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
Another transition from Vera to OpenLuup And now to HASS - PerH
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If this is a bridged device, then you’ll have to make the changes on Vera. The openLuup bridge simply reflects the configuration that it sees on the Vera. Anything (except action commands, device name, etc.) sent to the device locally will get overwritten on the next update.
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Ok, i'll try to specify more:
The Vera is connected to AltUI using the bridge. The vera has a RFXTRX433 connected with more than 60 child devices.
These are bridged to AltUI, with the 10000 numbers. RFX plugin on vera is device 10011 in AltUI.The Openluup ALTUI Chromebox that i want to migrate them to Also has a RFXTRX433 connected. This plugin device is AltUI device 72.
If I go to the variables on one of the children of the Vera RFX - say device ID 10237 - and change ParentID from 10011 to 72, and at the same time changes the DeviceID from 10237 to - say 80 - this child device becomes a local device - Child of '72.
When I remove the RFX 10011, all the children also disappears, but I still have the ones i changed, and they now work with the local RFX plugin.If I could run a script that changes DevID and ParentID, I would get all sensors over without having to set up the names and transfer codes for all devices.
I however don't know the correct lua syntax to do it. -
@PerH said in Another transition from Vera to OpenLuup - PerH:
so - if i were to try something like this:
for (all devices) do if device.IDparent = 11 then device.IDparent = 72 device.ID = (next free dev.ID number) end if end forHow would that be done in lua with the openluup device list?
Backup first, of course, but let's try this:
local oldparent = 23 -- *** CHANGE THESE *** local newparent = 315 for i, d in pairs (luup.devices) do if d.device_num_parent == oldparent then local id = luup.create_device() -- get a new device (number) print (i, d.device_num_parent, id) luup.devices[id] = d -- apply new device number luup.devices[i] = nil -- remove it from old one d.attributes.id_parent = newparent -- give it a new parent d.device_num_parent = newparent d.attributes.room = 0 -- and a new (no) room d.room_num = 0 end endFollws by a restart.
This may, or may not, work. It is trickier that you might suppose, and without a test plugin, I can't really tell...
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Yes, it’s the plugins which are the real issue here.
The multiple assignment in the above code, though, are entirely due to Vera’s very poor internal implementation of some features, which openLuup had to emulate.
It would be possible to edit the user_data.json file where all the information is stored between reloads.
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Coming back to this, I found that the code actually did work! I didn't think so, as all the created devices was invisible, and said "no such device" in the device list in openluup.. 6 days later, all sensors are populated and functioning.
The UZB has now arrived, so i guess the next step is getting the z-wave stuff over.
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Ok, so Z-way is now installed and GUI is working, but before I buy the (hopefully one-time?) license:
Is there other Open-source alternatives to get z-wave to openluup?
Is the device compatibility list better than vera? (can't seem to find it anywhere!)
will the altUI mesh-map work with z-way integration?I found the demo license button now, but can't update the vendor list.. and i can't find the two devices i tested..
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Seems like I can help on this:
- The only open source z-wave library that I know of is... openzwave. It is what home-assistant, openhab and domoticz uses. It honestly is much better now than vera but not as good as z-way but is also undergoing significant development.
- There is no device compatibility list because it is just compatible with zwave. All zwave devices should work. There is no custom gizmoing around configurations the way vera has done it. So yes device compatibility is limitless.
- The mesh map could be made to work but does not at the moment. It is built off of the neighbor's list property which the bridge is not publishing from z-way at the moment. z-way UI has it's own neighbor mesh visualization.
The license is attached to the uzb itself and it is something I don't like. Is the uzb fails, you lose the license. It has not happen to me yet but I am really not a fan of this method that's why I got a couple of razberries as backup but their antenna is not nearly as good as the uzb and require a rPi.
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Been busy with other projects, but as i'm quarantined, I got some time to play with this again:
Bought the lisence, to which the UZB status responded with "Device seems to be dead"... hmm..
After fiddling with some settings, I realized that it is working somewhat, I managed to add a NEO Coolcam switch to it.. At least 23% added..
I can actuate the switch, but the z-way UI can't seem to get that message for some reason?So something is still wrong, where do I start?
The vendor list is still not updating in the "non-expert" UI, and the z-way bridge in openluup states 0 vdevs and 0 znodes..
Any help is appreciated!
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For your switch it appears that you have not completed the interview (equivalent to the vera configuration). You probably want to go to the expertUI and finish that before you can see it in the automation UI.
The z-way bridge talks to the API corresponding to the automation UI so if you don't see the device there, you won't see it in openLuup either.
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It seems that the communication with the uzb stick is not correct, some things work, some things don't..
I'm leaning towards a full reset of this thing now, mabye it'll go smoother the second time..
is all openluup settings and data contained in the /cmh-ludl/?Mabye ubuntu is a better core for this setup than Debian Buster?
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@PerH, Don't be too fast at resetting things. This is not a vera. It is possible that your device is not responding as expected. I often had to manually interview devices by calling the command classes one by one. Click on the "view interview result" and you should see the list of command classes. You can then see which ones are missing.
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Hehe, OK.
I'm still finding it odd that my system says that the Z-Way controller is reported as "Dead" in the device list though, that makes me think that the device or communication is not going well..
Despite of this, i can actuate the switch even if the expert panel says i'm not.some strange callback errors in the log:
[2020-11-03 14:47:06.133] [I] [z-way] Job 0x13 (SwitchBinary Get): Delivered [2020-11-03 14:47:06.133] [D] [z-way] SendData Response with callback 0x13 received: received by recipient [2020-11-03 14:47:06.133] [D] [z-way] SETDATA devices.6.data.lastSendInternal = ********** [2020-11-03 14:47:06.133] [D] [z-way] SETDATA devices.6.data.lastSend = 389830 (0x0005f2c6) [2020-11-03 14:47:06.133] [D] [z-way] Job 0x13 (SwitchBinary Get): success [2020-11-03 14:47:06.133] [I] [z-way] Waiting for job reply: SwitchBinary Get [2020-11-03 14:47:06.153] [D] [z-way] RECEIVED: ( 01 0C 00 A8 00 01 06 03 25 03 00 00 C9 B0 ) [2020-11-03 14:47:06.153] [D] [z-way] SENT ACK [2020-11-03 14:47:06.153] [W] [z-way] No job of class 0xa8 is waiting for callback 0x00 [2020-11-03 14:47:06.153] [I] [z-way] Unhandled callback for function 0x00 [2020-11-03 14:47:06.153] [I] [z-way] Removing job: Unknown function classSo, before I look at the devices, i need to find out why the server and stick communication is throwing errors..
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Result in the log of trying the "basic set" interview manually:
[2020-11-03 15:18:46.829] [I] [z-way] Adding job: Basic Get [2020-11-03 15:18:46.830] [D] [z-way] SENDING (cb 0x3c): ( 01 09 00 13 06 02 20 02 25 3C DA ) [2020-11-03 15:18:46.832] [D] [z-way] RECEIVED ACK [2020-11-03 15:18:46.840] [D] [z-way] RECEIVED: ( 01 04 01 13 01 E8 ) [2020-11-03 15:18:46.840] [D] [z-way] SENT ACK [2020-11-03 15:18:46.840] [D] [z-way] Delivered to Z-Wave stack [2020-11-03 15:18:46.860] [D] [z-way] RECEIVED: ( 01 05 00 13 3C 00 D5 ) [2020-11-03 15:18:46.860] [D] [z-way] SENT ACK [2020-11-03 15:18:46.861] [I] [z-way] Job 0x13 (Basic Get): Delivered [2020-11-03 15:18:46.861] [D] [z-way] SendData Response with callback 0x3c received: received by recipient [2020-11-03 15:18:46.861] [D] [z-way] SETDATA devices.6.data.lastSendInternal = ********** [2020-11-03 15:18:46.861] [D] [z-way] SETDATA devices.6.data.lastSend = 56446 (0x0000dc7e) [2020-11-03 15:18:46.861] [D] [z-way] Job 0x13 (Basic Get): success [2020-11-03 15:18:46.861] [I] [z-way] Waiting for job reply: Basic Get [2020-11-03 15:18:46.874] [D] [z-way] RECEIVED: ( 01 0C 00 A8 00 01 06 03 20 03 00 00 C7 BB ) [2020-11-03 15:18:46.874] [D] [z-way] SENT ACK [2020-11-03 15:18:46.874] [W] [z-way] No job of class 0xa8 is waiting for callback 0x00 [2020-11-03 15:18:46.874] [I] [z-way] Unhandled callback for function 0x00 [2020-11-03 15:18:46.874] [I] [z-way] Removing job: Unknown function class [2020-11-03 15:18:48.987] [W] [z-way] Reply not received before timeout for job (Basic Get)To me, it looks like the unit is responding, and the server is having a "senior moment".. ?
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Hmm this is indeed a bit strange.
On the port address changing... it is a common linux problem, widely reported for many devices.
linux recreates and iterates another id for a usb device when it resets. I had this problem even with the vera when I ran it off of a usb dongle. The solution to this is to use another path to the port:run
ls /dev/serial/by-idand find the id of the uzb. Mine looks like this:
usb-0658_0200-if00 usb-dresden_elektronik_ingenieurtechnik_GmbH_ConBee_II_DE2211489-if00I have both a uzb and a conbee stick plugged into my mini PC. You can then use this port /dev/serial/by-id/usb-xxxx_xxxx-xxxx
instead of /dev/ttyACMn.For your other issue, you might be right. Maybe reset then as I am have never seen this behavior before.
