Smart Home automations - anybody using?

[OneMoreFarang]

Just now, KannikaP said:

If you did not try any alternatives, how do you know that you would not like say Tuya better?

 

Maybe I would like something else better.

What I do mostly before I buy something is that I do a little research on the internet. What's available? What to people write about it? Forums, Videos, etc.

When I did this Omada looked good to me. So, I bought the basic parts and tried it. And I liked it. And then I bought some additional parts, and until now all works fine.

Is it the best for small network managements? I don't know. But it works good enough for me and until now I never missed a feature which I had to look up if it is available with another product.

 

And the same principle applies for me to Home Assistant. I looked at alternatives before I bought anything. And then I bought the basics and tried this and that. It always takes time to get used to any new system. I spend the time, and it does what I want.

 

Maybe at some stage I will change to something else than Omada and/or something else than Home Assistant. My cabling is easily accessible so if I have to change something that is no problem for me.

But currently all works fine with above, so I have no reason to look for any better alternative.

 

 

[KannikaP]

3 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

 

Maybe I would like something else better.

What I do mostly before I buy something is that I do a little research on the internet. What's available? What to people write about it? Forums, Videos, etc.

When I did this Omada looked good to me. So, I bought the basic parts and tried it. And I liked it. And then I bought some additional parts, and until now all works fine.

Is it the best for small network managements? I don't know. But it works good enough for me and until now I never missed a feature which I had to look up if it is available with another product.

 

And the same principle applies for me to Home Assistant. I looked at alternatives before I bought anything. And then I bought the basics and tried this and that. It always takes time to get used to any new system. I spend the time, and it does what I want.

 

Maybe at some stage I will change to something else than Omada and/or something else than Home Assistant. My cabling is easily accessible so if I have to change something that is no problem for me.

But currently all works fine with above, so I have no reason to look for any better alternative.

 

 

For me to control my Home Devices, no cabling is need, nothing to buy, except the actual devices of course. Tuya syncs with Google Home and my Amazon Firestick so easily.

Maybe your situation is more complicated than mine.

[OneMoreFarang]

12 minutes ago, KannikaP said:

For me to control my Home Devices, no cabling is need, nothing to buy, except the actual devices of course. Tuya syncs with Google Home and my Amazon Firestick so easily.

Maybe your situation is more complicated than mine.

 

Light needs cables.

In the moment I use lots of LED strips with 24V and LED controllers.

Years ago, I would probably have used 5V. Maybe in the future it makes sense to use 48V, or whatever.

 

There are many levels of home automation, from the change of one or a few light bulbs to everything.

My condominium is ready for "everything". Will I need all my empty pipes which allow low voltage power cables, LAN cables and control cables everywhere? Probably not. But now I use already some of them and I have almost unlimited possibilities. I like that - and I like to play around with things like that.

[KannikaP]

15 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Light needs cables.

I simply replaced the old ones with new 220v bulbs, using the old aluminium surrounds. Now all I see is the bottom of the globe.

[Bandersnatch]

I have various wifi smart plugs that give me energy usage data in the Tuya App, but as I am transitioning to Home Assistant I am moving from WiFi to Zigbee, so I needed a Zigbee Hub.

 

A couple videos I have just uploaded:

 

 

 

 

[OneMoreFarang]

23 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

but as I am transitioning to Home Assistant I am moving from WiFi to Zigbee, so I needed a Zigbee Hub.

Can you please explain that part.

I used Home Assistant and until now all my devices use WiFi.

[Bandersnatch]

16 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Can you please explain that part.

I used Home Assistant and until now all my devices use WiFi.

 

Likewise all my devices use WiFi, however my WiFi smart plugs are shown as unsupported for energy monitoring. I can still use them to schedule when they are on, but I get no power monitoring. A discussion on GitHub said that zigbee works for power monitoring and it does.

 

[clokwise]

29 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

I have various wifi smart plugs that give me energy usage data in the Tuya App, but as I am transitioning to Home Assistant I am moving from WiFi to Zigbee, so I needed a Zigbee Hub.

 

FWIW, my home is Zigbee, Z-wave, HomeKit, and Matter free. 100% WiFi, with at least 40 various devices now. I know a lot of people swear by Zigbee, but the advantages it offers are minor, at least for my home. Any hardware I need is available in a WiFi version. Worst case for me - I'm quite fine with WiFi sensors that take 2 seconds to go online whenever they are triggered.

 

These technologies also all require additional hardware which I knew was just going to complicate things further down the line. Also, some of these protocols, such as Zigbee, can be vendor specific - there is constantly a lot of discussion online about which zigbee router works with which devices and which it doesn't. No thanks. My objective was to make home automation simpler, not get more technical - that's just gonna make a bigger beast to tackle when things go wrong later.

 

I had a Matter LED strip controller, so I installed a Matter software router. The controller was buggy as hell, so I dumped it and installed a much cheaper Tuya Wifi version - works perfectly. I have a HomeKit Yale lock. Had to move a HomePod speaker close enough to the door to get the lock to go online. It worked 95% of the time, but with a 2 to 3 second lag. That 5% tho....grrrr. Made a $3 ESP32 bluetooth proxy which covers the entire house and now the lock is super responsive and uptime is 100%.

[clokwise]

5 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

 

Likewise all my devices use WiFi, however my WiFi smart plugs are shown as unsupported for energy monitoring. I can still use them to schedule when they are on, but I get no power monitoring. A discussion on GitHub said that zigbee works for power monitoring and it does.

 

 

I have WiFi smart plugs with energy monitoring sensors. They work fine, though I don't care about energy monitoring my devices. The trick is to use LocalTuya, not the default Tuya integration.

 

 

[Bandersnatch]

2 minutes ago, clokwise said:

 

FWIW, my home is Zigbee, Z-wave, HomeKit, and Matter free. 100% WiFi, with at least 40 various devices now. I know a lot of people swear by Zigbee, but the advantages it offers are minor, at least for my home. Any hardware I need is available in a WiFi version. Worst case for me - I'm quite fine with WiFi sensors that take 2 seconds to go online whenever they are triggered.

 

These technologies also all require additional hardware which I knew was just going to complicate things further down the line. Also, some of these protocols, such as Zigbee, can be vendor specific - there is constantly a lot of discussion online about which zigbee router works with which devices and which it doesn't. No thanks. My objective was to make home automation simpler, not get more technical - that's just gonna make a bigger beast to tackle when things go wrong later.

 

I had a Matter LED strip controller, so I installed a Matter software router. The controller was buggy as hell, so I dumped it and installed a much cheaper Tuya Wifi version - works perfectly. I have a HomeKit Yale lock. Had to move a HomePod speaker close enough to the door to get the lock to go online. It worked 95% of the time, but with a 2 to 3 second lag. That 5% tho....grrrr. Made a $3 ESP32 bluetooth proxy which covers the entire house and now the lock is super responsive and uptime is 100%.

 

What power monitoring do you do in HA?

 

You might have seen in the video that I have a Tuya WiFi biometric door lock in my Mechanical Room it works great.

[OneMoreFarang]

16 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

 

Likewise all my devices use WiFi, however my WiFi smart plugs are shown as unsupported for energy monitoring. I can still use them to schedule when they are on, but I get no power monitoring. A discussion on GitHub said that zigbee works for power monitoring and it does.

 

 

That's interesting.

I have several Shelly devices which are connected per WiFi and they allow power monitoring.

Energy Metering - Shop - Shelly

Until now I saw that they show power usage information, but I didn't actually use that data until now.

 

 

[Bandersnatch]

22 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

That's interesting.

I have several Shelly devices which are connected per WiFi and they allow power monitoring.

Energy Metering - Shop - Shelly

Until now I saw that they show power usage information, but I didn't actually use that data until now.

 

After our discussion a few weeks ago about Shelly, I purchased a Shelly 1pm mini

 

 

They really are really small. 

 

 

I will test it in one of my sockets maybe for my induction hob and if it's successful I will purchase more.

 

Shelly make a version for breaker boxes, in fact it's the one HA recommends but they are a bit expensive 

 

 

[clokwise]

1 hour ago, Bandersnatch said:

 

What power monitoring do you do in HA?

 

You might have seen in the video that I have a Tuya WiFi biometric door lock in my Mechanical Room it works great.

 

I don't do any power monitoring at the moment. Once my solar/battery system is installed next month I'll hook HA into the inverter with a RS435 interface. But I have zero interest in monitoring individual bulbs or sockets for power use because nothing in my home uses electricity to such a degree that I need to monitor or control it. We're talking a few baht here and there, it's basically inconsequential.

 

I may, however, use a clamp such as the one you mentioned, but only to monitor some of my dumb devices to determine when they are on or off, but nothing more than that.

[Bandersnatch]

1 hour ago, clokwise said:

don't do any power monitoring at the moment. Once my solar/battery system is installed next month I'll hook HA into the inverter with a RS435 interface

 

I didn't know you were getting solar, do please share your inverter to HA hook up. The HA integration for my Growatt inverters results in my getting a 24 lock out from the app, so I'm looking at alternatives.

 

Having solar may change your attitude to energy monitoring. It becomes a bit of a game to try and not use any grid power. My first PEA bill with zero units used made my day, until PEA came and changed the meter thinking it was broken.

[Bandersnatch]

Having just solar and no grid connection and having 2 EVs to charge makes me interested in Energy Monitoring and having easy and accurate access to that information.

 

 

 

[Bandersnatch]

Any Home Assistant users willing to post their dashboards?

 

I am focusing on energy monitoring at the moment. Which I have added into my Living-room page as this is where my display will be mounted.

 

 

 

 

I have downloaded the Power Flow Cards Plus from HACS. It is similar to the official HA Energy Distribution Card, but far easier to manipulate. It has a cool animation showing power movement in your home that speeds up as you use more power.

 

 

Due to the problems with the HA Growatt inverter integration I will have to splash out for a raspberry Pi from solar assistant to be able to add my full solar data and my EV bi-directional charging. 

 

 

[OneMoreFarang]

16 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

I am focusing on energy monitoring at the moment. Which I have added into my Living-room page as this is where my display will be mounted.

 

Currently I have just a very simple dashboard for the lights.

 

And in every room, there are standard light switches on the wall and an NSPanel for that room.

When a user uses the ordinary light switch, then that light is switched on to a certain level, i.e. 50%.

In the NSPanel there are more options like changing the intensity from 1 to 100%.

 

I plan to have multiple dashboards for different purposes.

A basic dashboard with lights and maybe shades and maybe the AC (if I am able to integrate that).

And then other dashboards for administration, i.e. power usage, and thigs like that.

 

I don't see the point of integrating all together. If you want to switch on a light, do you really want to see at the same time your current power usage, history, etc.? 

 

 

 

 

[Bandersnatch]

10 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

And in every room, there are standard light switches on the wall and an NSPanel for that room.

When a user uses the ordinary light switch, then that light is switched on to a certain level, i.e. 50%.

In the NSPanel there are more options like changing the intensity from 1 to 100%.

 

The NSPanels look pretty cool and that approach of having a mini display in each room in the way to go for me.

 

12 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I don't see the point of integrating all together. If you want to switch on a light, do you really want to see at the same time your current power usage, history, etc.? 

 

I will be repurposing an old tablet with Fully Kiosk Browser as my first smart display. Being Off-Grid, energy monitoring is a big focus for me, that’s why it’s on my “Home Page”

 

If I am downstairs I see it as useful to be able to switch on the aircon in my Cinema without having to go upstairs. So having other room in tabs on one display is my plan, but small displays with just that room will also happen.

[OneMoreFarang]

17 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

The NSPanels look pretty cool and that approach of having a mini display in each room in the way to go for me.

 

I use this software/firmware together with the NSPanels.

GitHub - Blackymas/NSPanel_HA_Blueprint: This allows you to configure your complete NSPanel via Blueprint with UI and without changing anything in the code

One time you have to flash them with a hardware connection. And after that it's update over the air with WiFi.

https://youtu.be/p-AK4o5jOSI?si=ZP_niipsV7Tgj8Q5

[Bandersnatch]

7 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

 

I use this software/firmware together with the NSPanels.

GitHub - Blackymas/NSPanel_HA_Blueprint: This allows you to configure your complete NSPanel via Blueprint with UI and without changing anything in the code

One time you have to flash them with a hardware connection. And after that it's update over the air with WiFi.

https://youtu.be/p-AK4o5jOSI?si=ZP_niipsV7Tgj8Q5

 

Thanks will bookmark this for later

[driver52]

On 9/25/2024 at 8:45 AM, clokwise said:

I hear you on the Wifi - I have 5 Wifi routers in my home,

aren't you worried they might be 'frying yer brain'?? just like 5G is gonna eh

I think you lot need to get out more....

I used to work in tech, fekkin hate it most of the time now.......it's controlling yer lives brothers, just say no to big corp, being unhealthy and livin in the matrix 

[OneMoreFarang]

1 minute ago, driver52 said:

I used to work in tech

Doing the accounting or what?

Are you really concerned about a couple of WiFi signals? 

[driver52]

Just now, OneMoreFarang said:

Doing the accounting or what?

Are you really concerned about a couple of WiFi signals? 

everything from coding to servers to datacenters....I was fat(er) back then too, why? cos I spent too much time chasing £s and not enough time understanding what a fekkin diet was

am I concerned about the crazy rise of cancer? sure, isn't everyone? wots caused it man? drugs n tech, for sure

we're not creating a 'better world' with all this 'tech', we're just getting more 'confused' and unhealthy.......get off yer fat ass and turn the fekkin light on FFS 

[driver52]

@OneMoreFarang just to prove I haven't turned into a complete philistine and I am actually interested in some modern tech, etc

LLMs look interesting mate.....and robots, I could find an interesting friend in the world yet 

BUT most of this AI stuff is just a 'data dump' of 'existing knowledge' ya?