too pessimistic?
Dunno if this post needs to be moved?
Cheers
C
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@CatmanV2 said in My migration from Vera, or what I did on my holidays:
I don't know what it was. It all started working when I checked in another browser on another machine.
FWIW some of the ones originally in 'icons' had had 0b file size. I supect there was an abortive copy at some point and then subsequent 'get Vera files' took a safe option. I manually scped them all over, but still didn't work when I posted that message.
I guess some odd caching (even though I was very rigorous with my cmd-R
Not uncommon then. Glad you got over this. The icons do get aggressively cached by browsers and sometimes require some brute force "empty the browser cache"
So another challenge has reared its head.
Tried to start migrating some of my Reactor sensors over per my other thread.
Turns out that Vera Bridge seems to poll Vera every 80 seconds or so. That causes reactor to see an update sl_Central_Scene change and thus triggers. This took some time to work out!
Hmm I don't remember it doing this. A number of people are running reactor through openLuup verabridge I believe and I have never heard of it. I don't use reactor myself though.
This puts something of a crimp in my plans. My understanding is this:
I can plug my (soon to arrive) UZB into my Vera and move all my devices on to it. Then plug it into the NUC and there they all all. That was the big bang I was rather hoping to avoid.This is my recommended migration method indeed.
What I suspect I can't do is plug the UZB into the NUC. Un pair the controllers from Vera, pair them to the NUC, confirm a stack of functionality and then plug the UZB into Vera.
Not fully understanding this sentence. Unpair what controllers from vera?
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Apologies. The devices in question are Remotec ZRC-90 keypads and Zwave.me keyfobs.
I have used these for many years to trigger activities in Reactor (although frankly with Alexa and the new less cloud based, they get very little use)
Each of these has an sl_scene attribute and an sl_scene update attribute. Because sl_scene might not change from one execution to another, you need to use both.
The issue I hit is that every 80 seconds or so the Reactor sensor would trigger. Looking in Openluup's logs:
2020-06-22 14:17:48.358 luup.variable_set:: 10238.urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SceneController1.sl_SceneActivated was: 4 now: 4 #hooks:0 2020-06-22 14:19:29.972 luup.variable_set:: 10238.urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SceneController1.sl_SceneActivated was: 4 now: 4 #hooks:0 2020-06-22 14:21:11.559 luup.variable_set:: 10238.urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SceneController1.sl_SceneActivated was: 4 now: 4 #hooks:0 2020-06-22 14:22:53.595 luup.variable_set:: 10238.urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SceneController1.sl_SceneActivated was: 4 now: 4 #hooks:0 2020-06-22 14:24:35.115 luup.variable_set:: 10238.urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SceneController1.sl_SceneActivated was: 4 now: 4 #hooks:0 2020-06-22 14:26:16.532 luup.variable_set:: 10238.urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SceneController1.sl_SceneActivated was: 4 now: 4 #hooks:0Which was causing the sensor to trip (actually as it should) even though there was no actual button press.
What I would like to do is un-pair these devices from Vera and pair them to my UZB stick while plugged into the NUC. Get those Reactor sensors migrated over properly, then take the UZB stick back to Vera and move the rest of my devices.
Does that help?
(NB given the progress I've just made it might all be a moot point anyway as my most complex and WAF testing piece of automation seems to have moved over without issue) Not sure how to test it though
Cheers
C
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I see. Yes of course you can do that. The migration from the vera is really meant to prevent any exclusion/inclusion which I know can be tedious depending on your device but if you want to exclude these devices from the vera first. Run the migration and reinclude them on z-way, it is up to you.
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So long day working round some gotchas.
What have we learned:
Scene controllers behave a little oddly under Verabridge it appearsRestoring Reactor sensors (one at a time)
First back up your Reactor from the Backup and Restore tab. Download it and then scp to you Openluup install directors
Install Reactor on your Openluup host
Create a new sensor
Move it to the right room
Restore the desired sensor onto the sensor you just created.
Go to to tools tab to fix it (assuming you have the correct version)
For testing I disable the Vera instance and enable the Openluup instance.Once you're happy, you can delete the Vera instance.
Vera TTS was simplest of those so far. Install from Alt market place.
Copy your hosts, username and password into the Attributes. Then scp your .alexa.cookie from /storage/alexa on the Vera into /VeraAlexa on your Openluup deviceI actually found it easier to copy the contents and create a new file than working out how to SCP hidden files, but Filezilla will do it simply
iPhone locator.
These don't come across well it seems. It's probably easier to create them from scratch.C
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@therealdb thanks for the reminder. So that's done (well Use announcement set to 1)
I've configured all my Echos to have announcements enabled, but how do I actually send one? If I use Reactor>Device Action>Say> with group zone ALL they are still unsynced. If I use group zone Everywhere (the name of my group) I get no sound at all.
Cheers!
C
