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    (Last Updated: October 14, 2020)
    • Caller ID in HA workflow

      LibraSun

      Has anyone successfully incorporated incoming call(er) information** within an automation workflow?

      I'm talking about having Alexa speak out the name and/or phone number of a caller, or activating a routine/scene based on that info.

      Always been a dream of mine. Wouldn't know how to achieve it! Do they make an Ethernet/WiFi-connected CallerID box?

      **from a LANDLINE, not a MOBILE PHONE (although in the case of my Google Voice #, both lines ring, and if my smartphone is home and turned on, I could see invoking Tasker somehow)

      REFERENCES:

      NCID - Network Caller ID

      [Please file under proper category, as you see fit]

      General Discussion
    • MQTT – setup and use

      akbooer

      General discussion on all things MQTT.

      General Discussion
    • Homer Dashboard - Vera/OpenLuup

      parkerc

      Hi all

      I’ve recently started to build out my own ‘Homer’ dashboard (https://github.com/bastienwirtz/homer) and I must admit I really like what it’s given me.

      Thinking about future use-cases. I can see potential for this being an alternative (albeit simple ) UI for Vera/OpenLuup..

      Is anyone else using Homer ?

      General Discussion
    • Would you use a self-hosted geofencing solution?

      toggledbits

      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)?

      General Discussion
    • Apple Homepod mini

      rafale77

      After having optimized my video processing integration of 8 cameras into my openLuup based automation, I have been wondering what I could possibly improve on my setup. Instead of pestering @akbooer with petty localized console optimizations I am looking at these Apple Homepod minis as a potential improvement from my alexa based voice command system. openLuup is presently already bridged to both platforms using habridge and homekitbridge.

      I am seeing two issues with Alexa:

      Speed. The cloud processing of the voice commands takes ~1s (I don't use anything cloud to cloud) and I would really prefer it to be local. These devices can go a bit crazy when they lose DNS connections and sometimes do random things. Privacy because all the recordings go to the amazon cloud all the time.

      I have been exploring open source solutions for this but I would lose the benefit of optionally being able to go to the cloud for search information.

      The downside of the homepods are that siri is not nearly as good in terms of helpfulness as alexa at this point. They also don't have a version with a screen which I found to be very useful at a couple of locations on the other hand, the sound quality of the homepod minis seem to be better than the echos...

      What do you guys think?

      This thread from longtime vera user @dJOS inspired me

      Feb 4 Hubitat + HomeKit + HomeBridge + HomePod Mini = WOW Hubitat + HomeKit + HomeBridge + HomePod Mini = WOW

      Howdy all, I got a HomePod Mini very recently for my study (the audio quality is great and hand-off is magical) and to replace my iPad as the main HomeKit controller for my house (we use HomeKit mainly for Presence detection which is IMO best in class). We also have a dozen Amazon Echo's of...

      General Discussion
    • Recover an ‘assumed bricked’ Vera Secure

      parkerc

      Hi

      Go with me here... I recently pick up a unresponsive Vera Secure from eBay for next to nothing, thinking I’d could have a go at trying to restore it, if only as a play thing..

      Situation - The power led comes on, but the internet and service leds just flash - no connection made (and even using a direct cable and Wireshark, I can’t see an arp request being made to see if it has a default in address) - I’ve also tried various reset button combinations - no luck.

      Perhaps this post is a long shot, but seeing so many familiar ex Micasaverde/Vera forum names - i thought I’d at least ask - just in case anyone had any guidance/advice etc. I could use ..

      General Discussion
    • ubiquiti breach

      rafale77
      Whistleblower: Ubiquiti Breach “Catastrophic” Whistleblower: Ubiquiti Breach “Catastrophic”

      On Jan. 11, Ubiquiti Inc. [NYSE:UI] — a major vendor of cloud-enabled Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as routers, network video recorders and security cameras — disclosed that a breach involving a third-party cloud provider had exposed customer account credentials. Now a source who...

      Reposting an article I got from a reddit thread.
      I won't stop advocating against cloud dependence and unnecessary cloud reliance especially in the field of smarthomes.
      I divested from a fairly large ubiquiti unifi system almost a year ago and I never connected my controller to their cloud service but as some may have sensed, it was a direction they were going towards. What got me off of it actually was the large disparity in product performance and a decreasing trust in the company with large amount of dubious advertising, inconsistent products for some of which the hardware could obviously not meet the marketing promises.

      General Discussion
    • Easy way to convert to SSD from SD card on Pi with MSR

      M

      So have been migrating a bunch of automations to MSR from Hubitat and no I feel like I want to have an SSD instead of SD card on my Pi3.What is an Easy way to convert to SSD from SD card on Pi with MSR. What files do I need to copy to keep my rules?

      /Mattias

      General Discussion
    • Vera watch variable / startup LUA how ?

      cw-kid

      I want to set something up natively if possible on Vera, so a virtual motion sensor device is tripped / not tripped by following the tripped variable state of a real device.

      This LUA code works if I run it manually but I don't know how to have this running all the time and watching for that "tripped" variable to change ?

      local istripped = luup.variable_get("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SecuritySensor1", "Tripped", 100) --Real Device luup.variable_set("urn:micasaverde-com:serviceId:SecuritySensor1", "Tripped", istripped,101) --Virtual Motion Sensor Device return true

      How do you add something like this in to Vera's startup LUA feature ?

      Thanks

      General Discussion
    • Ezlo to openLuup to Homebridge

      Crille

      @mrFarmer I'm trying to add my Ezlo devices to Homebridge via openLupp Ezlobridge using the Vera plugin for Homebridge.
      Do you or anyone else know why they are ignored. My devices provisioned by Verabridge is visible in Homebridge but not those from Ezlobridge.

      General Discussion
    • Incrementing an outside awning with Reactor/MSR

      Black Cat

      I have a Reactor set up to extend an outside awning when the OAT reaches 26C and it's after 1100, that part is straightforward enough, however I wanted to take it one step further and rather than it being either fully out or the reverse I'd like to have the ability to increment it either In or Out by a certain distance (typically 500mm) every 120 secs or so.
      I had tried to do this with PLEG based on Sun position but failed miserably and never attempted to do this with distance and time.
      I have looked at adding it to the current Reactor but not being fully fluent in Reactor I've hit a brick wall and don't see if it can be done - anyone point me in the right direction is is this something that Reactor can't do?

      General Discussion
    • Need help backing up Raspberry Pi

      cw-kid

      Hello

      I have a 64GB SD card in my Raspberry Pi.

      I read some guides online and the ones that looked easy to follow use a program call Win32 Disk Imager to make an image of the entire SD card.

      I shutdown the Pi and when I insert the SD card in to my Windows 10 PC, I can see drive letter D:\ appear and its label is "boot"

      8094c349-baee-414a-b9e4-96f3d2e7c9c7-image.png

      Looking at this disk in Windows Disk management it looks a bit strange however as it has a massive unallocated area.

      f5eb87a7-cd83-4846-a7b6-c4315a691f58-image.png

      Anyway I proceeded to backup the disk D:\ using Win32 Disk Imager program.

      1d8e45d0-c38b-414f-b188-05d183d4baf4-image.png

      It took a long time but it has created an .img file which is 27.4GB in file size.

      57b59b29-1f56-4a54-923d-2b401129b3db-image.png

      I then put the SD card back in to the Pi and powered it on.

      Here is a "df" output from the Pi

      faaf5744-45c6-459c-a2c2-8b1c63ff3801-image.png

      Looks like I am not using the full 64GB of the SD card.

      When I first setup the Pi I was using a much smaller SD card and then I bought a decent Sandisk 64GB card and followed some other user guide found online to clone my original smaller card to the new card and expand etc.

      So have I actually just backed up the Pi's SD card and all its contents successfully ?

      General Discussion
    • My Turn! Suspended at Ezlo Forum

      M

      My turn now... Shit Ezlo CEO is really on slipper ice.

      I sak that in the thread that someone has contacted his wife and is Boeing concerened about his behavior.

      When you read the mail you clearly read that its someone close to him at the Company...

      Sad that he is ruining his Company and allt of peoples Jobs at risk.

      /M

      General Discussion
    • Voice Control and TTS Projects

      rafale77

      Some of my favorite projects I have been using on my setup for over 5 years:
      Bridge the vera or openluup to amazon echo through a local hue emulator. A much faster solution than the vera native bloatware as the only cloud service is used by this alternative is the voice recognition. It was initiated for vera control but later expanded to many other platforms like the logitech Harmony and other controllers. No cloud to cloud so no need for mios servers:

      bwssytems/ha-bridge 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 has an http/https/tcp/udp int...

      The equivalent for Apple Siri:

      Hackworth/VeraHomeKitBridge Hackworth/VeraHomeKitBridge

      Contribute to Hackworth/VeraHomeKitBridge development by creating an account on GitHub.

      Alternative SONOS TTS implementation from all the plugin versions applicable for any platform since it is an API you can call. It is run also locally on a MacOS desktop in my case but can run on anything running nodeJS. For the TTS to be fully local though, you will need a mac or bear with the robotic voice of maryTTS. I have been hesitant to move my TTS to the amazon echos (project by @therealdb), but the echos lack synchronization and are cloud dependent which causes a 3-5s delay I do not have with this local solution, so this remains my choice:

      jishi/node-sonos-http-api jishi/node-sonos-http-api

      An HTTP API bridge for Sonos easing automation. Hostable on any node.js capable device, like a raspberry pi or similar. - jishi/node-sonos-http-api

      Use my fork if you need to install on Catalina because some fixes are needed and my pull request from months ago has not yet been merged.

      General Discussion
    • Not so quiet around here :)

      tunnus

      Got banned quite quickly from Vera/ezlo forum, without any warning. I was kinda asking for it, but still, they could have some sense of humour over there 🙂

      General Discussion
    • Starlink Available in Some Areas

      toggledbits

      This morning I signed up for Starlink internet. This is the Musk project that has been aboard many of the SpaceX launches for some time. I watched this morning's launch (60 additional Starlink satellites), and they announced that the Beta was open in some areas. I went to the site, and it was open in my area.

      The site (starlink.com) quoted $99/mo with $499 initial equipment and setup. I realize that's pretty pricey compared to Internet access in many areas, but I currently pay a fair amount more (monthly) to my current cable- (TV) based ISP, quality and speed are inconsistent, and every year I have to fight their customer retention staff to keep my pricing from nearly doubling as my "special offer" expires.

      Verizon, the dominant cellular carrier where I live, has been slow to roll out home-based Internet on 5G. This is another alternative I've been excited to investigate, but still waiting.

      I'm pretty excited. Yes, I'm a Musk fan-boy. Don't judge me. 🙂

      General Discussion
    • Controller shift - How do you do it ?

      parkerc

      A while back the z-wave module on my veraplus stopped working and as it couldnt be fixed, I bought an external usb z-wave dongle UZB1 (which I plugged in and setup on ‘port’ /dev/ttyACM0 ) which made it operational again, and I’ve been using it again since.

      Recently I picked up a new (well 2nd hand) VeraPlus unit and tried to do a full system/zwave network restore from the original one, but it didn’t work.

      The restore looked like it worked fine, as it brought everything over, but when nothing worked, I checked the z-wave ‘port’ settings on the new unit, and it too had been set to use an external usb (/dev/ttyACM0) which it obviously doesn’t have , but when I changed it back to the onboard zwave module (/dev/ttyS0) all the z-wave devices disappeared.

      To fix this, it sounds like I need to do a controller shift to get the details off the UZB1 key and onto the zwave chip on the veraplus board ?

      However not having done one before I’m not sure if the process is - any ideas ?

      General Discussion
    • Raspberry Pi - Cron Jobs for Lua scripts ?

      parkerc

      Hi,

      I’ve got a few Lua scripts that I’d like to run periodically on my Pi, and I’ve tried to get them to run via Cron, but I can’t seem to get them to work..

      Does anyone have anything similar set up that works ?

      Crontab -e

      I’ve tried it a couple of ways based on the forum posts I’ve read, but neither have worked..

      0 0 * * * home/pi/shared/TS_cabin_graph_email_24h.lua 0 0 * * * /usr/bin/lua /home/pi/shared/TS_cabin_graph_email_24h.lua
      General Discussion
    • SiteSensor triggered my both sirens

      S

      Installed Sitesensor yesterday. Defined a http request towards yr.no for the weather.
      Default it only sends requests when the device is armed. When I armed the sensor both of my sirens started bleeping. Not funny with at night with two kids asleep.

      Simultaneous with arming the device, the first http request probably is send and my first http request did not have the Useragent http header so the result was a 403; this probably made the sitesensor device being triggered.

      I unchecked the box "only send requests when armed" and disarmed the sitesensor. This works ok but only one slight mistake with thick fingers and I have armed it again.

      I see the sitesensor device is being configured as a SecuritySensor (as it implements the securitysensor serivce?). This makes that sirens react when the sitesensor trips. I have a leakage sensor as well and I know this one triggers the sirens as well. Do not have any doorsensors right now but hope these will not trigger sirens as well.

      Is there a way to tell Sirens to ignore Sitesensor and/or other specific devices. Or should sitesensor not be configured as a security device?
      Is there an easy solution?

      Grtz Swiddy

      Some details:
      -Vera Secure box with built in siren (siren is a separate device)
      -POPP Smokedetector with siren
      -Upto-date with Vera firmware and Not on Openluup yet but don't think this would make a difference here

      General Discussion
    • Connected Home Over IP. (CHIP)

      rafale77

      Yet another attempt to create the one standard to rule them all. "The ring of power".

      What Is “Project Connected Home Over IP” for Smart Homes? What Is “Project Connected Home Over IP” for Smart Homes?

      Project Connected Home over IP is a new industry group announced by Apple, Google, Amazon, and the ZigBee Alliance. The group will create a new unifying standard for smart home devices, and that’s a big deal. Here’s why.

      I am very skeptical about this. I don't feel it is needed and I think it will only add to the confusion but I am probably not a typical consumer. Thoughts? It seems to want to do the same thing as what a lot of us have already achieved through open source but commercializing it. It's not so different from Apple's HomeKit.

      General Discussion
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    I'm bored :D

    General Discussion
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    • therealdb
      therealdb last edited by

      What are the projects you're working on?

      Summer is over, and that (unfortunately) means more time indoor and (luckily) more time to build things.

      I have almost nothing in my backlog and it's boring 🙂

      I appreciate a couple of (crazy) ideas.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • rafale77
        rafale77 last edited by

        For me I just removed the vera which I used as pure ser2net device for zigbee and replaced it with a conbee 2 stick. The idea is first to consolidate my 2 zigbee network and get rid of the philips hue 2 hub which would enable me to have only 1 zigbee mesh. If this is successful then I would work on bypassing home assistant for zigbee network control and bridge openLuup into deconz.

        If you really want a big project, you could look at doing deep neural video processing. This is a very large topic I invested a couple of months on and enabled me to replace video movement detection with specific object detections along with facial recognition. All done locally of course. Coding is done in C or Python. I know that C is right down your alley! 😉

        A little further down the road I am thinking about replacing all my amazon echo with a local version likely based on Rhasppy when that project gets a little bit more mature and I find the time and courage to make the jump.

        Other than that, everything just works... I have had no need to touch or tinker with anything...

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • akbooer
          akbooer last edited by

          My once four, then three, and recently only two-Vera home system is now down to one, with Vera hosting my beloved four-button MiniMote hand Controllers, a few lights, and a couple of meter readers. About to clone this to a UZB and see how that goes. Shelly now doing some switches, lights, and timed thermostats.

          I really need a replacement (WiFi) for the MiniMotes, but don’t see anything suitable. May have to make my own (3D printer anyone?)

          Other than that, the Prolog-based plugin for openLuup HA logic is coming along very slowly.

          Not doing anything right now, though, since we have a power outage (internet runs on UPS.)

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Black Cat
            Black Cat last edited by Black Cat

            I invested in a 3D Printer...eventually.
            Turns out there not that expensive after all. +1 to a Ender V2. Easy to put together and great youtube support.
            The hardest part has been learning CAD- Autodesk, probably should say the most frustrating part, but now fairly conversant and can design complex designs.
            That was my winter, now we are looking at Spring & Summer and the end of lockdown.
            The EnderV2 is turning out adapters and wall brackets, quality is better than good and is merchantable.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • A
              a-lurker last edited by

              The problem may be that we are all caught in liminal time due to COVID.

              I had thought I would get the Sonos system to issues voice commands to Alexa but I'm not sure what the point would be, except for some idle amusement.

              Something else I would like to know; how to calculate the R value (insulation effectiveness) of our house (metric units only please). It seems to me that when you get a step change in the outside weather, which can be a significant step change where I live. Then the inside temperature decays exponentially to meet the new outside temperature. Depending on the R value of the house the decay will be rapid (poor insulation) or slow (good insulation). Any idea how to calculate the R value, given the outside temp step change delta and the inside temperature change that results after x time? A few points: assumes the outside weather changes abruptly. No heat sources inside the house or though windows. Convection of heat may affect results.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • therealdb
                therealdb last edited by

                Lately, I've

                • built an integration with SmartBot push buttons (with retry, ack and battery and status report back to luup)
                • bought a Kuando BusyLight and integrated into my routine (so, when I'm on a call, it automatically turns to red)
                • built an app with integrated notifications on my home PC (dark, entryways, etc) via MQTT.
                • built a couple of new wifi-based sensors (light, temp, humidity and distance)
                • finished my tablet dashboard
                • built a system to track electrical consumption, in preparation for solar
                • built a new system to rotate my exterior color lights (milight+hue)

                @rafale I'll probably do some image recognition for the cams (I did for a customer, but it was in cloud) and a couple of more sensors.

                @akbooer finding a wifi remote is not easy. because wifi isn't really suited for battery operated devices.

                @a-lurker summer here in South Italy wasn't bad as I was expecting. we managed to do very good, even if cases are rising again lately. I never got so much spare time for sure, since I used to travel a lot for work (and pleasure) and I'm at home, beach excluded, since my last vacation in Miami+Bahamas in February. I have voice enabled announcements via Alexa and my wife loves them. I have a good insulated house (very new), but I'm not sure it'd be easy to do.

                akbooer 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • akbooer
                  akbooer @therealdb last edited by

                  @therealdb said in I'm bored 😄:

                  because wifi isn't really suited for battery operated devices.

                  Indeed so. Curiously, this was the promise of ZWave - that is was low power. Ironic, then, then many of the major failings of Zwave (certainly in the Vera world) were based around battery devices (polling, or not, etc.)

                  There are low power WiFi devices and (single) buttons, but truly hard to find anything more capable. Maybe that's the one things that will keep my Zwave system going (albeit on ZWay, not on Vera.)

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • rafale77
                    rafale77 last edited by rafale77

                    I would not confuse the vera failures with zwave failures. Battery operated devices operate brilliantly with zwave. Vera's problem was around the background "maintenance" they thought was going to make user configuration easier. It just made it a complete nightmare.

                    There are now cheap low powered wifi devices but... I would still prefer not to mix up low bandwidth network for home automation with the high bandwidth of wifi as it will (at least until full wifi6 implementation is effective) eat up wifi bandwidth. It is more of a scalability issue than anything else. Once you start having a lot of devices, the wifi band airtime will start getting congested which is why for these types of appliances, I try to avoid wifi. The amount of wifi channels is also very limited as the trend is to broaden channels to allow more per device bandwidth and to also to use more and more channels to support more devices simultaneously...

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Matohl
                      Matohl last edited by

                      This winter I will work on my project to get small ESP sensor connected to a RPi to warn me if the plans needs some water, in planning for several years. I will also as @therealdb work with the tablet dashboards- And integrate some electronics into my Millenium-Falcon, Tie-fighter models. (Yes, I'm still married) 😄

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • CatmanV2
                        CatmanV2 last edited by

                        Finally fixed Mrs C's iPhone locator. Adding some more logic now we're actually going out of the house (for a while)

                        What I'm toying with now is some ideas for
                        a) Smart shower (assuming I get another job that means I need to get up and get in the shower)
                        b) IR control for scene setting per my old Philips Pronto and (to a lesser extent) my Harmony. The Harmony hub is the obvs choice, and given my Harmony One is on its last legs this may be first.

                        C

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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