Internet Of Things / IoT / Connected Home / Smart Houses

Just plugged in my webthings server which has been offline for 6 months during insurance works on the houuse. It appears to have died so time for a Fresh install and recreate all my rules or a move to HA
Balls.

I was a bit like that with my old edgerouterX/toughswitch/unifi wifi setup at our old place.

I'm documenting as I go here and making sure it's all bookmarked and passwords properly vaulted etc.

containerising most of it should help a lot as the docker scripts will document a lot of the config.

proxmox allows for scheduled backups of containers/vms so I'll be doing full backups to a local drive and probably online too.

I always used to have that problem. Ended up setting up a super simple internal web server on a raspberry pi that had hyperlinks to everything.

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Was making decent inroads on my setup then proxmox decided it was going to deny random requests to http calls to it's gui so it was constantly showing lost connection spinners and not loading anything. thought i'd completely fucked it when trying to reinstall certain parts from apt it stopped loading altogether but somehow managed to get it up and running long enough to rescue a full back of my HA config i'd spent a full day on. was feeling pretty bummed i'd lost all my efforts of the last few days though.

changed tact and thought I'd install pi hole on a rpi and maybe try to tidy up the local networking dns so i knew my proxmox setup was seeing the right thing and resolving requests properly. got as far as a fully working pihole and unbound setup running on dietpi and hooked up to my router dhcp as it's dns. then felt really uneasy about how it would behave if the pi ever went down. ended up switching out to nextdns.io instead and had it up and running in about 10 minutes with working local dns record resolution for my upcoming local services (plex etc).

having felt like another day was wasted I just wiped my nuc completely, reinstalled proxmox (twice, the first time I managed to type the same wrong password twice in the installer and got locked out).

I then did some tinkering to turn on my namecheap.com api access and then hooked my proxmox install up to letsencrypt via namecheap dns resolution and now in tandem with the nextdns record for my nuc I have a fully working ssl cert running on a local ip resolving my subdomain from an actual dns entry for a real domain which feels like finally a decent step in the right direction.

I then did some tinkering to turn on my namecheap.com api access and then hooked my proxmox install up to letsencrypt via namecheap dns resolution and now in tandem with the nextdns record for my nuc I have a fully working ssl cert running on a local ip resolving my subdomain from an actual dns entry for a real domain which feels like finally a decent step in the right direction.

Wow...the future is so simple

Sitting in last bed last night and realised my Mesh wifi hasn't faltered since I bought it. Great recommendation from here. Powerlinks/extenders can go straight in the bin.

well I mean it will now auto-renew my ssl cert and reapply for free indefinitely without me touching a thing on my server or at my domain registrar again.

9/10 home networks have no need for a real domain to be used for the dns. most of the time they'll use .local and live with browsers throwing a shit-fit every time you load the page and haven't opted out of the certificate warning but it is a pain in the arse if you're using a lot of stuff locally.

they're both convenience changes but already they've made the rest of the setup much smoother so far.

if you're using a lot of stuff locally

I installed my own CA for that reason.

I didn't think that you could auto-renew with letsencrypt - Don't you need to provide a new DNS TXT record each time to show that you actually own the domain?

Or is that the bit that you have set up automagically

if your registrar supports it you can give it api access and it will create the txt entry and delete it after as part of the renewal. look up acme.sh and you can see if it supports your registrar.

Have had a *budget smart thermostat running flawlessly since January, which has noticeably reduced our heating oil consumption and kept temperature pretty consistent all year.

I decided for this winter I’d expand on this with some trv’s in the bedrooms and living room, so we’re not heating rooms unnecessarily or when windows were open, so I picked up an Aqara e1 trv and linked it to zha yesterday.

Initial findings; linked up to zha pretty hassle free, but only exposes a climate entity and no state change to indicate when it’s calling for heat, no big deal, set up an automation to check every 5 mins of actual temp is lower than target temp, and to switch the boiler on/off based on that. The bigger problem arises with the accuracy of the trv temperature sensor, which appears to only move in 1 degree intervals (which is probably fine for most), but to me feels like it’s not tight enough. I could of course use the more accurate xiaomi Bluetooth temperature sensors in every room to control them, but doing that means more devices and therefore batteries to monitor, and if I was going down that road it would probably be just as effective to use a minimum sensor value so the coldest room is always calling for heat, rather than fitting an expensive trv in every room.

Has anyone else gone down this rabbit hole?

*xiaomi Bluetooth temperature and humidity sensor with atc firmware reporting values to home assistant via an esp board with esphome, located in the babies room as that’s the most importantly room, and a Shelly 1pm controlling the boiler on/off switch - total cost ~€40

Yesterday I was browsing the internet for a "backlight" to reflect off the wall (it will show the fugly/floral wallpaper though, so it will only alleviate the physical eye strain of working in the dark)

It went like this...

4.30pm: "It's gotten so dark so early. I need a backlight."

• IKEA tertial lamp. Hang on, I don't have an edge to clamp that on that side of the desk to be useful. It's not on sale except on IKEA, or some $$$ ebay sellers
  
• Better/longer clampy-clamp lamp to mount at the back. No, it will conflict with the monitor arms
  
• A lamp with a stand. I can hide the stand behind my oscilloscope (which sits at a 30 degree angle to my right) but didn't like the stands
  
• Philips Hue Play projectory things. Hmm it's reduced price at BezoShop.
  
• Used Philips Hue Play x5 set + HDMI box on eBayou. I could use the first 3 with the box in the living room (had enjoyed an ambilight TV in a past life) and take the other 2 to mount behind the monitor. Alas the bidding starts at 200 quid and will go on for a week, probably won't get it.
  
• Hmm a double pack Philips Hue Play projectory thing is cheap on eBayou.
  
• But it will be limited and looks like single colour on each "thing".
  
• Ooh Pimoroni has nice LED strips. And they've released a new 2040-based-RasPico-like-LED-controller (Plasma 2040)
  
• Let's measure a rectangle behind the monitor. 165cm, ok.
  
• 144 LEDs per metre... That would give me 240 individual LEDs to play with
  
• Each "pixel" would draw up to 60mA, but the USB-C can supply only 3A. Would need a PSU
  
• Oooh look at this 5V 15A power brick over on BezoShop. Not that expensive, not that large...
  
• Why do I need the "Plasma" 2040 if I'm supplying the power with a brick anyway, could easily do that with a bog standard Pico or Pico W
  
• Let's order 5x Pico W (I have 3 Picos already, but would need those for the eventual HA integration), few bits and bobs and 2 x 144 Pixel 1 meter strips... 100 quid, ok.
  
• 1 am, in bed: Researching AWG calculations with phone brightness at 1%. Giving up and ordering 18AWG (copper/silicone obvs), planning to do multiple power runs to separate parts of the strip, with a single signal wire.
  
  

It will probably fail in flames and I'll end up paying for that double pack Hue LED thing in the end.

double pack Hue LED thing

We liked the Hue Play units so much we ended up with five of them. Three for our telly and two for my main PC. Spendy but if you like stuff that just works really well...thats the way to go.

6 years of Hue lighting in our flat. Zero technical problems.

I didn't think to look for an API solution. Nice one - thanks.

I run 5m / 300 (SK6812 / WS2812B) RGBW LEDs from a 5V 20A 100W switching PSU*, which also powers a Pi-Zero as a controller - not actually as a backlight, more as an "ooh pretty colours thing", but the setup is the same.

I'm using Hyperion at the moment (which is basically Raspbian), as it is a nice OTB solution, but will be changing later. It does have an HA integration, albeit not particularly sophisticated.

By itself, though, it can be used as an ambient back light, taking HDMI input to reflect what is on screen.

The only real problem that I had with set up was, as ever, permissions for various IO pins.

* actually two of them, because it's in a long line and the voltage drop at 5V means it doesn't play as nicely with just one

After a lot of fannying about - I now have it all set up.

I'm using certbot, so acme.sh confused me for a bit, until I found an authenticator script that played nicely with my host & with certbot.

Did anyone buy Tado or Drayton Wiser stuff in last years black friday?

will not know what kind of controller to get as i only know the make of boiler not model (not got keys yet) or if it has wired or wireless but at least i could get the TRV’s.
was there much of a discount?

https://uk.camelcamelcamel.com/product/B098B2XP8C

Looks like the 3 pack of Tado TRVs was £120 last Black Friday, but that was far from the only time that price applied. So... inconclusive, but you're unlikely to get a better price on another day.

Thanks, will see what turns up, A 4 pack of the standard (not cheaper eco model) can be had for £249 so hopefully a slightly better deal will be offered.

this price is pretty much unbeatable for the main control kit. I paid more last BF for the white version.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/tado-v3-black-edition-wireless-heating-hot-water-smart-thermostat-starter-kit/701kg

So I've been working on the backlighty things for the past 2 nights, an update.

Had to start yet another led control project: https://github.com/disq/ledcontrol

The code took about half a day to figure out all the various options/libraries/frameworks and choose one, then about a day to actually write it, most of it started from few examples and tweaked and then rewritten/refactored.

Despite being prepared with a 100W brick (5V/15A) the 151 leds take under couple of amps (1.65A or so) and can be fed from my docking station (expensive mistake?)... I'll just move it to the 6-port-charger and stash the brick for another LED project in the future.

Now I know this isn't really connected to the internet yet so technically off topic... Just waiting on HomeAssistant PC I got from teh eB**, about 50 quid for a Dell OptiPlex 3050, 4gig ram with 128gb ssd... Got another 4 gig and they're both supposed to arrive tomorrow. After the HA setup is done I'll work on getting that Pico W connected as a light or two.

I still need to tidy up the breadboard and redo it on a perfboard (or two, since my 7 YO wants one for himself now... which I should cap the brightness and cycle speed to avoid triggering any seizures) so that's another project. Started a PCB on EasyEDA but hated it, perfboard will have to do I guess.

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Looks like it would run nicely off an esp8266 and and WLED

that’s a great price, have a combi so not sure if this is right kit but will check.

Looks like it would run nicely off an esp8266 and and WLED

Yeah I missed the whole WLED thing (and ESP world) and went straight to getting it done with what I know and like. Will order a WLED-compatible board or two and take a look.

I'm considering investing in a Simplisafe system for home on Black friday discount, primarily for covering the bike shed, I think this is well rated by the forum? What sensor should I go for to cover my bike shed? It's a new wood shed so a trip sensor on the door would be the cheapest and easiest solution, but it would only trigger if the door was opened, is it worth paying more and installing a motion sensor instead? The shed is quite small and low so I dont know if it would work?

Also these aren't rated for 'outdoor' use, but I assume inside a good shed should be fine? what do you use?