Home Automation in general terms

[Sarel.wagner]

Who knows about Louis Rossman on youtube, worthwhile to go and look him up. So so many manufacturers that sell ya stuff with software in the cloud, and then kill that service, effectively bricking your device, Louis takes them on and right to repair as well. Or look at the mess Adobe software got into by killing the servers used to allow registering software like Photoshop you bought and paid for, no useless even though you own that.

Almost everything done nowadays, are proprietary, and lock you in, a cash cow so to speak. It's like paying for a car with heated seats, and then having to pay a subscription fee to be allowed to use it. Me thinks Fiskar EV owners experienced that first hand, the sunroof on them stopped when a Cloud Server stopped as it was discontinued.

A lesson for sure, do not pay school fees on that one. For me, and surely for most, you would want control, and no delays when controlling items around you. Add in cloud servers and a cloud connection and all it's security issues and internet speeds and delays, and there you are, waiting. Home automation systems should allow you to locally control everything. It should switch between protocols and provide easy and meaningful interfaces and a GUI.

It is software, and does crash. Be prepared.

AutomatedGroetnissediebobejaan...

 

[Cowboy]

Sign me up for the learning curve. And I will definitely check out that fellow on YT - I think we will be sympatico, for sure.

 

[Sarel.wagner]

Noise, the sounds you don't like Fanless or hidden system to run the HA with and something reliable, oh and cheap from a power consumption aspect. That mostly translates into some SoC (Silicon on Chip) device and preferred to not having an operating system like Windo$e or some such. Of late, them RPi systems have enough processing and memory, are tiny and use little power.

There are a number of Home automation systems on the market. I have used a few in the past. Just like with my solar system, my philosophy is for the system to work without tinkering all the time. Tinkering is fun, but sucks up time. Time is a resource I do not have much to spare of, likely you are in the same shittyation....

If you have family and do not live by yourself, then having some semblance of reliability and ease of use is important, or the family will keep asking you to do stuff, another avoidable obstacle if you will, and pleasing them to boot. Hands off where possible.

There are systems, Control 4, Schneider, Google, Samsung, Apple, Amazon Alexa and on and on. This HA stuff goes way back to X10 and others. There is a lot of fragmentation, a lack of technical standards and proprietary everything. Interoperability, na what's that. Nowadays smart and connected refrigerators, energy meters, Cars, Audio equipment etc. Energy management and ease of use of these systems as well as integration of disparate systems to be controlled from a single interface, are all benefits.

These are just some of them. Domoticz and OpenHab are other examples.

 

[Sarel.wagner]

Years and years ago, I started to look at HA out of curiosity. My place was built 65 years ago, its old. When doing solar install, the DB boards and wiring was modernised and brought up to spec, but this was only done about 3 years ago. I started by looking at automated lights way back when Philips launched the Hue system. It was not available in SA then (still not from Philips) and it was expensive, still is. Also Philips now insists of removing the local API interfaces and forcing Cloud. Problematic to say the least. My guess is soon they will start charging for that....

The second item I started looking at was Audio integration, but back then that was a real challenge. On the lights issue, I wanted something where no install outside of the actual globes or strips was required, no switches, no dimmers and no wiring changes required. So here the Hue system was ideal. Philips uses a hub system to communicate to wireless switches, dimmers, globes etc, so no wiring or mains related items to mess with.

On another level, there are 2 main systems used to communicate to devices, a mesh network like Zigbee and others, or WiFi, normally 2.4Ghz for IoT type devices. The various mesh network types use their own hubs, and they not compatible to each other, so multiple hubs it is. This was not really palatable for me, so I have just 3 hubs, one being Hue, and then Sonoff and Zigbee, my Tuya stuff is all WiFi, and the rest is also WiFi.

From looking in the rearview mirror, go WiFi if possible, most things are available as WiFi devices. All my new lights are Tuya compatible, they by far the larges vendor here, and many brands are compatible with them, so easy peasy.

 

[Sarel.wagner]

Now onto the software, the real Hub of the HA ecosystem.

"Open source home automation system that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server."

The above really is the meat of the situation. Data is local, private and your systems cannot be held ransom or switched off by anyone. Yea, Amazon killed one Guy in the USA's system and got his Amazon HA system switched off by the Amazon people because of some stupid non related issue they disliked.

So look at possible systems from that point of view. I used a few, but settled on Home assistant https://www.home-assistant.io/ There is a legal non profit company backing them, so it cannot be sold or taken over. They have a number of paid staff doing dev work, and have regular updates a few times per month. There are more than 2900 integrations and that keeps on growing. So healthy indeed.

Since this is software, alway always backup the stuff before upgrading. Except if you want to re-install and re-configure your stuff and accept losing all the historical data.

VeloredataGroetnis

 

[Sarel.wagner]

An overview of what a system could look like:


SmartGroetnis

 

[mygoggie]

Since this is software, alway always backup the stuff before upgrading. Except if you want to re-install and re-configure your stuff and accept losing all the historical data.

Nou wonder ekke ... hoe weet jy dat die so belangrik is?

 

[Sarel.wagner]

Ondervinding meneer

 

[naboo]

Here is my personal HA dashboard, Sarel. Very simple, clean and the whole family can operate the thing. Everything is exposed via Tuya with the exception of the solar elements which uses the excellent, locally produced solar assistant, also running on an RPI. I have about ten lights, all Tuya with wifi - agree with you on the practicality of this approach. They are a bit lower down on the dashboard.

People often think of HA as a giant dashboard to switch things on and off, but the biggest win for me here was the automation. I only have an 8Kw inverter, but with automation I am able to run the whole house through the inverter, and switch things off and on based on load. Changed my Eskom bill from 2.5-3.5k per month to avg R250.

 

[Sarel.wagner]

Nice and simple Naboo!

My life is a bit complex, so to speak, that obsessive need to know stuff type... I do have somewhat of a solar system, 30 panels, dual Victron inverters and a Victron DC solar charger. On top of that, a Gridtie inverter on the Victrons Quattro's output. This creates a micro grid, so power no matter if Eskom is up or down.

So weather drives everything, Solar prediction thusly important... kinda. And has luck is, the Solar prediction service is currently down. It provides current, next hour, today total and tomorrow total predictions.



Since I have dual panel systems, I monitor both and combine the info.


More on weather later.
SonskynGroetnis

 

[kolakidd]

I've been running Home Assistant for around seven years solid. I started on a Pi 3, then a Pi 4, then an Intel NUC. They were all stable; I just upgraded for speed and device handling. I have around 100 devices running (Switches, Cameras, Sensors).

These are my learnings:

• Home Assistant: Choose an Open platform because you won't need to worry about compatibility when buying devices.
• Dashboards—If you want the family to use them, keep them simple. I recently overhauled my dashboards, which have tiles and drop-downs that you must click to expose more complex settings. I also have more complex dashboards (Solar, Pool, etc.) hidden. I went to the extreme regarding complex dashboards, but ultimately, I just decided that the goal of Home Automation should be simplicity and less hassle. I try to create the most simple dashboards possible and offload complexity to a second dashboard, automation, and alerts.
• Frequent Backups—I have a cloud backup of my instance, which happens every three days. If my NUC finally dies, I can switch to another device and be up and running again in a few minutes.
• Install Node-Red—This is a need for advanced automation. It controls a rather complex run-time calculation based on the weather for my pool and has saved me a lot of money, but I also use it for many things, like controlling security events and activating based on presence.
• Everything can be automated, but not everything should be automated: I went through a period of integrating everything, but I hit a point where the maintenance just became a headache. A couple of months ago, I took a step back and removed a few things, and my system has been far more predictable. Now, when I see a notification for a new device to integrate, I think twice. If I had to start again, I would really be more considered in my approach.
• Other installs I use: HACs for mass compatibility and integration into other ecosystems like Apple Home, Scrypted for NVR, and WEBRTC for Cameras.

I agree with Solar; I think it is critical to integrate it and use it to control other devices. I've also built an excellent predictive system where when the power is out, the solar estimates at what point the batteries will be depleted.

 

[Sarel.wagner]

One thing, HA is super flexible, and to boot, it can work the way you think and look at things. Simple to complex, your pick. Second point, this is just my way of doing HA, it's not better than other ways, it's not right nor wrong.

Weather. For various reasons, I have had a weather station since forever. The last 15 odd years it was a Davis instruments unit, but it is tired now, certain things are no longer reliable. So changed that up to an Ecowitt unit (Ambient weather is same with different software) because of its HA integration. I use this to monitor and provide info re solar potensial, actual real time device temperatures and wind data.


Further, I also use an integration specializing in solar predictions and have a general Weather prediction integration installed. That be looking at the next 5 days weather. I rely on Solar generated energy almost exclusively, for most of the year I am off grid, although this is not an off grid system.


I can now also use this infoto trigger various automations on demand. Automation control build in and integrations like Node Red make this super efficient.

OutomatieseGroetnis

 

[kolakidd]

Do you have a pool?

As I mentioned, I designed a weather based automation for my pool that works so well from an energy saving pov. I can’t recommend it enough.

Simple run time calculation based on ambient and pool temp projection for the day. It shaves a few kW off each month.

The other thing I built which is useful is a solar battery run time projections based off current usage. It’s only really useful in a crunch time situation, but in those situations it is a lifesaver.

Which Ecowitt model do you have?

 

[Sarel.wagner]

Nope no pool. Using the ECOWITT Wittboy Pro Weather Station HP2564, with 7 Inch HP2560 TFT Display.

 

[kolakidd]

Nope no pool. Using the ECOWITT Wittboy Pro Weather Station HP2564, with 7 Inch HP2560 TFT Display.

Probably the best way to save 1000's on a pool!
Thanks for the device details