hardware-archived

[drifting ember]

and LORA

lol

[tawny viper]

Not where I live

Solar anyway

[drifting ember]

for a LORA sensor, you could easily charge it on solar just about anywhere

now for real data....

[tawny viper]

You need sun for solar

I haz no sun

[drifting ember]

well we get 340 days of sun a year

[tawny viper]

Not with my trees

[drifting ember]

but I have lived places where I have not seen the sun for 6 months

[tawny viper]

Russian prison?

[drifting ember]

north Sweden

[tacit burrow]

Yeah I want poe to my front gate so I can read my non-smart gas+water meters; but it's > 100m so suspect it won't work

[drifting ember]

same thing really

[drifting ember]

that's a job for wifi

[tawny viper]

It should

[drifting ember]

poe is flaky after 300 feet

[tacit burrow]

Still need power there. Not fussed about speed, 1mbit would probably be fine.

[drifting ember]

even +

[tacit burrow]

It's just for a couple of esp32 reading+ocr some dumb meters

[drifting ember]

I used to use a big ass brick for poe+ beyond 300 feet and even then it would flake

[tacit burrow]

and iirc esp32 wifi is sucky range

[tawny viper]

I have a fire hydrant on my property by the mailbox. Maybe I can just turn it on for hydro

[tacit burrow]

heheh

[drifting ember]

well

I'm no lawyer by any stretch .... but I'm not so sure about that one

[tawny viper]

Funny. They own it. They just come at replace it

Planted new grass too. Actually did a good job. I was gonna be get off my lawn

But I kinda want them to do rest of my lawn

The town legally doesn't need to warn or tell you..

[drifting ember]

water company guy came here to read the meter and rang the door bell to see if anyone lived here anymore

[tacit burrow]

your front garden must be a mess! 🙂

[drifting ember]

meter hasn't moved in 4 years

that's why

lol

it's not that bad 😛

im like you ring the doorbell it goes ding dong right?

but yeah his question was if I had a well supply or something

because the meter never moved in the 4 years he's been reading it

[tacit burrow]

I wonder if I can wrap something around the 3phase cables, and induce enough current to run the esp32. Also, free.

google says no

[tawny viper]

And the answer to his question?

[tawny viper]

Kinetic vibration that charges by cars running over it

[drifting ember]

yes, yes I do

at this house and the other

and I also have a 7500 gallon cistern at the other house

I collect rain water

when there's no rain, I pump the cistern full from the well

water company wanted $60K to run pipes to my place

so I said.....

[keen ingot]

The 0-10v dimming seems smooth and reliable anyway but it's frustrating to find connected devices that support it.

hence the use of a zen54 lr

[tawny viper]

That's the part I mean. I've seen the zooz as looking like best option.

[keen ingot]

I'm running dimming wires out to the switch box anyway just in case we ever move and I need to put in a dumb dimmer switch for the next people

So I don't need to open the wall again lol

[tacit burrow]

my plan is https://github.com/jomjol/AI-on-the-edge-device/

[hasty owl]

Hi! What would be the preferred solution to integrate addressable RGB LED strips into HA? I can work with Zigbee or some ESP-based solution (Tasmota?). Any reccomendations? Thanks!

[weak gale]

esphome maybe?

[chilly moth]

I'd like to have a cheap touch display I could use to display a status and switch some things on and off for HA. In other terms, I look for a external switch with a variable display that is playing together with HA. I would like to see current solar production and start charging to different targets. (Fast/economical/to 80%/...) Anyone a hint where to search for such a device?

[solid roost]

Hi everyone, I am moving into a new home and that has down lights. I already use Hue GU10 bulbs and wont need to replace these. I am looking to have one accent light but unfortunately, the light I want has integreated LEDS.

My plan is to add a relay to the top of the bulb to eliminate the need to add another switch. Does any one have any reccomendations if that is a good way to go and what would just work with a hue system! Thank you in advance

[crimson tulip]

You can add a relay behind your switch. They are just called "smart relays". Or you can replace your switch entirely. Either way, if you're using a hue bridge, you need hue devices. If you're just using zigbee, just search for a zigbee relay. Brands I like: Zooz, inovelli, jasco (No zigbee though), hue. You can also try cheap stuff but I wouldn't go hceap for a relay.

[merry dust]

so I got DTSU666 and it works(rs485 bus), but I've got a question: I've hooked it to 1 phase(1 phase hooked to all 3 inputs). But reading Line to line voltage, I get:
Voltage L1-L2: 385.000 V
Voltage L2-L3: 385.000 V
Voltage L3-L1: 385.000 V
Does it do something under the hood or does it not work properly in my setup?

[solid roost]

Hey, than you - I am trying to avoid a relay behind the switch because the swith also controlls all the other lights in the room which will be hue bulbs

[crimson tulip]

you can put the relay behind the fixture instead then

same principle

however it will be odd when your switch does not have power

[solid roost]

sorry thats what I meant behind the fixture. Perfect that is what I thought - What relays work best with Hue? I assume the Hue one will work?

[crimson tulip]

is this a hue hub?

if yes, you probably can only buy the hue one

[solid roost]

I cant put any bulb in the fixture light

[crimson tulip]

Yes I get that, but if the switch delivering power to the fixture is off, the relay will be off

[merry dust]

@rich venture hey, maybe you know?

[solid roost]

The switches will never go off

they are permanantly on in my house haha

[crimson tulip]

Ok, then you shouldn't have a problem

[solid roost]

Perfect thank you, just need to find the best relay to go with Hue now. a simple on / off is all I need 🙂

[crimson tulip]

Don't get suckered into a doulbe relay, you only need a single relay

they may be the same price, but the single relays are easier to setup & configure

[solid roost]

Perfect - if anyone has suggestions of ones that work with hue that would be much appreciated!

[rich venture]

if you are using single phase i would not connect them all of them to all of the inputs
i would try connecting them to l1 and n and leaving l2 l3 disconnected

[merry dust]

got it, it's just a test for now, I wanted to see if it works

[fresh moat]

You have 3-phase? Most residential have split-phase, so two hots and a neutral.

Well, North America it's split phase, I think Europe is single phase, un-split.

[zealous dune]

Usually yes, sometimes it's three phase

[signal barn]

What would you guys recommend for monitoring the operation of a dumb sump pump. I basically want to know when it runs, but I don't want a relay/smart switch involved for safety and pump reliability. It's a 110v A/C pump.

About 5A max current draw.

[fresh moat]

I have some neighbours (I live in a rural community) that have had 3-phase brought in because they have shops and shop equipment that requires it, but even then their house is fed by a single phase.

It would be neat to have, but then I'd use that as an excuse to buy massive lathes and mills or something.

[modern river]

are there any standing desks that is supported by HA, without DIY hacking? for europe

[tacit burrow]

I have three phase. Installed so I can power woodworking tools, and export more solar

[tacit burrow]

Exactly. I’m semi-rural too

[tacit burrow]

Why would smart plug be bad for safety/reliability? I use two for exactly that - monitoring sump pumps

[tacit burrow]

I don’t use the plug for switching (pump has integrated float) just for power monitoring

I have alerts if the device goes offline for too long, or the pump stays on too long (it’s probably blocked)

[oblique marsh]

If I'm going to go out and buy old (presumably Android) phones or tablets or similar, for use as handheld/table-top/wall mounted remote controls / remotely controllable videoscreens for things like reminders etc... what's my most cost-effective option?

[zealous dune]

Don't get too old ones

[oblique marsh]

yeah, that's one element of the question, "how old is too old?"

[drifting ember]

something with a close to current webview version

[zealous dune]

Technically Android 5 and up but then there's the question of the WebView component

[oblique marsh]

and because I didn't really emphasize it correctly: The main priority is being able to visually convey information too complex for smart lights, in a fully immediate attention-calling way

[drifting ember]

ha, beat you to it... pigeon power!

[zealous dune]

What does that meanm

[oblique marsh]

the main example is reminders

[drifting ember]

I think notifications and the like

yeah you'd ideally need a fairly new webview version mostly

[zealous dune]

I'd say Android 10 and up

[oblique marsh]

yeah. I want to be able to "send" notifications and reminders to particular screens in particular rooms

[zealous dune]

I use pixel clocks for that, much better at grabbing attention

[oblique marsh]

example?

[drifting ember]

prolly something like https://tidbyt.com/

[zealous dune]

https://blakadder.com/esphome-pixel-clock/

And the Divoom Pixoo64

[drifting ember]

I Should have known that

[oblique marsh]

I want a bit more, well, resolution than that

something that can convey a full sentence or so, legibly without scrolling

[zealous dune]

Then an Android 10+ tablet

Might have issues with font sizes unless there's an app that works with HA

[gloomy spoke]

I've seen so many variations of that, all displaying the realtime BTC price 🙂

makes me think there's a singular market for them

[zealous dune]

Nah there's YouTube subscribers number too

[drifting ember]

well traders would love them I'd imagine

[gloomy spoke]

One of my coworkers had one that switch between BTC and Ethereum

[drifting ember]

I have a client with like 8 screens on his desk tho

[oblique marsh]

This is impressively difficult to search for used

[zealous dune]

Might need to wait a year or two

[oblique marsh]

It's more that search engines are way too quick to interpret "10" (or any other number) as the screen size, nobody's indexing by Android version, and there doesn't seem to be a common spec to differentiate

[drifting ember]

https://www.kimovil.com/en/list-tablets-by-operating-system/android-10

I managed to stumble across this

[wild atlas]

Why must you entice me

I only just finished my clock build a few months ago

[north elk]

can anyone recommend an outdoor motion sensor? i live in arizona so it will need to be able to withstand the heat... will not be in direct sunlight but will still be 115 during the summer

[drifting ember]

zigbee? wifi ? powered? battery ?

[north elk]

sorry about that... zigbee/battery

[drifting ember]

at first look there's this https://www.amazon.com/Z-Wave-Outdoor-Motion-Sensor-ZSE29/dp/B07KP4T3MS

there's also this https://www.philips-hue.com/en-us/p/hue-outdoor-sensor/046677570989

[devout parrot]

I have an Aqara P1 that works pretty well outdoors but not directly exposed to sun and precip. Not quite as hot here but still regularly over 100 during the summer.

[tawny viper]

i like my tidbit

[fresh moat]

I monitor my well pump's circuit with a GEM which is how I found out I had a leak, but I monitor my deep freeze with a Tasmota'd TopGreener plug.

[drifting ember]

I've been meaning to looking into monitoring my well pump as well

[tacit burrow]

I have an automation that alerts me if sump power is >500W for more than 10 minutes.
And another if the power-plugs hasn't checked in a while, since the new wifi is a bit flakey (less powerfull than the old).

[devout parrot]

Smart plug would work fine. 110V so, if you're in the US, a Sonoff S31 (rated up to 15A) flashed with esphome would do the job perfectly. When you flash it you just make sure it's set up so the default behavior in the event of a power loss is "on".

[maiden current]

I just purchased a Wyse Thin Client, but it is missing the SSD standoff screw. Is one of the Nvme screw kits from Amazon going to work, or can someone point me in the correct direction? Thank you!

[glacial meadow]

Hello guys,

I am new here, currently I setup HA on windows on VM, works fine, but it was only for some play.
Now I want to setup it nicely on my old (but not bad) laptop. I will use Proxmox to install HA OS.

I have two questions regarding hardware.

1. Which Zigbee USB stick should I choose? I have three in my minds, ZBDongle-P, ZBDongle-E and SkyConnect.
   I think I should choose ZBDongle-P, because it has best connectivity with devices?

2. Another question is related to Ensy Recuperator AHU-350 BH/BV. Maybe someone successfully connected it to HA?
   Even using apps (bitzersmartconnect and Ensy official app) it's bit challenging to connect.
   bitzersmartconnect - use to connect recuperator via bluetooth to connect it to wifi
   ensy app - connect recuperator to app via serial number and mac address via their own cloud services
   Wondering maybe someone are lucky and connected this ... ?

[golden thorn]

1. Depends on if you want to use ZHA or Z2M but there's also #zigbee-archived

[tacit burrow]

I like ethernet zigbee coordinators. So you can put your ha box anywhere, but limited to being zigbee-close

[solid roost]

What are peoples favoritie blind companies for smart home compatibility 👀

[buoyant wraith]

Hello everyone. Might someone recommend a reliable battery motion sensor that runs with HA? I already tried an aquara and a tradfri and it seems like they use to loose connection quite often, resulting in bad reliability. I could work with shelly (motion 2 is quite expensive) or matter. Thx in advance

[zealous dune]

If you have issues with both of those you probably have issues with your Zigbee mesh and/or coordinator

[drifting ember]

need more mains powered devices most likely

[buoyant wraith]

Yes that must be the reason

[buoyant wraith]

I fear that is exactly the problem but i have none

[zealous dune]

Better start plugging in some 😉

[buoyant wraith]

My smart bulbs are all connected to switches an my children an wife put them off regularly

[zealous dune]

That's a good recipe for messing up your mesh even more

[buoyant wraith]

And out switch-manufacturer has no zigbee switches as far as i know

Are switch repeater an option?

[drifting ember]

if they are mains powered

[zealous dune]

Yes, you can get in wall relay module that go behind switches

If you want to keep existing ones

[drifting ember]

that too

smart plugs I'm pretty sure repeat as well

[buoyant wraith]

I know. I just startet with shelly very early for all the bulbs/lights that can't run zigbee (we got quite a lot hard-wired LEDs) and i'm uncertain whether i should mix that up

[zealous dune]

If you can put a Shelly in you can put a f.e. ZBMINI in

[buoyant wraith]

Do you by chance know if they can be run with cross-circuits?

[buoyant wraith]

They look quite promissing

[signal barn]

@tacit burrow @devout parrot I was initially trying to avoid a smart switch to keep the pump from accidentally getting switched 'off', basically trying to idiot proof it. But the the Sonoff S31 flashed with espHome sounds like it will do the trick and give me what I want. Thank you for the great info!

Fwiw, I do also have a separate, battery powered backup pump as well. I'm also building a monitoring setup for that because it's also not smart.

[hexed galleon]

What can i use to track water usage

Flume was not compatible with My meter

[brisk wadi]

It does sound like a coordinator issue; what coordinator do you use? Of course Philips Hue sensors or the Samsung SmartThings PIRs are most people’s “gold standard”. That said, even the cheapest sensors will work relatively well.

[brisk wadi]

From mains or per outlet?

[brisk wadi]

I connected the live wire of all my light switches to a wire nut so they don’t operate; or where I needed relays for certain devices like extractor fans or heat lamps (in the bathrooms), installed Zigbee light switch panels and created an automation that immediately turns the switch that controls the lighting back on if someone was silly enough to turn it off.

[raw scaffold]

do you guys know how to tell if this is RF or what -- https://www.build.com/zephyr-14000005/s76726?uid=4255398 ?

oh it's a RF remote

[brisk wadi]

While Zigbee is great at building a mesh (mostly), it takes some time to reconverge if the network is disturbed and Aqara devices, in my view, really don’t like losing connectivity often.

[raw scaffold]

what is a cheap RF repeater you guys can recommend?

[brisk wadi]

For what frequency/use case?

[raw scaffold]

I want to use it to replicate my kitchen exhaust remote.

I don't know the frequency, how can I find out

[brisk wadi]

Open up the existing remote; it’ll probably be self evident from the PCB components.

433MHz at a guess?

It’s a new use case for me; maybe someone has more experience. If it was a Garage Door, for instance, you can determine it from the controller.

[raw scaffold]

let me open it up and get back to you

Hmm I cannot open it. FCC id vvp is all it says.

hmm either 315Mhz or 433.92Mhz

found it 315Mhz

[buoyant wraith]

I use ZHA with a a sonoff usb stick (that black one ver 3?)

[brisk wadi]

Hehe, they are all black. @zealous dune et al., including me, are likely to advocate for zigbee2mqtt; albeit, I am informed ZHA is a lot better these days. Nonetheless, that is not relevant to your coordinator choice per se. It does sound like you have, at a minimum, a decent coordinator. This might seem like an odd question if you’re unfamiliar with the issue, but do you have your coordinator plugged directly into a USB3 port or is it connected to a USB extension cable that places it a decent distance from the port?

[brisk wadi]

Great work! You’ll be pleased to know the latest Broadlink RM4 Pro RF supports 433/315MHz frequencies. It’s an HA supported IR/RF transmitter and to can learn RF frequencies in the two bands I noted.

It’s relatively easy to configure a RM4 Pro to integrate with HA, learn the 315MHz frequency broadcast by your remote, and have the RM4 replay the commands it learns from your remote thereby controlling the device you’re looking to automate.

Does that make sense?

@raw scaffold For reference, this is the device I am referring to: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33033898088.html

[raw scaffold]

does the amazon one support 315mhz too

there is a note that amazon is 433 only

[rocky lodge]

I'm afraid my pi 4 is finally starting to fail. It's been running HA nonstop for 6 years now.

I'd like to take the opportunity to have an actual mini-PC or something that I can run HA, Plex, some other random server things on, and connect my 6TB WD Red NAS to.

Any recommendations?

[raw scaffold]

im using a beelink, been happy with it

its tiny

[rocky lodge]

Can you connect an NAS drive to it?

[raw scaffold]

how does the nas drive connect?

The Beelink is not certified for TrueNAS. Yes it has the proper CPU specs and memory specs, but the back plane communications required for the disk drives is missing.

never mind

https://www.reddit.com/r/truenas/comments/10z4iid/beelink_mini_computer_with_4_hdds/

[wooden fossil]

Woohoo, another project to add to the list.

[rocky lodge]

Some type of PCI connector I think

[brisk wadi]

@rocky lodge I am unfamiliar with the Beelink, but it has a USB3.0 interface, you can run software RAID via an external 3.5” enclosure.

TrueNAS, as I understand it, doesn’t care how you connect to the drives

As long they appear as drives to the OS.

[valid sluice]

Hi, does anyone know of an activity tracker band that can be integrated with home assistant?
Specifically I want a sensor that indicates that I'm sleeping/awake and updates every few minutes or so. I know fitbit has an integration but that sensor only updates once every 30 minutes. I also looked at a mi band, but the app that allows you to integrate is only for android (I have an iPhone). I'm looking to buy an activity tracker anyway, but I'd prefer one that can also provide sensors that I can use in automations.

[drifting ember]

I've used my samsung watch mostly for that stuff

[winged knoll]

Apple is very limited/limiting

I'd not be surprised if you're stuck with the Apple Watch and whatever the #ios_and_mac-archived app provides

[drifting ember]

https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS00089822/

[valid sluice]

ahh pity, thanks anyway!

[drifting ember]

you can use a samsung watch like I said

https://www.lifewire.com/connect-galaxy-watch-to-iphone-5217417

they support quite a few sensors

[hexed galleon]

@zealous dune hey ! I bought ramay wireless adapter it worked a few days but now for some reason it connects to Bluetooth but not to wifi

Any idea?

Can't find support for it

[zealous dune]

Why are you asking me?

[hexed galleon]

Because you recommended it to me

[zealous dune]

What kind of an adapter is that?

[hexed galleon]

It's the Android auto adapter

https://blakadder.com/android-auto-wireless-adapter/

[zealous dune]

Ah, why don't you say so in the first place. No idea, mine is still working. Can you connect to the AP manually?

[hexed galleon]

I tried but AP has a password for some reason

[zealous dune]

Try another phone

[hexed galleon]

I think at start it didnt have one ?

[zealous dune]

Password is probably provisioned over BT

[hexed galleon]

Good Point Will trh that

It's an excellent little device

[hexed galleon]

Aww it's My phone

[zealous dune]

Stupid phone

[hexed galleon]

X2 for some reason it doesnt want to connect to wifi

[fervent ocean]

Anyone with experience with Aqara FP2?
I installed it yesterday and sometimes works very fine and other times it keeps detecting somewhere I've been while it continues to track me as a second person. I have the latest firmware.
Any clue on how the presence and proximity sensitivity should be configured? I have everything as medium (also in zones) and it's installed in an open plan kitchen/living room (around 9x6m I believe)

[zealous dune]

yes it does that sometimes. do you have any fans or other moving things in the space?

[fervent ocean]

Not at all

If it does that is gonna be a bit useless 😭

[zealous dune]

well it does but its getting better with each new firmware version

[fervent ocean]

I keep resetting the absence status and I think it's improving but...

What about the sensitivity? How should it be set up?

[zealous dune]

the way it works best for you

if you get ghost events you might want to lower it

[fervent ocean]

both presence and proximity?

I don't fully get proximity one... it says if it's a large place to set it to far?

lol and now I see it's detecting my dog on the sofa... I was so happy it wasn't detecting him 😆

[knotty rune]

I'd be happy to detect any dog at the moment.

Dogs ❤️

[fervent ocean]

XD

I was hopping lights won't turn on when his moving as it happens now with the PIRs I have

[knotty rune]

I understand, was trying to be funny 😉

[fervent ocean]

😛

[echo forum]

Hi all, any advice/recommendation for a Wifi siren compatible with HA? Ideally I would like a Matter siren but I don't think it already exist... No Zigbee or similar, Thanks.

[zealous dune]

matter standard does not support sirens

most sirens are from Tuya so technically they're compatible with HA

[echo forum]

And any advice for a gsm module compatible with HA Yellow?

[lament kettle]

also recommendatoin for a general "smart button/switch"

fine with zigbee/zwave, I'm in the USA and any budget. just looking for a generalized button (dont love NFC tags)

[outer knot]

Looking for advice about a device to buy? Remember to provide guidance on:

• Which country you're in
• What your budget is
• What protocols you prefer (eg Zigbee, WiFi, Z-Wave)
• Any features you want (such as power monitoring, dimming, etc)

[lyric mortar]

Does anyone have experience with the TP-Link MS100 sensor? It's super cheap on Amazon, but a lot of the comments say that it "doesn't connect" to the Kasa app or something. Possible to run it as a Zigbee light / motion sensor, still?

[winged knoll]

https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/MS100.html says yes

It'll probably be a shitty light sensor, most ones in motion sensors tend to be

[lyric mortar]

Thanks, I didn't know about that resource (I'm new to HA) and that'll be helpful for more than just this question. Appreciate it. And as for how good it is, that's helpful too. If I can get it up and running, I was thinking I might put three of them around the house and average their readings. Would that help overcome their shortcomings, do you think?

[iron walrus]

Hi, has anybody tried the LOGILINK Shock SH0007 vibration sensors? They are Bluetooth (which is new to me for HA) and are rather cheap. When they are working, this would be great.

[deep crest]

Those of you that have smart thermostats (if youre a dutch smart thermostat user lmk), which one integrates the best within HASS?

[sand pier]

I’m trying to update the BIOS on my Dell OptiPlex, I’ve got the .exe from Dells website but I already got rid of windows so I cant install via that, but when I try to install via the BIOS it doesn’t seem to be able to see my USB stick. Is there a setting in the BIOS that would potentially stop it from being seen? I’ve not had much luck Googling.

[sand pier]

Solved it - it needed to be a bootable USB stick even though Dells website says otherwise.

[devout parrot]

I keep a couple of those "portable" windows isos on my Ventoy stick for those situations.

[dusk ivy]

anyone know how to add a driver to HAOS for a wifi card?

https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/firmware-atheros

i have an apu2 with an add-on card

but HAOS didnt discover it and i dont see it in the NETWORK settings

it just shows the three NICs

[drifting ember]

friends don't let friends use wifi on 'servers'

[dusk ivy]

fudge, i just wanted it more central in my house

the kitchen is in "the middle"

where as my lab is in the basement in a corner

[zealous dune]

What's the benefit of having it central?

[dusk ivy]

i dont have a good answer because my current HA runs in my lab and things work ok

the bad part is more around my wifi interference and less about my location for the antennas

[zealous dune]

So unreliability vs I don't know

[dusk ivy]

well my unreliability stems from, what i think is, my unifi wifi APs

[zealous dune]

It stems from wifi period

Servers are to be wired to your network

[dusk ivy]

so i was advised to 1. change the channel on zigbee, and upgrade both my zigbee and zwave antennas

[drifting ember]

that's not a bad idea, but haos on wifi kinda is

[zealous dune]

So there's not only wifi in play

[dusk ivy]

yeah im a mess, basically i rushed into my HA setup as i was trying to get away from smartthings

i used a nortek adapter and zigbee was on channel 15

so then multiple reddit posts and i deduced i should upgrade my antennas and change to channel 25

so thats where i am, and i been toiling away at raspberry pis and apu2s today with my new antennas

and everyone made me aware i need a USB hub for the pi4 to run both my antennas AND the damn sata/usb SSD since SD cards suck ass

[zealous dune]

Mini PC, displaced ZigBee coordinator via Ethernet, zwave should be fine if you have enough devices

[dusk ivy]

im at 60 zigbee and 40 zwave, and im not looking forward to the migration

has to be manually redone because new antennas, then i gotta rewrite my insane amount of scenes and automations

displaced zigbee coordinator?

i dont know what that means

[drifting ember]

yeah a network one, not usb

[dusk ivy]

can u send me a product that does this??

ill buy it

[zealous dune]

A coordinator you can place where needed, not where the server is

[dusk ivy]

but needs wired ethernet

?

[zealous dune]

It is recommended

Or else you get .. unreliabilty

[dusk ivy]

im kinda new to all of this, i been using smartthings for seven years and got tired of it

can you share with me a product URL or something or what i need to buy??

[drifting ember]

https://tubeszb.com/product/cc2652p2-based-zigbee-to-poe-coordinator-2023/

people really like these

[cold moon]

yeah mine is working well

[drifting ember]

and there he is

🥳

[dusk ivy]

ok so that gets an IP address on my network and i assume theres some ingestion into an HA integration?

my issue is: i only ran ethernet for my APs

[drifting ember]

well get the fish tape

[dusk ivy]

its a 4000sqft house, and my shitty nortek works fine, so i dont need a displaced one

haha

[zealous dune]

It's surprising it works fine

[drifting ember]

never, ever run "one" network cable to a device

for the pennies the cable costs, do yourself a favor and always pull two

[dusk ivy]

i ran six, to all over the house

[drifting ember]

to 6 AP's tho right?

[dusk ivy]

no 3

two cameras

[drifting ember]

I'm saying I would have ran 12 and had 6 spares

[dusk ivy]

one is free but in a corner on the top floor, no different than the basement

ok so i guess ill give up on putting it in the kitchen

stick with APU2 wired

am i right that all devices joined to my nortek will ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL need to be excluded and readded to my new HA?

i cant migrate that?

[sweet thunder]

Hello. I am looking for the best buttons that I can use with home assistant. I like the size of the Flic, but it appears they don't work with HA. Any recommendations. I would prefer something over wifi, as I am honestly not sure how to install the z-wave/zigbee usb stick I have (If that is the prefered way, I just need to do it and I am not sure how to google that honestly).

[zealous dune]

Wifi is a no go if you want something like flic

[brisk kiln]

I have on my "I have to look into that"-list smartpusher for that https://blueforcer.de/produkt/smartpusher-set/ (sorry link is in german)

esp based, nice design, highly customizable

[zealous dune]

there are resources aplenty about adding Zigbee to HA

[sweet thunder]

I just really like the size of flic. The buttons are small and do ONLY one thing. Nothing special about them. I was thinking wifi more like to the hub or something.

[wild atlas]

https://github.com/AeroSteveO/EspDeck I have a thing for this, I made some 9 key pads with esphone

[devout parrot]

They're only a little smaller than the Aqara Zigbee buttons which work great with HA. I have a few of them, one I use for a doorbell and the other two to toggle lights inside, and I've been really happy with them. The doorbell one is still working great and hasn't needed a new battery even after a year and a half outside.

[sweet thunder]

Thanks for the information. Do I need the hub for them?

[devout parrot]

For the Aqara buttons, or any of their other Zigbee stuff, you will not need the Aqara hub, just whatever Zigbee stick you want to use.

[tawny viper]

Aqara is cheaper on AliExpress if you can wait too. My 5 year old has one connected to a harmony hub that can turn on and off her switch, with all the correct inputs on the receiver, etc. They are fun. I think I got 5 for 35 bucks.

[sage mason]

Speaking of Aqara buttons, I have a button that started randomly triggering, then failing to respond to actual presses. After changing out the battery, it's failing to respond. It doesn't even try to pair. The batteries are known good. Am I just outta luck and have a dead button?

[sage mason]

5 for 35? That's a smoking good deal.

[fervent ocean]

I just found this in reddit, very useful to understand how to setup the sensitivity in the Aqara FP2, so I thought I'd share it here in case someone wanted to find something like this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Aqara/comments/15bu7v3/fp2_presence_detection_function_settings/

[tawny viper]

@sage mason https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255800834923127.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.11.21ef1802pWueRp&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa

Sorry, they are 36 now, 🙂

[zealous dune]

Sale starts on Monday tho

[lyric mortar]

I know this is off-topic and probably old hat to most here, but the process of purchasing something from AliExpress (and making sure that I'm buying what I want at the best price, especially) is still bewildering to my American mind ...

[sage mason]

David https www aliexpress us item

[modern wind]

Hey guys. I'm having trouble with my zigbee network and wanted to flash another Sonoff dongle plus as a router. I'm using the Smart RF Flasher. I've followed every instruction that I could find, but no matter what, the flash fails immediately and has an error. Here's a screenshot. I've held down the boot button for 10 seconds, as I plugged it into the computer. Everywhere I've looked, nobody has any problem like this. Has anybody ever heard of this behavior?

[winged knoll]

#zigbee-archived can help with Zigbee stuff

Remember there's two different Sonoff Plus dongles

[chilly ferry]

Just throwing this out there to save other people from making the same mistake I just did. If you want to try powering something like, say, an ESPHome based air quality monitor by tapping off the power into your HVAC thermostat... those lines are AC, not DC 🤦

[gentle saddle]

I have been running HAOS on a Dell Optiplex micro PC and the SSD has died. Yep died. Lucky i have backups so going to grab a new SSD this morning and happy days… however, is it worth using this opportunity to install proxmox and restore HAOS to that rather than bare metal? Im just thinking of easier ways to restore in the future.

[golden thorn]

It's worth exploring

[stark flower]

Hello, I just bought a skyconnect stick and it would not show under hardware, can't find anything about this problem (running HAOS on a RPI4)

[winged knoll]

That usually happens when you've got other USB devices connected, and the Pi doesn't have enough power - a powered USB hub should fix that

[stark flower]

So I should try without any other USB device connected (though I am trying to migrate from a conbee2 stick and I had no issues with that)

[winged knoll]

Well, the Pi only has so much power for the USB ports

ConBee + SkyConnect may be too much

[stark flower]

I unplug the ConBee and plug the SkyConnect, trying to use the same port

[winged knoll]

Ah... I see you already have a thread going in #zigbee-archived

[outer knot]

@stark flower Please do not cross post. Read the channel description, post it and wait for folks to respond. Crossposting wastes people's time as they're unaware of the help you're getting elsewhere.

If you don't get any responses after an hour or more, and your message is no longer on screen, it is fine to re-post or post a link to it.

[misty elk]

Where are all the zigbee/zwave/matter fans at? Everything is wi-fi 😦

[raven hatch]

Is there any way to make HAOS preform a clean shutdown a la hassio.host_shutdown when I press the power button? Running on a NUC

[misty elk]

Or can any fan use a switch like the lutron to seems to have fan control with adjustable speed on the switch

[golden thorn]

What does it do right now?

[raven hatch]

Currently it does nothing, just keeps running as if I did nothing. If I hold it it unclealy shuts down of couse

[golden thorn]

Hmm, apparently that's expected:

• https://github.com/home-assistant/operating-system/issues/2306
• https://github.com/agners/operating-system/commit/aacf02027b51695fbca697be93f7461bc2b50c7a
• https://github.com/home-assistant/operating-system/pull/1874
  Not sure if you can override parts of the unit on HAOS

[bitter shale]

Are there any physical wall mount Hue switches that can also be exposed to HA so I know what button was pressed? I have the wire/battery free Friends of Hue switches, but they aren't exposed to HA.

[tacit burrow]

Why aren't they exposed to HA? You can skip Hue hub, and connect them directly via zigbee and z2m

(mine are original hue switches, but should be same principal?)

[bitter shale]

Well I'm happy with the Hue hub, which is also connected to homekit. I have no interest in doing Zigbee.

[tacit burrow]

you're already doing zigbee, it's wrapped in proprietary Hueness

[bitter shale]

yes I know. I have zero interest in HA Zigbee.

[tacit burrow]

Any idea why you don't see the devices in HA?

[bitter shale]

I have no idea why the RunLessWire switches aren't visible in HA

But I'm absolutely not doing a Zigbee science project just for light switches.

[gentle fossil]

While it does support non-Hue ZLL and ZB3 lights, plugs, and wired switches, the Hue bridge won't expose these to HomeKit. The Hue API only supports (Friends-of-)Hue wireless switches, and Hue sensors.

I know who will do a science project on zigbee for light switches

[tacit burrow]

It’s like saying Beetlejuice and shs shows up 😉

[hexed galleon]

@zealous dune I managed to make work again Android auto dongle by deletting Google assistant and Google play store cache

Interrsting fact: password is 88888888

[fluid vigil]

hello, can you please suggest a good plug that is 16A and at least 3500W? zigbee or wifi is fine

[drifting ember]

and where do you live?

[fluid vigil]

EU

[drifting ember]

https://www.amazon.de/dp/B09QCB651Q these seem to be 3680W

[terse pebble]

The Shelly Plug (without S or Plus S) claims to be rated for 16A - 3500W

[fluid vigil]

shelly are 2500W

[terse pebble]

That's the Plug S

[drifting ember]

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07RGVBPBV but I don't see a wattage rating but it looks identical to the avatar one

[terse pebble]

I'm talking about the Plug

https://www.shelly.com/en-de/products/product-overview/1xplug (now in english)

[fluid vigil]

ah

so we have a list, with what of these do you have experience and can advice? 🙂

[drifting ember]

I have 0 experience with those, when I lived in EU smart plugs were not a thing

[fluid vigil]

well, I have a shelly plus 1pm on the wall plug, but I am afraid to plug the oven there, it can burn I guess, so I am looking for a smart plug instead

[terse pebble]

What kind of oven?

[cold moon]

Easy bake oven why?

[fluid vigil]

electric oven? in the doc it says MAX 3600W

it is a siemes iq700

[terse pebble]

Do you mean an oven built into a kitchen cabinet? Then you might be out of luck. At least in Germany those are not equipped with a CEE 7/7 Type F plug, but have their own connection box, where the wires are screwed in.

If you just want power metering, something like the Shelly EM might be more suitable.

[fluid vigil]

yes, it is. in italy we have the type F plug

so it is fine, the problem is to fid a good and reliable plug

[terse pebble]

The Shelly Plug claims to be able to - but that would be at it's upper limit. I would go with something like the Shelly EM and a CT clamp, if you can hide it neatly. Less risk of melting and fire.

[fluid vigil]

yeah, I have to check if I ahve space

[hexed galleon]

Any 220v for energy meter Smart plug

[fluid vigil]

uh?

[hexed galleon]

any one knows if there is one? I am searching but cant find none

[drifting ember]

what is that, NEMA 6-15?

well the plug would be 6-15p and the receptacle would be 6-15r if it's the right model

[raw scaffold]

Does anyone have a BroadLink rm4 pro? I am wondering how I can setup a fan speed slider in home assistant. Not sure if this is the right channel

[winged knoll]

That'd be #integrations-archived

[raw scaffold]

Thanks

[hexed galleon]

yes nema

[drifting ember]

you're not going to have much luck finding a smart plug to fit that

https://www.amazon.com/120-277VAC-Electric-Compatible-Certified-14285/dp/B00YTCZZF0 is a possible solution if you have an electrician wire it up

[hexed galleon]

hmm I just need to monitor usage, I guess monitor the breaker will be simpler and cheaper

[drifting ember]

well yeah if you don't need to control it a clamp monitor might be the way to go

[hexed galleon]

any cheap alternatives?

[drifting ember]

but now that I've found this for you, it's exactly what I was wanting for my water heater

[drifting ember]

well that was the only thing that checked all the boxes that you asked for

[thick rampart]

Or, this: https://byjasco.com/enbrighten-z-wave-plus-direct-wire-indooroutdoor-smart-switch-40a

[drifting ember]

ummmm

echo?

🤪

[thick rampart]

Same thing, only cheaper (Jasco makes GE)

[drifting ember]

well yeah that sale price is cheaper

but the regular price isn't lol

[ashen apex]

Random one - anyone know of any 3-pin PMW devices (computer fans) that have Zigbee/WiFi control? Have set up a sound insulated NAS enclosure, but obviously gets pretty warm in there. Was hoping to automate an exhaust fan based on the temperature in there.

[golden thorn]

I read that someone used a LED dimmer for their 12V fan

[thick rampart]

I use these with 2 12V computer fans to add temperature control. Not remotely controlled, but they work. https://a.co/d/cVsk7sZ. My application is the inverter and charger bay in my camper, so I have 12VDC https://a.co/d/178SNOl

[hexed galleon]

Hmm any water meter with no power supply?

Flume was not compatible with My meter

[ashen apex]

Looks like this might do the job pretty well: https://www.coolerguys.com/en-au/products/coolerguys-12v-pwm-fan-controller

Just need to work out how to get 12v DC to it.

[chilly ferry]

Just started building myself an ESP32 air quality monitoring station using ESPHome and got the idea to build a custom PCB for the "base station" and I'm curious if anybody has feedback on the basic design goals. Right now I'm just using a run of the mill dev board, but I feel like a purpose-built board could be nice.

Design ideas so far:

• Support ~24VAC input so it can be powered from an HVAC thermostat sender line (red/common)
• Support 12-30ish VDC input if you want to power from a DC power supply instead.
• Screw terminal block for 5V/3.3V/Gnd power rails
• Screw terminal block connectors for all GPIO's
• Broken out UART/SPI headers
• JST Quiic connectors for I2C lines for easy connection of I2C sensor modules
• PWM/MOSFET Fan Header (2-pin JST XH/3+1 pin Molex KK 254)
• On-board power rail LED's and dedicated status LED's
• On-board beeper

I might put a few more on-board peripherals, like maybe a temperature sensor or something, but I'm not wanting to build the whole kitchen sink into a monolithic design, more looking for a better purpose-made design for the base module that can easily be connected up to whatever peripherals somebody wants for their own device. Existing dev boards with plug-in pin headers are meant to be super generic, so they aren't exactly easy to start using for this sort of thing without soldering. That and the HVAC thermostat power were the two things that started me down this road, so I'm curious to see if anybody has thoughts.

[cold moon]

https://willempennings.nl/home-assistant-compatible-air-quality-sensor/ this guy made a pretty cool one and open sourced it

[chilly ferry]

Yeah, that's pretty neat, but that's a bit too far in the other direction away from a general-purpose dev board, where the board is specifically made for his purposes. I'm looking to make something kind of down the middle, like a general purpose dev board, with all the GPIO's broken out, but with specific focus on the ESPHome use case, so things like the more robust power input options and IO connectors that can be connected/disconnected without any tools other than maybe a screwdriver.

This is my current hardware.

[idle bough]

What would be the best Mesh system to use with Home Assistant and smart home devices?

[gentle fossil]

that would be #thread-archived

[idle bough]

... 😐

I guess I was looking for thread compatible mesh systems, yes...

[gentle fossil]

Thread is a mesh system

[idle bough]

But I still have smart lights and plugs that still require a 2.4 Ghz band...

[gentle fossil]

you are talking plain old wifi

[idle bough]

I am looking for something like the Netgear 3 piece Wifi Mesh or the Google Nest Wifi Tri-band Mesh network.

So, I can get internet throughout my home...

[gentle fossil]

buy any router compatible with openwrt

flash openwrt

profit

802.11s all day everywhere you want for cheap

[idle bough]

I have a router with DD-WRT on it.

[gentle fossil]

openwrt is superior

[idle bough]

Does it allow for flawless Internet when used as nodes or satellites? (AP mode)

[gentle fossil]

openwrt is flawless, yes

[idle bough]

What advantages does OpenWRT have over DD-WRT? 🤔

[gentle fossil]

many

[idle bough]

Hmmm... just read an article about them.

DD-WRT doesn't support tunneling.

(Explains how I managed to brick a router I was trying to put DD-WRT on) 😐

[gentle fossil]

tunneling is a very broad term

[idle bough]

It isn't "technically" bricked... but I have no way of accessing it cause I stupidly disabled the radio, so it doesn't broadcast any IP address... so it is completely unreachable...

I'm sure it still works... but I have no way of accessing it. 😐

[gentle fossil]

use the reset function

should get you a tftpboot at least

[idle bough]

Hmmm...

I was initially considering getting the Google Nest... but as a majority of my lights and plugs still require 2.4 Ghz band... that wouldn't be ideal. 😐

Does OpenWRT require hardwired backending?

Or does it support wireless mesh?

[gentle fossil]

it supports both

there are multiple mesh functions available to you on openwrt

openwrt also gives nice capabilities to track devices on your network https://imgur.com/a/hXvXIgh

[red current]

whitch esp8266 boards do you use? a brand or just the cheapest you can find?

[civic kraken]

Usually the cheapest I can find but most of the time I just get ESP32s anyway. There's usually more talk about esp stuff in #diy-archived

[red current]

thanks, i switched to that channel

[drifting ember]

balderdash

[zealous wyvern]

Anyone have experience using a switchbot hub to control a tv via IR?

[ashen jolt]

I try to use a tuya bi directional energy meter, but home assistant doesn’t recognize it as an energy metering device, how can i solve this?

[zealous dune]

a meter being which one exactly?

Using which integration?

[idle bough]

Well, I couldn't get it to work wirelessly (which is kind of important to the set up I'm trying to achieve).

I want to be able to go from one end to the other end, with no signal loss, dropped signals, etc...

DD-WRT doesn't allow wireless meshing.

[winged knoll]

Wireless mesh != tunnelling

[hexed galleon]

What do You think of using
Kasa Smart plug for monitoring energy

For:
refrigerator with freezer
Washer
Dryer
Icemaker
Wine refigerator

Refigerator worries me

[winged knoll]

Fridges draw little power

Washers and dryers don't

[vocal lava]

Do you guys think that a AHT10 chip could be integrated into an arduino/rpi system to monitor filament dry boxes and be viewed from the dash?

[zealous dune]

yes

[idle bough]

Would you recommend the OpenWRT route? Or something like a dedicated Wireless Mesh system (like Netgear or Nest)?

[winged knoll]

Or just buy some access points and wire them

[idle bough]

If wiring them isn't an option. 😐

[winged knoll]

That's the best solution

Then buy some dedicated tri-band mesh system

[idle bough]

As much as I would have jumped on Google's Tri-band Nest... I do not like the fact that I can not switch to the 2.4 Ghz band. 😐

(Most of my smart lights require 2.4 Ghz)

Do other Tri-band mesh systems allow that?

[winged knoll]

I have the Asus ZenWiFi, works mostly well enough, though it does ignore the channel choice at times

Not sure what can not switch to the 2.4 Ghz band means though

[idle bough]

That means that to set up the smart lights, I would have to move the router (or the lights) outside of the range of 5 Ghz (20+ feet) before it would switch to the 2.4Ghz band.

Instead of having a dedicated SSID for the 2.4 Ghz band...

[winged knoll]

Why not just say that?

Yes, the ZenWiFi supports separate SSIDs for each channel

[idle bough]

Sometimes I don't word things correctly (autistic). 😐

So, it is hard to tell if I'm not being clear. Sorry. 😐

And what do you mean that it ignores the channel choice?

Is that like: You have it selected to use least active channel in your area, that it might just randomly use a more active channel instead?

[winged knoll]

Pick channel 36, and later you find it uses 52, while showing 36 in the UI

[idle bough]

Oh. 😐 Weird.

[gloomy spoke]

DFS?

I guess not with 36

[winged knoll]

Just a bug I suspect

[knotty rune]

Hey all! I am looking for some advice. I want to buy several of those shelly TRVs to manage the heating in my house but I was wondering, I probably also need a smart thermostat in order to really have this working correctly, am I right?

[empty summit]

Looking for device to buy:

• State of Israel
• 20-30$ per device
• ZigBee
• I need the thinnest ZigBee outlet repeater, thanks.

[drifting ember]

When you say outlet do you mean in wall plug outlets or a smart plug

[empty summit]

my bad, i meant something like that:

[night atlas]

i think this question fits here, but would i need to re-install HA if i'd want tp upgrade the memory on a computer converted to HAOS

[terse pebble]

RAM upgrade? No need for a reinstall.

[empty summit]

That question leads me to ask, HAOS doesn't concern Hardware ID, right?

[crimson tulip]

what do you mean....

[empty summit]

well, nevermind.

It might not matter.

[crimson tulip]

are you talking about the ID in Z2M?

[empty summit]

No, I'm talking about the hardware ID of the PC

[crimson tulip]

Ok, so that begs the question: What is "hardware ID"?

it's not really a term used by anyone

[empty summit]

PCs have their own Hardware ID, that is changed once you replace something in computer (motherboard, memory, etc)

it probbaly has another name i'm not aware of

as you said, idk if it's used today

[crimson tulip]

you mean the registry id for windows registries?

[empty summit]

it might be it idk

[crimson tulip]

I think tha'ts only a windows thing

specifically for the registry in windows

I don't believe HA does anything with that, primarily because HA doesn't run on windows

[empty summit]

Alright, thanks for the answer and patience.

[crimson tulip]

fwiw, linux does have a similar thing

but it's more of hardware connected to the os, not necessairly an ID for the whole computer

That does matter to HAOS

e.g. when selecting a USB device to use

[night atlas]

yeh, like install an aditional stick to go from 4gh to 8

[night atlas]

probably the thing M$ does where it wants you to reactivate windows when it detects to many changes to hardware

[drifting ember]

no you don't need to reinstall, it's a 64bit OS 😉

[night atlas]

if it was still 32 i'd be very disapointed

because this feels a bit unhealthy. although just throwing more memory at it might not be a solution

[winged knoll]

Depends on what free -m shows

[cold moon]

That’s an old cpu

[glacial oracle]

I am more worried by swap being used

Alpine Linux btw :^)

[winged knoll]

Swap being used isn't always bad

[crimson tulip]

Odd, I've been using windows for 25 years at this point and I've never seen what you're talking about

computers were my step up after legos

[drifting ember]

you're an old CPU

[crimson tulip]

Don't get me wrong here, i'm not a windwos fan boy. Just never seen it require a new key after changing hardware.

[drifting ember]

with windows xp and windows 7 if you changed "too much " of the hardware you'd have to reactivate

[crimson tulip]

not even mobo changes, just hard drive changes (if I didn't move the image and used a fresh hardrive)

[drifting ember]

now they store the keys in bios

[crimson tulip]

odd

never encountered it

[drifting ember]

I did once or twice, but heard of others having it happen a lot

[crimson tulip]

but my cycle has always been alternating every 4 years. This 2 year I update mobo/processor, next 2 year mark I update video card and pariferals (if needed).

[drifting ember]

Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6700 @ 2.66GHz

that's what I'm running HA on right now

[crimson tulip]

I think I always do mobo/processor/harddrive every 4 years, which I just use an old pro license

would explain why I never hit that

[drifting ember]

well I worked in retail IT also

so I've seen things. terrible things.

[crimson tulip]

ah

You learn something new every day tho

I honestly didn't think I could learn anything new about windows (outside the deep bowels of the system)

So, TIL windows is a dick about hardware changes

[drifting ember]

well these days you can change everything but the mobo and be fine

you'd have to reneter your key changing the mobo

[glacial oracle]

At the cost of memory these days, it surely isn't great to see that kind of usage

[drifting ember]

I can't help it, somehow I always end up seeing the worst kinds of issues

just my luck really

[glacial oracle]

The best thing is upgrading licenses

As this won't work out of the box with your average key

However you can deactivate windows, and then activate it again

Which will work with any key

No idea who thought that's the way to go

[drifting ember]

well chatGPT can give out windowsXP keys LOL

I wonder how long before someone gets it to do 7/10 keys

[glacial oracle]

Lmao

[strong violet]

Does anyone have any experience moving Philips Hue lights off of the Hue Bridge, and onto the HA SkyConnect Zigbee controller? Just wondering whether it's worth having all zigbee devices on the same controller? Would there be less interference doing that? Currently Hue Bridge is on channel 25, SkyConnect is on channel 20.

[glacial oracle]

I mean the ones you use to install the system are public available

And from there windows takes pretty much anything

Can you even run those hue bulbs without the hub?

[strong violet]

Yeah they can connect to the SkyController, at least with one bulb I've tested

[drifting ember]

I know #zigbee-archived would be better

[cold moon]

They just tie it to a windows account now

[crimson tulip]

if you have a windows account

[glacial oracle]

Hm that seems quite uncompany like. I approve of this nice thing

[crimson tulip]

I still run accountless at home

[strong violet]

SkyController / Hue Bridge both use zigbee, at least mine does. There may also be wifi verisions, not sure

[cold moon]

But cool kids just use https://github.com/massgravel/Microsoft-Activation-Scripts

[drifting ember]

you mean a 'live' account, every windows install alive has windows accounts 😛

[cold moon]

That’s probably where he got HWID from

[drifting ember]

gameservers also ban by HWID

[cold moon]

That’s what they call it but like petro said hardware I’d doesn’t really make sense

[drifting ember]

how do you log in? as a service?

[crimson tulip]

no, when I say accountless I mean "I don't have a microsoft account"

I just log in to a local admin account

[drifting ember]

I know what you 'mean'

I was joshing about what you 'said'

[cold moon]

They force you to make one for new win11 installs it’s crazy

[drifting ember]

no they don't

[cold moon]

Ya they do

[crimson tulip]

not for pro

[cold moon]

They removed the workaround

[drifting ember]

I just installed win11 at work 2 days ago

[crimson tulip]

windows home, yes. Windows pro no

[drifting ember]

oh I don't have windows home anywhere, work or home

[glacial oracle]

Can always install pro and downgrade to home :^)

[cold moon]

Guess my googling failed then

[drifting ember]

or install 10 and upgrade 😉

[crimson tulip]

I set up computers all the time, however win10. But we've been vetting win11 upgrades for the plant because it's coming at some point

not looking forward to supporting another OS

[drifting ember]

yeah I already moved 3 over at the shop to win11, not a fan

[crimson tulip]

still have WinNT, 7, and 10 running all around the plant

[cold moon]

Win11 is just a win10 with lipstick on

[glacial oracle]

It's fabulous

Sadly no more cortana

[drifting ember]

man you're the only person I've ever heard say that

F cortana

lol

[crimson tulip]

yah, "sadly"

more like "happily"

[terse pebble]

Masterchief is mourning

[glacial oracle]

Yes

[crimson tulip]

cortana was super annoying

[glacial oracle]

Well it would have been super amazing if they'd put the new ai stuff in there

No great company for me then :/

[crimson tulip]

I built a dll into our installer that disabled cortana so that it would search the computer first before searching the internet when using window key

[glacial oracle]

I think it was the only implementation where tts ran local if I remember that correctly

[devout quartz]

I need a ceiling fan controller
any opinions, or a database of ones to look at?

US
$100
no preference
can control fan, any bonus stuff is fine

[outer knot]

Looking for advice about a device to buy? Remember to provide guidance on:

• Which country you're in
• What your budget is
• What protocols you prefer (eg Zigbee, WiFi, Z-Wave)
• Any features you want (such as power monitoring, dimming, etc)

[ashen jolt]

A pj2101a

It’s a clamp metering device. Don’t know what you mean exactly by what integration it uses

[zealous dune]

Integrations are how you add devices in Home Assistant, you not knowing implies you're using ZHA and your device doesn't seem to be supported

[knotty rune]

Do I need a smart thermostate when using smart thermostatic valve controllers?

[late echo]

ZigBee outdoor thermometer

[ashen jolt]

Maybe I don’t understand it correctly, but to be clear, it’s not the problem that HA doesn’t recognize the metering device, it does, and it gives out most values, but those values are not recognized in the energy tab from HA

It’s a Tuya device, not a zigbee

[zealous dune]

That's the issue with the integration that doesn't properly classify the entities

[glacial oracle]

you could cheat by manually setting the device class

which may get overwritten by the integration again but once in the panel it stays there kinda

[zealous dune]

Or create a template sensor

[glacial oracle]

yea that may also be a nicer option
~~it sadly doesnt propagate through helpers ~~

[drifting ember]

or could do it automatically 😉

[glacial oracle]

automation recursion is forbidden by the law

[drifting ember]

https://tenor.com/view/jail-right-to-jail-right-away-parks-and-recreation-parks-and-rec-gif-16177531

[hexed galleon]

has anyonme tried this tuya energy meter clamp?

do they work with Home assistant https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Transformadores-Abrazaderas-Electricidad-Voltímetro-Amperímetro/dp/B0CBBW25YK/ref=sr_1_20?__mk_es_US=ÅMÅŽÕÑ&crid=2PZENX9N63FLW&keywords=CT+METER&qid=1692677293&sprefix=ct+meter+%2Caps%2C158&sr=8-20

[tepid heart]

Tuya wifi... 🤮 Their API is awful and does not work well with home assitant without a lot of messing about. Avoid. Their zigbee stuff is ok.

[devout parrot]

If you want a clamp meter go Shelly.

[zealous dune]

They can when using Tuya Local or localtuya

[knotty rune]

Tuya api, ew

[zealous dune]

what's wrong with it?

[knotty rune]

I've had to incorporate this once in a project, wasnt that great an experience. Also I find that a lot of times I had to resend commands for devices to take follow an action.

[zealous dune]

ah, n = 1 experiences... yes then it must suck for you

[knotty rune]

:\

Not quiet sure what you are getting at.

[bronze notch]

Ended up in a place with this 6 gang switch for high energy appliances.

My initial plan is to use DIN rail switches with power metering (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004747066832.html) down the line from their respective breakers in the fusebox. Since the 5th switch is empty, I’ll use it to power either of these 6 gang switches (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004084521839.html) or (https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005131982729.html) and relay the switch entities to the zigbee breakers.

Good plan?

[crimson tulip]

I would not use smart switches for high powered devices like that

most smart switches are rated for 600 watts at most

that goes for relays too

[zealous dune]

DIN rail switches are rated for 60A+

[crimson tulip]

👍

did not know that

[wanton loom]

hi, i want to start making my home smart and idk what device to buy to have a nice exp, what i mean by it is that they do not phone home and work nice with HA

[zealous dune]

do you know what zigbee, zwave or matter is?

[wanton loom]

if ur talking to me then only those two zigbee, zwave

[zealous dune]

and do you have a zigbee or zwave stick that works with HA?

[wanton loom]

no i have nothing i want to know what to buy before just buying something

[zealous dune]

you need to decide what protocol you want to invest in first

[wanton loom]

i think zigbee as it is by ieee

[zealous dune]

if you want something to wet your toes get a cheap matter over wifi bulb

why is that relevant in your choice?

[crimson tulip]

I started w/ zwave, I now have everything. A bluetooth network, zigbee, zwave, and matter.

I avoid cheap wifi crap

[zealous dune]

me too, that's why i buy cheap good wifi devices

[crimson tulip]

Oh yeah, don't get sucked in by TUYA

it's not good

[wanton loom]

i want it to be open buy zwave is also fine because as far as i know they do not need ip/wifi to work and that what i want to start so i dont need to configure iot vlan

[crimson tulip]

some is good, most is bad. You're more likely to end up with a dud if you try to expand via TUYA

[zealous dune]

then choose one. their respective channels have pinned messages useful for beginners

[wanton loom]

thx

but just to make sure im right? the devices dont use ip with this two protocols

[crimson tulip]

they don't use IPs in any protocal separate from wifi

zigbee uses the same frequency

same with matter

(i think)

[bronze notch]

Currently they use https://www.se.com/id/en/product/A9N18513/c120h-circuit-breaker-3p-100a-d-curve/

[limber pewter]

Hey all, is there any 'recommended' WLAN+Bluetooth half mini (pcie+usb) netbook m.2 type module for NUC and SFF PC?
Looking to add solid BT presence detection to hp G2 mini pc running HA in a proxmox VM

[gentle fossil]

Depends i guess, there are adapters for m.2 to AE/ngff

[glossy prism]

Thread uses 2.4 GHz, yes.

[gritty aspen]

Hi! Why cant i change color on this gu10 bulb? It works from tuya app. I run Local Tuya btw.

[limber pewter]

I snagged a cheap b+m coral that will take the NVME slot, so looking to add Bluetooth with chassis antennas in the WLAN+BT module (aka m.2 a+e?) slot.
There's a whole bunch of these cheap as chips refurb wlan+bt modules, but which one to go for? Intel? other oem? bgn, bgn+ac, BT 3.0, 4.0, 5.0? Won't be using the WiFi for anything, just want solid BT presence detection

[cold moon]

Just use Bluetooth proxies with esp32 and no bt on hass itself

It’s confirmed faster at this point as well

esphome bluetooth proxy info from bdraco:

If you are making active connections it’s recommended to deploy the proxies in pairs on opposite sides of the room since when a connection is in progress it cannot receive advertisements.

If the rooms are close enough it won’t matter so much about having two per room since the active connection range is much shorter than the advertisement reception range

You just need a second one in advertisement range while the other one is connecting.  Usually that can be anywhere in a 2500sqft house

Deploy one per every 625sqft with a minimum of 2 and you are good

Tldr just put two or three around the house for full coverage

[limber pewter]

Ah ok, I have a spare esp32 I could bodge into the case somehow. Was hoping to avoid going over WiFi, and having to move microscopic resistor to use the UFL antenna connection on the esp32. Single story, just want simple reliable home and away detection

[cold moon]

It’s actually suggested to use wired Ethernet esp32 variants like the olimex ones

[drifting ember]

you're a wired esp32

[cold moon]

You wish

[rich venture]

din switch rating of 63a suses me out

[limber pewter]

That's a nice solution, but for the price of one, I could try almost every single half mini wlan module, before even adding cable and case or box. Also would like to avoid bits of hardware in obscure places if possible. Maybe there is commercial smart light/plug socket with esp32 that could be flashed?
I take it Bluetooth proxy is only faster when using esp32 with wired networking. There's also the 'recommended' BT USB dongles, but everything on that list with sma antenna is being scalped it seems, plus not as neat as built-in

[zealous dune]

There are quite a few, Shelly devices can be BT proxies with their firmware

[limber pewter]

Oh nice, that's an excellent suggestion too, I wonder about range tho. My HA PC is conveniently located centrally, so bluetooth module with a dipole would really be absolutely ideal in my scenario.
Might just take one for the team and try a couple of these half mini wlan+bt modules from eBay, maybe steer towards those also found in the NUCs where people seem to have had success https://community.home-assistant.io/t/bluetooth-on-nuc/51624

[gusty mango]

Hello, I am looking for recommendations for Hardware to connect Devices to my new Home Assistant Server. I got lost with all the options during my research, so I am hoping you might help me to find what I need.
I am currently operating ZigBee and Thread devices (And various WiFi connected systems)
My Home Assistant runs on hardware in my cellar, so plugging in a simple USB dongle like SkyConnect wouldn’t work for me, since the devices are too far away.
So, I am looking for a cheap and small gateway system, to let my Home Assistant talk to my ZigBee and Thread devices.
I would prefer a bridge which is capable to communicate using Wi-Fi, but I could also use an Ethernet connection (but it limits my options where to place it for best radio connectivity).

I guess ideal for me would be a device like a “SONOFF ZBBRIDGE PRO Zigbee 3.0”, if it would also support thread communication?
The bridges I found cost more than 100 €, which seems too expensive to me, for just managing the connectivity, especially if I consider that I might need more than one. I don’t need it to run a full home assistant, just as a gateway for the connectivity.
The Raspberry Pi based solutions I found refer to run Home Assistant on the device, which also requires one of the more powerful Raspberry Pi. But I guess for a Raspberry Pi Zero should be enough to just route the communication, or isn’t it? The problem is that it does not come with a proper USB port to plug in a SkyConnect.

Any thoughts or recommendations on this?

[limber pewter]

I believe both ZigBee and Thread operate as a mesh, devices that are always powered usually act as 'repeaters'. So you just need a capable device somewhere between your 'zones' to extend the network

[cold moon]

https://tubeszb.com/product/cc2652p2-based-zigbee-to-poe-coordinator-2023/ you only need one coordinator

Sounds like a PoE one is what you need

[glacial oracle]

Poe oof

[cold moon]

Or Ethernet if you don’t have PoE to still centrally locate it

That sonoff thing is bad though.. don’t buy that

[limber pewter]

When it all falls apart is when you have a far away outbuilding or something and absolutely need multiple gateways

[signal comet]

does anyone have a recommendation for voice response speakers? I have found a few different solutions but so far all of them require you to poke a button to start the voice prompt

and by gosh if I'm going to poke a button to turn the lights on and off, I might as well just keep poking the button that's always been right there on the wall

[gusty mango]

@cold moon Thank you for the sugguestion. My switch does not support PoE, and as far as I can see the device does not support Thread, right?

[cold moon]

You can buy a efr32 version if you want to use zha and thread

[signal comet]

and you can get a PoE injector to power it

[glacial oracle]

I kinda wonder why no one has yet pushed this over openwrt if it's 2.4ghz

Getting an injector to power another device is pretty silly ngl

[signal comet]

it often beats trying to find a power outlet at the device's location

[gusty mango]

@cold moon So, this device should work?
https://tubeszb.com/product/efr32-mgm21-ethernetusb-serial-coordinator/

[glacial oracle]

Wouldn't he need a router as well as a coordinator

[cold moon]

No

Mains devices route / repeat

It’s generally suggested not to buy dedicated routers instead of devices that have a purpose and also route like bulbs, light switches, etc

There’s a few devices that don’t follow the spec like sengled bulbs that don’t route tho

@marsh lichen do you have to do anything special with your efr32 coordinators to use them with zigbee+thread? Just flash with multipan fw?

[marsh lichen]

correct, I haven't done extensive testing on how well it behaves with the multi-pan addon. thread support in HA is better with other thread border routers right now so it has not been a high priority for me.

other border routers meaning apple

[cold moon]

Remind me, if you have HomePod minis etc do you just join devices via hass for thread and they just workTM?

[wild atlas]

Well that explains why one of my bulbs disconnects and the other is fine, lacking the routing, and they're the only two zigbee devices I have

[marsh lichen]

others would know more on that than me, I think you join via apple then share the device via matter to HA

[wild atlas]

Don't aqara devices have difficulties routing some things too due to modifying the standards for their systems

[gusty mango]

The device seems only to be available in the US,.. do you know of any alternatives?

[cold moon]

Tube above is the one who makes them. He ships worldwide

https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/guide/adapters/#recommended otherwise you can pick off this list for efr32 but you won’t be using it with Zigbee2mqtt

[gusty mango]

Oh, I got confused because the site asked for the state I am living in, but I can also select a country.

[cold moon]

I don’t see any other network connected efr32 on the list tho

Thought there were a few

[limber pewter]

Hey you guys think this thing would solve my BT module requirement while eliminating need for a separate ZigBee dongle?
https://z-wave.me/products/mpcie/
Looks like it's using the same EFR32MG21 chip as the skyconnect and ZigBee ZBDongle-E.
Is EFR32MG21 capable of simultaneous multi-protocol BT, ZigBee and matter/thread?!
Perhaps matter/thread presence detection will come to android/ios in some form that will eliminate need for bluetooth?

Ah it's not released yet, and I think would need an adapter from mpcie to fit in m.2 wlan slot

[strange garden]

I have a pi3 with an allo boss type audio hat attached. I'm trying to get audio from VLC to pass through it. Using HomeAssistant OS. I was looking at the ha audio info command to try to set this up but it's giving me a Unexpected Server error. pactl doesn't show the card. Any ideas? Not sure what else to mention.

[subtle meadow]

does anyoen know if a SONOFF POWR2 will work with a 3 wire 230v device? I expects 3 wires, LNG in and LNG out. I don't know how these devices get power but I am hoping using it against one hot will work to disrupt the circuit.

I am trying to add smart switch to a PTAC. I have it runnin on solar and I need it to turn on and shut off with the sun

[drifting grove]

what is your ideal door/etc sensor that is Zigbee/ConBee2/deCONZ compatible? i just got an aqara sensor but after a few days of working, it is stuck in the 'open' state

[zealous dune]

ideal one doesn't exist

but aqara ones are very close

[drifting ember]

my best is besterer.

[terse pebble]

the besterest

[drifting ember]

a man of culture as well I see

[drifting grove]

SAMOTECH any good? i dont mind trying a few different makes, just because, cheap

[patent river]

Any other moderate-to-heavy users of LoRa around? I'm keen to compare notes, if so. (heck, can we reach critical mass that we need our own channel for it‽)
Been liking for the most part how the Milesight gateway I'm using (https://www.milesight-iot.com/lorawan/gateway/ug65/) does LoRa<->MQTT translation, but thinking about quality-of-life - and by extension, how you might convince others that LoRa is a sane and reasonable thing to do - and if anyone has any desire to start a collaboration on something in the vein of Zigbee2MQTT for device configuration (because the scripts I wrote for hand-configuring devices via MQTT discovery are mighty gross and I'm kinda over it).
Come to think of it, I should do a write-up somewhere on my new garage door control / automation.

[fast flower]

Does anyone use one of these with security? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01NCEJAOD
The docs have a section about adding in secure mode but I can't get it to work. It keeps saying "added with security 'none'".
After added it without security, the debug info shows ""supportsSecurity": false"
Are the docs wrong or am I missing something?

The docs I'm referring to are: https://aeotec.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/6000162392-wallmote-quad-user-guide- specifically the section "Include WallMote Quad as a secure device:"

[subtle meadow]

Looks like the ptwc has the normal thermostat wires. Is a way to control these in home assistant? I don't need an actual thermostat so maybe a pi zero can allow HA to trigger the air conditioner using the thermostat wires?

Everything I'm seeing seems like too many step. Maybe I can just use a relay. I just want the ability to turn the AC on and off based on a HA automation, basically if my solar wattage is over something like 1000W I want the AC on

[tawny viper]

Open mqtt gateway

[patent river]

@tawny viper That's actually pretty cool, had I not gone the (admittedly, slightly proprietary) way I have gone. My LoRa gateway does the translation to and from MQTT natively (programmed via Javascript, of all freaking things), it talks directly to Mosquitto on my HA server without any additional steps

[tawny viper]

It's on my todo list, Lora that is, I'll get there, it's a long list lol

[drifting ember]

yeah same

I'll need it for my driveway sensors and garbage collection sensor

[tawny viper]

what would garbage sensor do? yell at you if you dont take out the garbage on garbage day?

(i need that)

[drifting ember]

no, I'll know when I have to go put my bins back cuz the men will leave them in the road, and someone will crash into them because no street lights

because they come when they feel like, because island time

[tawny viper]

i bring them out monday night, bring them in tuesday night

but i do want the reminder to yell at me

[drifting ember]

yeah but do they leave them in the street?

[tawny viper]

like a prescense sensor

nah, I live on a main road, and its a private company not a goverment

so they dont want to get sued or pay to replace them

[drifting ember]

well my garbage bins live on a main road

[tawny viper]

i have to drag mine out a long driveway

[drifting ember]

my driveway is 1320ft long

[cold moon]

Some people use ibeacons for this

[tawny viper]

mine is longer, and I have bears

[drifting ember]

I use the truck

lol

[cold moon]

Oh it’s long?

[tawny viper]

@cold moon yea, that works though, when it gets outta range

[drifting ember]

weve discussed buying a polaris to take the trash out

[tawny viper]

and bears, lots of bears, even the special bear proof cans dont work

[drifting ember]

well, we do not have bears

[cold moon]

Well basically they just remind you to move them if they’re in range with a simple automation

[drifting ember]

we have mosquitoes that dive bomb you in swarms

[tawny viper]

oh we got that too, I got a swamp on my property,

[drifting ember]

I have 4 ponds and some marsh

[tawny viper]

nice

@cold moon yea, but I don't want to charge a battery,

[drifting ember]

but gotta love the 300ft of beach

[tawny viper]

oooh, maybe like an RF tag on the bin??

RFID

[drifting ember]

im going cheap

[cold moon]

They last years

[drifting ember]

magnet in attached to bin, reed switch in bin holder

[cold moon]

10+ for some ibeacons I think

[tawny viper]

hmmmm, that could work, and a simple "is the ibeacon within range"

[drifting ember]

im putting a solar panel down there

[tawny viper]

is enough, because my driveway is so long

[drifting ember]

to charge everything

[tawny viper]

ohh, this is perfect, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08PCGF4QM/ref=emc_b_5_t

exactly what I want

[hushed panther]

just trying out for the first time mmwave sensor, got one of those athom ones. It was pretty easy to get it to HA with esphome and seems to be working fine. I just now need to tweak it to only detect inside my room (3x3m). Even on lowest distance (1.9m) and sensitivity, it still pick movent around the door. Any ideas?

[limpid lotus]

Anyone else facing an issue where you're not able to connect to Home Assistant after some time? It seems to happen randomly. I'm running Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB of RAM. I even changed to a new power supply..

[winged knoll]

More for #installation-archived than here

[forest goblet]

Careful with Athom stuff, they have a problem with bricking and there's no way to recover short of buying a programming chip and soldering it on. I have their v2 smart outlet and it turned into a paperweight just because I changed my wifi setup.

Can't handle 2.4ghz and 5ghz networks with the same SSID, no WPA3 support either. The way they're programmed they'll bootloop until you completely turn off the SSID they're set for instead of gracefully failing to their backup mode. And with no way to reflash from hardware you've got a pricey paperweight if anything goes wrong.

[zealous dune]

it picks up movement due to the PIR sensor not having any range settings

[hushed panther]

hmm, that makes sense. Automation will have to handle that then

[zealous dune]

you need to change the configuration to ignore the PIR sensor

f.e. https://github.com/blakadder/esphome-configs/blob/main/athom_ps01.yaml

ironically it's running even better without the PIR

[hushed panther]

any links to share around that (thanks for the share)? btw, I was just browsing your blog today, I will try to attempt to replace the chip for a esp32, I am sure it will be fun. Thanks for the heaps of content

on another note, giving a zigbee smart switch that doesn't have "detach mode". Can you see any issues in just leaving the circuit on in one of the gangs and controlling via automation?

[zealous dune]

i think you can also just use "mmWave Sensor" entity for presence

[zealous dune]

only issue is when you really want to cut power you need to get access to the wires or cut it on the breaker

[hushed panther]

nah, it will be in the gang itself, I will just instruct people at home to not touch that one unless required 😅 then I will use the other 2 (it's a 3 gang) to automate stuff

[sudden galleon]

is there a command in home assistant cli like "dmideocde in linux" to see RAM info about speed, capacity... (lookin to add more ram and want to match everything... currently got 1x 4gb ddr3)

[harsh portal]

I have a roomba s9+, and also have a central vac system in my house. The roomba by itself is pretty useless because my dogs shed so much that the bag is full every day. I was thinking of running another line to my central vac and running it to the roomba base, but can't decide on the best way to trigger the evacuation from the roomba itself. My first thought was to disassemble the base and see if there was some relay i could tap into to trigger the central vac, but that's outside of my comfort zone as I'm not an electrical engineer 🙂 My 2nd thought would be to trigger it from the roomba integration, it seems pretty fast, although I'm not sure it's fast enough that the roomba wont think the bin is full. Either way it's going to be a bit complicated because I'll also have to put some sort of valve on the vacuum line as well so that the rest of the system works when needed. Ideas/thoughts?

[winged knoll]

Can you simply trigger X seconds after it docks?

[crimson tulip]

yep, mine takes about 1 minute to cleanish

or it feels like a minute

clean the tray I mean

[drifting ember]

does everyone in here have a robot vacuum other than me?

has been left out of the party

[gloomy spoke]

https://tenor.com/view/dj-rooma-music-i-pod-parks-and-rec-gif-16540653

[winged knoll]

My dog would eat the vacuum

[jagged crypt]

recently moved into a house that has a couple dozen recessed lights (6" i think), and previous owner installed dimmable LED lights in all the units. I previously used a hue setup (hue hub linked to ha), but the cost of two dozen recessed hue lights is close to $1000 USD, so was looking for "alternatives". Found this - https://zigbee.blakadder.com/Gledopto_GL-SD-001.html - wondering if anyone else has any suggestions.

[jagged crypt]

I just bought one a month ago, but was moving (see above), so haven't set it up yet.

[drifting ember]

so it is just me

sweeps his floor sadly

[devout parrot]

I've got too many animals for that. If one of the dogs didn't do it in, one of the cats would.

[zealous dune]

I got 4, you're covered statistically

My cat just uses it as public transport around the house

[drifting ember]

this is mainly why I was afraid to buy one

[drifting ember]

you have one for each of my cats

[zealous dune]

Meanwhile my single cat has an entire fleet of vehicles

[signal comet]

we're looking at a roborock one that's supposed to be really good at pet hair

[zealous dune]

As long as it has an empty station ...

[native pilot]

I really like the these strips (addressable, impossible to see the individual diodes) but I don't really want to go the DIY route. Is there anything similar that is commercially available that people here have had success with? I'm US based if it matters.

a link would help eh?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BNBDWDGD?th=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=dihoau-20&linkId=194e7ad2dec903d996c7a92aa45d2dd6&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl

[rugged moth]

Hello, Does anyone know if the remote for a Airborne Storm DC ceiling fan is 433mHz. I would like to see if my broadlink will talk to it and have HA control. Can't find anything on the specs. Does anyone have this brand of fan working with HA?

[hushed panther]

I just started playing with ha bluetooth proxy and got an ibeacon identified by the integration. How do I get more information about the device? No idea what that is haha

[devout parrot]

Depending on the length you want to run you're going to be linking strips and running wires for power injection either way, but if you want a prebuilt controller that supports open source firmware and integrates well with HA Athom's controllers seem to be pretty good. I picked one up recently for my kid's led strip and it's been legit so far.

[devout parrot]

Look up the FCCID of the remote, or whatever the equivalent regulatory body is in your country, and it'll tell you what frequency it uses.

It should be on some label or stamped onto the device, either on the back or inside the battery compartment or something.

[young gale]

Hello there, not sure this is the right channel. Just joined.
I'm looking for advise on which hardware to chose for my home automation project. I have Home Assistant already up and running. Ideally, I'd like to start with garden stuff, soil sensors, weather like sensors, etc. I want it to be local, it's fine to use cloud for setting up a hub or gateway but not to rely on cloud to push/pull anything else than firmware updates, perhaps.

It's a lot to take in for beginners that's why I'm seeking for your advise. Is it fair to start with a ConBee II plugged onto my HA server (container, in case it's relevant) and then buy ZigBee sensors/probes? Any gotchas, any brands. I know the USB sticks have limitations on number of devices and range, potentially among other things. Any gateways/hubs that would comply with the above premises that you'd recommend?

Not even sure I'm asking the right questions :/

[cold moon]

Not conbee

Cc2652p dongle or PoE coordinator is what I’d suggest

Either using z2m or zha

Usb coordinator needs an extension cable on it

Check pins in #zigbee-archived for more

[vague salmon]

Does Matter replace Zigbee?

[cold moon]

Matter doesn’t exist

[vague salmon]

err

[cold moon]

That’s the best way to think of matter

[vague salmon]

Are we talking about https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/ ?

Or are we being metaphysical

lmao

names these days I swear

Or maybe you mean nothing with Matter yet exists to be purchased

[cold moon]

The basically beta IoT protocol with companies forcing users into hubs and not fully fleshed out?

That matter?

Most of us know better

[vague salmon]

I know nothing

[cold moon]

You can scroll up in #matter-archived and #thread-archived to see the fun they have

[young gale]

just for the sake of knowing, why not conbee?

[cold moon]

Cuz the sticks are known to have the most interference issues and are the worst option compared to other coordinators for zha or z2m

Idk how people keep coming here asking about conbee

There must be a lot of shitty blogs or something

[vague salmon]

hmm okay wow

well I'm definitely wary of the Amazon Apple Google combo there

imagine them working together on something

shudders

Is there something you prefer over Zigbee? @cold moon

[cold moon]

There’s also vlan mdns ipv6 issues

Zigbee is fine

[vague salmon]

what's better?

I have no devices, more or less

[cold moon]

Matter and thread are too new to need

[vague salmon]

I need plugs and speakers, basically

[cold moon]

Zigbee and zwave both have merits it depends on hardware you want

Speakers.. idk that’s a future question

[vague salmon]

really?

lol

that seems so basic to me

[cold moon]

Well

[vague salmon]

I need to replace my echos

[cold moon]

Diy voice assistants using open source TTS are coming along but not really here yet

At least not without issues

[young gale]

Well, https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha has conbee 2 listed lol

[cold moon]

You can ask in #voice-assistants-archived for that

[vague salmon]

that doesn't surprise me

but if I just want to play music on a specific speaker?

or say announce a timer is done

[cold moon]

For smart plugs I personally use sonoff s31 Wi-Fi plugs flashed with open source esphome firmware

[young gale]

Thanks anyways, I'm reading now comments about CC2652P as a great improvement compared to conbee. Thanks for pointing me to it

[cold moon]

https://tubeszb.com/product/cc2652p2-based-zigbee-to-poe-coordinator-2023/

I use that

[vague salmon]

okay nice that seems simple enough

[cold moon]

@signal comet https://tubeszb.com/product/cc2652p2-based-zigbee-to-poe-coordinator-2023/ this is what I use

[cold moon]

If you search here I’ve posted the yaml I use for them and pics and explanations for why

Tldr zigbee and zwave meshes are low bandwidth and the less traffic the better so I limit the traffic on them by not putting energy monitoring devices on them

And the open source fw allows for complete control like power on behavior and what they expose to home assistant and how

[cold moon]

Examples

[signal comet]

okay so which system are the Hue bulbs on, zigbee or zwave?

[cold moon]

Hue are zigbee devices

[signal comet]

too bad I can't just rip the zigbee unit out of this stupid echo and wire it up for my own nefarious purposes

[cold moon]

Paired directly to the coordinator

No hue hub bullshit

You can buy a cheaper usb coordinator if you can’t justify the PoE cost

Or buy his non PoE version to save a bit

[signal comet]

well the hassio box is going to be sitting in the network cabinet pretty much central to the house

[cold moon]

Cool

[signal comet]

we built the network cabinet behind the old defunct fireplace chimney 😄

[cold moon]

Hassio is dead btw they renamed it to haos like two years ago

[signal comet]

good to know

[cold moon]

You’ll have to use a usb extender to get it away from interference

[signal comet]

I've been eyeballing it for years but this is the first time I've jumped into it and actually played around

[cold moon]

https://youtu.be/tHqZhNcFEvA

30 second video on why

Gotta get away from usb 3.x ports, ssds, network rack, etc

[signal comet]

makes sense

[cold moon]

I used to use a sonoff p dongle on a 10ft extension cord

[signal comet]

PoE would be easier

I put convenient network runs everywhere in this house

[cold moon]

Nice

My topology is fucked but good enough

[signal comet]

the only thing wrong is I built the network in 2014 and I cheaped out and went with cat5e because cat6 was still over double the price back then

[cold moon]

Sucks

Mine is all 5e CCA cuz I’m poor

[signal comet]

ugh I'm sorry CCA

that's one place I don't skimp

New York Cables solid copper all the way

we're talking about maybe next summer re-pulling all of them as cat6

it won't be too difficult, go down the crawl, pop all the staples out, tie the new cable to the old cable, PULL

go back in and staple it all up

re-punch the patch panel, re-punch all the jacks in the house

[cold moon]

I’ve never heard of stapling down Ethernet

[signal comet]

and I got this nifty keystone jack crimper for work, the wires go in the jacks at 45 degree angle so way easier to put in and minimize untwist, and then you stick it in the pliers and crimp once and it does all 8 punches and cuts

yeah by code it needs to be stapled to the joists in the crawlspace every 18 inches

[cold moon]

That’s called passthru pretty common now

Crazy I wouldn’t do that

It’s not high voltage Romex

[signal comet]

this is why on my last network wiring job, I was a bit nervous when my inspector turned out to be the dude who trains the new inspectors

but he had zero notes on my job

[cold moon]

I’m not a big wiring guy but I’ve seen u hook things that hold the cables

I certainly wouldn’t use staples bending the jacket

[young gale]

so you picked the PoE one to get away of noise and interference from other devices?

[signal comet]

yeah that's what I used on that job, little plastic clippy things

oh the staples I use are special curved staples from a special staple gun that is designed to staple cat cables

[cold moon]

And to better centrally locate

[young gale]

How good is the range? if not centrally located. Just wondering about my options for placing it

[signal comet]

and to locate the coordinator where it'll have best signal to the devices

because often where the haos box is, isn't the greatest place for radio talking

[cold moon]

The mains powered devices will act as routers / repeaters for the mesh

[vague salmon]

okay I see, this makes sense

[cold moon]

Technically it can be far away and hop multiple times but the less hops the better

[signal comet]

so the coordinator really only has to talk to one or two devices and they can pass the message along

[cold moon]

Kinda

[signal comet]

but I assume it's like wifi meshing, you gonna lose performance with every hop away from the wired coordinator

[vague salmon]

how can usb 3.0 do this? its power connection maybe?

[cold moon]

There’s limits for amount of child devices one can have

[young gale]

New to all this stuff, between the names and all my head is spinning

[cold moon]

Usb spec is fucked

[vague salmon]

you're killin me

[cold moon]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/743144302334443622/1045810835471224985/image.png

[signal comet]

I'm new to the home assistant thing but I'm surprised how much of my general IT and maker knowledge applies to everything about it

[vague salmon]

how hard was it to wire? I'm renting this house but could use a few ports around the house...

[vague salmon]

useful skills

[signal comet]

well I put 2 wires everywhere we wanted a jack, for future expansion and fixability, we were pulling out of 4 boxes at a time

so it only took six crawls to pull all the wires in the house

and then another amount of time crawling around down there with staple guns

[vague salmon]

you make it sound simple

[signal comet]

compared to some of the buildings I've wired, yah

[vague salmon]

haha i see

I've wired exactly 0 buildings

[signal comet]

had one building where we had to poke through three cinderblock walls right near each other with barely enough space to make the corner safely

terrible

but we found out the plastic core in cat6 means you can REALLY PULL on it before it breaks

and conduit lubricant is important

[vague salmon]

sounds...scratchy

is there like a code or something that people in the USA typically adhere to?

regarding running wires

[signal comet]

yeah there absolutely is a code for low-voltage wiring

[vague salmon]

oh I didn't even consider that cat6 can be considered that due to poe

[signal comet]

and in most states in the USA, you can do your own low-voltage wiring at your home or your business. You plan it out, you get a building permit, you do the work, you have it inspected, the inspector signs off the permit, job's done.

in Oregon, the electricians union lobbied to require licensing for low-voltage wiring

so it takes 650 classroom hours and 2000 hours working under a master to be certified for low-voltage wiring

[cold moon]

I can’t imagine many people doing permits for low voltage

None that I know

[signal comet]

nope, it all gets done by electricians

there's a provision in the law that if you own the property you can do your own cabling, follow the building permit, inspector, signed permit route

that's how I did that last job where the inspector didn't have any notes or corrections