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Good morning all,
I'm working on weaning myself off of being totally Vera dependent. I've installed MSR on my Fedora home server, and I've been migrating luup Reactor rules over little by little. My hope is to use Vera as a bare bones z-wave hub, until I replace it either with Ezlo (not so sure about), or perhaps Hubitat. I'm just tired of zero new development in Vera, empty promises of native device integration, and cloud services that go down and leave my automation hanging.In any case, I digress. I've attempted to use Gcal3 on Vera to integrate Public calendars, such as Federal Holidays, School Calendars, etc. It use to somewhat work, but more often than not, all I get from Gcal3 is "token error code: HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request". The developer no longer is active, and it's effectively not working anymore.
I'd like to use these public calendars as Entity Attributes or Constraints in MSR. For instance, if it's a Federal Holiday, I don't have to work, and I may want to sleep in, which means lights may not come on as early, window coverings in the bedrooms may open later in the day, etc. Similar idea with a school calendar. If "closed" is in the event, my daughter may want to sleep in, and not want the window coverings opened as early.
I'm aware that Ezlo has integration through NuCal to all sorts of web based services, including Google Calendar, but as I stated earlier, I'm undecided on going down that path. Is there anyway to do this on MSR through any of it's abilities, such as HTTP calls or MQTT ( not experienced in MQTT, so I don't know now it works really).
Has anybody already done this?
Thanks for any advice in advance.
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Hello all, I am finally ditching my Vera and moving to HA using a Zooz ZST10 Z wave stick. I have around 50 Z wave devices with a good mix of battery devices, locks, sensors and switches. The plan is to include all the AC powered devices first, starting from the ones closest to my Z wave stick then moving outwards. Once that is complete I will go back and include all battery powered devices in the same fashion.
My question is there any quick way to exclude all my Z wave devices from Vera, or should I just delete all devices without excluding them and factory reset each device before pairing to HA?
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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)?
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The Debian Linux machine that MSR is running on, has developed an issue and I can no longer login to it via SSH or directly on its terminal.
It was fine earlier this morning I connected to it via WinSCP to copy all the MSR files down for a backup to my laptop.
Then a bit later I could no longer connect to it. Either in WinSCP or Putty SSH, it now says access denied, even though my password is correct.
I then connected a monitor and keyboard up to the Debian box and I cannot login to it directly either, I put in the username and hit enter and I am not given a password prompt to enter it and something I could not read flashes up on the screen very fast and then disappears. I had to record a video and skip through it to capture what is says, see screen capture below.
I tried logging in as user root and my own username same thing happens, it does not even give me a prompt to enter a password.
If I boot the box in to Debian recovery mode instead I am able to login as the root user OK.
Any ideas how to fix this?
Thanks
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Sigma have released a new Z-Wave Product that may be or interest to some here.
ThunderBoard Z-wave development board.More details are here....ThunderBoard
Also Dr Z-Waves blog link text
Makes for interesting reading.
It's attractively priced at $64.95 and might be a Z-UNO alternative? -
Two stores apparently have inventory of RPI 4Bs with 2GB RAM. Get them while they last!
Raspberry Pi 4 model B - 2GB - RaspberryStore interadmin12 / 62.95 EUR Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2GB RAM Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2GB RAMBestel de nieuwe Raspberry Pi 4 B 2GB nu snel en voordelig bij Elektronicavoorjou.nl! - Raspberry Pi Boards, Behuizingen, Heatsinks, Accessoires & meer!
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Is the Smarthome company still existent? If so, are SwitchLinc switched still available?
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Hi! I want to install a smart lock on my front door, but I don't know which one to choose. There are many different models available on the market. Do you have a reliable model to recommend?
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Hi
I’m looking to rework some code I found online so I can use it on Vera, and while I’ve managed to translate / convert a number of things, I’ve got stuck on a few things it does, around encryption/decryption etc.
All the original Lua code is here - > (https://forum.logicmachine.net/showthread.php?tid=232&pid=16580#pid16580 )
Plus there looks to be a python version too here - > (https://github.com/florianholzapfel/panasonic-viera/issues/9#issuecomment-476919658)
Here’s an extract of the code where AES 128 CBC is required?
function encrypt_soap_payload(data, key, hmac_key, iv) payload = '000000000000' n = #data payload = payload .. string.char(bit.band(bit.rshift(n, 24), 0xFF)) payload = payload .. string.char(bit.band(bit.rshift(n, 16), 0xFF)) payload = payload .. string.char(bit.band(bit.rshift(n, 8), 0xFF)) payload = payload .. string.char(bit.band(n, 0xFF)) payload = payload .. data aes_cbc, err = aes:new(key, nil, aes.cipher(128, 'cbc'), { iv = iv }, nil, 1) ciphertext = aes_cbc:encrypt(payload) sig = encdec.hmacsha256(ciphertext, hmac_key, true) encrypted_payload = encdec.base64enc(ciphertext .. sig) return encrypted_payload end function decrypt_soap_payload(data, key, hmac_key, iv) aes_cbc, err = aes:new(key, nil, aes.cipher(128, 'cbc'), { iv = iv }, nil, 0) decrypted = aes_cbc:decrypt(encdec.base64dec(data)) decrypted = string.gsub(string.sub(lmcore.strtohex(decrypted), 33), '%x%x', function(value) return string.char(tonumber(value, 16)) end) return decrypted endI can get to the point where I can create the parameters for the payload encrypt request (example below), it’s just the encryption/decryption I cant do..
data="1234" key="\\S„ßÍ}/Ìa5!" hmac_key="¹jz¹2¸F\r}òcžÎ„ 臧.ª˜¹=¤µæŸ" iv=" {¬£áæ‚2žâ3ÐÞË€ú "I’ve found this aes.lua (https://github.com/openresty/lua-resty-string/blob/master/lib/resty/aes.lua ) module online, but that requires loads of others modules too, most notably ffi.lua. Which I’d ideally like to avoid.
I also came across this aes128.lua (https://github.com/somesocks/lua-lockbox/blob/master/lockbox/cipher/aes128.lua ) but i’m not sure how that handles all the other parameters e.g specify the cbc aspect etc.
Finally there’s this aes256ecb.lua script (https://github.com/idiomic/Lua_AES/blob/master/AES.lua) , could that be converted to aes 128 cbc and then used in the above?
Any help/advice on this would be appreciated..
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I just upgraded the firmware for the inverter for my solar panels and that made it possible to enable Modbus TCP.
At a glance that would be perfect for live production data fed into my home automation environment but my lack of knowledge about the protocol and how to put the data where I want it failed me.What I have:
MSR
openLuup
Vera Secure
Ezlo Plus
Mosquitto
Homebridge
Windows Server
Ubuntu Server
Quite decent PowerShell skills
Enough Lua knowledge to write my own functions and handlers
The inverters Modbus interface definitionsWhat I want to achive:
Something that can be run by systemd och anything else monitoring the status and keeping the Modbus connection alive.
Publish readings over MQTT or whatever fits my setup, the goal is to feed the data into openLuup in someway so Historian can log the data for Grafana and display current production to HomeKit (as a mqttthing light sensor, since there is no other accessory suitable at the moment).Anyone implemented Modbus TCP in similar projects or have any guidance on how to reach my goal?
Open for alternative solutions as well, all suggestions are appreciated!
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Hi to all,
I am user of vera controller. I have a dahua door intercom with relay. Relay activates with username and password authentication. I can activate the relay http://admin:a1234567@192.168.1.111/cgi-bin/accessControl.cgi?action=openDoor&channel=1&UserID=101&Type=RemoteAs you can see intercom username admin and password is a1234567 I build a scene with luup code luup.inet.wget( "http://admin:a1234567@192.168.1.111/cgi-bin/accessControl.cgi?action=openDoor&channel=1&UserID=101&Type=Remote" ) But can not activate relay. Is there any idea?
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Hi to all, I have a bricked vera secure that is replaced with new one. Old vera secure serial numbers are deleted from vera servers so I cannot use it. Vera secure's are orginally Sercomm's NA502 model devices. Recently I install openwrt to the old vera secure unit without problem. Is there any way to use it any automation system with internal z-wave. I install domoticz but I cannot setup internal z-wave unit, it only accept usb zwave radios. Is there any ideas?
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I ordered a Fibaro Dimmer 2 and Bypass device for my upstairs landing / hallway lights.
I have 2 light switches one at the bottom of the stairs and another one upstairs on the landing.
But I am struggling to make sense of my current wiring, more details / photos on the Vera forum.
Jan 27 Anyone good at electrical wiring for light switches? Anyone good at electrical wiring for light switches?Hi I ordered a Fibaro Dimmer 2 and Bypass device for my upstairs landing / hallway lights. I have 2 light switches one at the bottom of the stairs and another one upstairs on the landing. I have no neutral wires in the house behind the light switches. These are photos of the light switch...
Thanks
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Hello,
Looking to all the dev's and tinkerers on this community for ideas on how to implement a solution to my problem. Kind of a long intro, sorry.Problem statement:
I have a geothermal heat pump that has a loop that is slightly undersized. During the cold weather months in the Pacific Northwest (one or two months of the year), the loop can get below 32 degrees. If it goes on for a few days, it can generate significant frost heaving in my yard and under the flagstone deck, Actually fixing the issue is cost prohibitive.Current mitigation:
I have DS18B20 tied into Home Assistant and monitoring the temp of the fluid coming out of the loop and if it drops below 35 degrees, MSR triggers a Fibaro Implant to add a resister into the external temp circuit and fool the Venstar to think the outside temp is below 32 degrees and issue a Heat Pump lockout and switch to AUX heat. While this is working fine and the AUX heat is only coming on once or twice a day, I would like to simplify the setup so it runs on something other than HA and MSR. I think they are overkill for my issue. Also want this to be independent of anything else in the house so it can stay behind if I am not around to maintain.I only have two inputs and one output:
Inputs: Loop temp, Furnace running
Outputs: Switch relay to drop resistance to external thermostat connection on thermostat.
Logic is super simple:
If temp is below 36 degrees and furnace is running, turn on relay
If furnace stops, turn off relay.
I am sure even I can figure that out on Python.Trying to determine the best platform for a set it and forget it black box that works with as close to zero maintenance as possible.
Options I have thought of are:
Pi zero with a GPIO controlled relay ESPHome (Not very knowledgeable about that platform, but willing to explore) Arduino Anything anyone else suggestsAny ideas are appreciated.
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Greetings,
I’m researching a migration from Vera+ to Hubitat C7 and want to know if anyone has successfully connected the Hubitat to the “HA Bridge” for local Alexia calls.
The HA Bridge does not callout Hubitat natively from what I see.Thanks for your assistance.
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Hi all
Having some time off i’ve been able to invest a chunk in creating some plug-ins for Vera/OpenLuup, and will do what I can to post them in GitHub and add links on the Vera Community and here, for anyone who is interested.
But, being knew to any of this, I wanted to ask for any guidance on how and when I should share stuff ? How best do I share it ? Am I liable for anything I share? Is GitHub the best place ? What licenses should I associate with them ?
The latter is a strange one, as I don’t see how I can have any claim over the content/code itself, as I’ve learnt and leveraged so much from others..
To get the ball rolling I posted this on the ezlo/Vera site..
Jan 4 Luup Plugin - Energenie PMS LAN Switch Luup Plugin - Energenie PMS LAN SwitchHi To ensure I give back to this community, which has been educating me in all things Lua and Luup over the years (12+) I wanted to share some of the plugins I’ve built recently to see if any are of use/interest to others. The first one is for the Energenie PMS LAN Switch where I have built two...
Ways to identify and calculate energy usage (watts) ?
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Hi all
I’ve been on a mission for a while now to try and track down where all the energy we use is going (so I can explain the exorbitantly high electricity bill !) .
I’ve done a few posts on this subject already, see below..
- https://smarthome.community/topic/534/unifi-energy-report-how-can-i-retrieve-the-value-via-http/6
- https://smarthome.community/topic/584/luup-hue-energy-watts-calculator/17?_=1623603224863
Plus I’ve got various energy meter plugs around the house to help me too, but when compared to my CurrentCost (whole house) energy meter, I’m still unable to account for 200+ watts when i believe everything of note are switch off (so no dishwasher, no washing machine running etc.)
Tracked items so far include.. Media Centre (TV/NAS etc.), Office Desk (Laptop/PC/Monitor etc.), Hue Lights, Fridge…
- What items/devices could I be missing ?
- What else could i create a pseudo energy (watts) calculations for ?
For example (2), I‘ve got a couple of Sonos Music players, which are always on, so I’m thinking as they are a media device that report their status, i can calculate a pause/stop watts rating vs a play rating..
Any thoughts on what the missing power hungry items are in a normal house, and/or any new pseudo watt calculator ideas?
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Look for old appliances. One of the first TV I got 15 years ago was a Sharp tv consuming 31 watts at standby and 300 when on. The new LG/Samsung/Philips I have now are under 1 watt when idle, and 70/200 when on, depending on the size.
My house is consuming 300 watts at idle, and that’s because I have mini PCs, two fridges, and so on. Placing simple meters on the appliances could help to track them.
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Some initial thoughts, partly based on past experience:
- Don't forget the attic. Some attics have powered fans, and these are easy to forget.
- I love my Kill-A-Watt power measurement device, since it can be placed temporarily in line with any (110V) appliance to reveal its power draw at various phases of operation.
- I'd use MSR exclusively to create a catch-all Rule that sums up the proportional wattage for all "ON" devices.
- Tracking usage with an array in Expressions, charting with HundredGraphs, or exporting to Google Sheets (via a Form link) are all viable options.
- Perhaps the most "serious" way to track down vampire power consumption in the home is using a basic ammeter at the panel, and testing circuit-by-circuit after shutting off all others.
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A few adds to @LibraSun 's list from own experience:
- Many dimmers "leak" enough energy to be relevant, and since they can be present in relatively large numbers in a home, even a modest leak can add up across multiple dimmers. I discovered this some years ago when my wife had me switch out a halogen vanity light bar in my older son's bathroom with an LED model. The light bar glows like a night light when the dimmer was fully off. I tried swapping the older dimmer (Leviton VRMX1) for a newer model (DZ6HD) but no change in results. When we later changed the ceiling fan bulb in my younger son's room from halogen to LED, the same thing happened. With incandescent or halogen loads, these leaks aren't enough to light the filament, generally, but some LED bulbs/fixtures don't require much current to glow. Be suspicious of any dimmer that has an "air gap" in particular--it's there because they know the device is passing current even when "off."
- And keep in mind that leaking or not, all line-powered ZWave devices of every kind are active electronics with power supplies (often terrible cap droppers with poor power factors to boot, particularly in the cheaper models). If it has an LED pilot lamp, maybe it's pulling 3-5 milliamps just for that, and if the supply and other electronics double that, you're at maybe 6-10ma per device. Times 20 devices may be 200ma total or about 40W right there.
- Smoke alarms, garage door openers, safety lights...
IIRC, you're in the UK, where electrical panels tend to have fewer breakers than here in the US, so that makes isolating things a bit more of a challenge. Here in the US, it's usually not a big issue to remove the cover from the breaker panel, put a clamp meter on the main, and just start flipping breakers until the measurement drops, then go isolate down that circuit from there. Codes here increasingly require dedicated circuits for all kinds of things, and of course, GCFIs and AFCIs (our version of RCDs and... I don't know what the UK equivalent is called, but it's an arc-detecting device) which have power supplies as well. So panels here are getting bigger, and electricians are having no problems sending their kids to college.
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Thanks all,
Reading my initial post back again, I noticed I made a mistake, in that I said I was unable to account for 200 watts, it’s actually closer to 400 watts !!!
Admittedly I know i’m never going to be able identify everything, but 400 watts !!, that’s more than @therealdb home in its idle state !!
@LibraSun and @toggledbits - the breaker panel, (or consumer unit as we call it in the UK) is a good call, and UK regulations are pretty strict too, so much of the house is broken up/out on the board so I can isolate various areas. That sounds like my weekend sorted ..
Other than that, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m powering other people within my neighbourhood too. !
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Have a look at any split aircons or aircons in general. Older models had sump heaters that could use anything from 30W to 300W. These were permanently on. Also iron core transformers that are permanently connected eg door bells and alarm systems - they can be quite lossey. Older PCs also drew a far bit even when "off". In fact, lots of older equipment can draw substantial power when on standby. So much so the One Watt Initiative was instigated.
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@a-lurker said in Ways to identify and calculate energy usage (watts) ?:
Have a look at any split aircons or aircons in general
In the UK?
C
The Ex-Vera abuser know as CatmanV2.....
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Buy yourself one of these to get accurate energy usage : https://www.energyswitching.co.uk/best-energy-monitors-of-2021/ The US equivalent is "Kill a Watt" and that brand of device works well, though I don't believe they make a UK version.
Once you dial in the actual watts to your calcs, you'll probably see some of your unexplained energy use disappear. When I went through this process, and as mentioned above by several, the vampire devices in my home were the main contributors to my unknown energy usage. I was able to claw some of that back by using myriad smart switches for always on (sleeping) devices, albeit with a loss of instant on capability. -
This post is deleted! -
@catmanv2 said in Ways to identify and calculate energy usage (watts) ?:
@a-lurker said in Ways to identify and calculate energy usage (watts) ?:
Have a look at any split aircons or aircons in general
In the UK?
C
While they are irare in the home over here; I could certainly do with an one at the moment, as it’s quite toasty in the UK at the moment.
I’ve placed energy monitor wall-plugs in all the main places I can think of, which means everything left is theoretically a small thing, like a phone charger, an Amazon Echo, a clock, or a night light etc.
Which means I’m finding it hard to believe that all of those little things will come up to 400 watts…
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I once found a walled off ventilation fan in an old kitchen that was still energized and conceivably could have burned many watts without rotating and I'm surprised it did not start a fire. I've also discovered doorbells that were stuck on because of a faulty Ring device wired in parallel with it. Finally, there's no end to the way that poorly grounded appliances can divert current directly to ground which you will never find through conventional testing means.
My central point being that you never know what you're going to find in around and under a house when it comes to electrical things. And that is absolutely why you really need to unplug and disconnect every single thing in this quest to isolate phantom power consumers. -
And the light someone left on in the roof space or under the floor.
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@parkerc said in Ways to identify and calculate energy usage (watts) ?:
While they are irare in the home over here; I could certainly do with an one at the moment, as it’s quite toasty in the UK at the moment.
I know! I live in Essex
C
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Hi to find the source you would be best to use a clamp meter on the outgoing live cable at each mcb in the consumer unit, once everything is turned off, that way you can zero in on the circuits that are still using power. Do you have a rcd/s fitted in your consumer unit if so ground leakage would only account for 7 watts max per rcd unit, before rcd would trip, unless faulty.
[edit] on socket ring ciruits put both live wires in clamp meter.
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I’ll tell you what trying to understand your energy usage while the family is in the house is next to impossible, no matter how many times i told them what i was doing , i would suddenly struggle to add up up the wattage numbers - only later to find out that they’d plugged something in or turned something off !!! Add to that things that come on by themselves at random times such as the fridge or the freezer and you really are scratching your head what the hell is going on - not matter what systematic approach I followed.
Cut along story short, the best I could come up with today is that my office/man cave - has an idle usage of about 250 watts (not surprising as this is where all the networking kit and media devices are stored/connected into) after that it’s the kitchen with about 150 watts too (due to a small HA hub and fridge/freezer) and the shed/cabin (100 watts) - which leaves the rest of the house using the remainder which is approx 350-400 watts..
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The new smart meters installed across many U.S. municipalities derive actual usage in real time (whether you believe they are accurate or not -- this is a troublesome source of debate among many smart people). Some utility companies offer a companion "reader", which wirelessly displays your home's current demand, by minute, hour, day, month, total, etc.
That's about as close as I've ever come to instant readings. The rest, as you rightly point out, is likely folly.
