#hardware-archived

1 messages · Page 136 of 1

sharp apex
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mechanics are hard for me (and I don't have a 3d printer) 😉

fringe moon
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a lot of people do, and you can order stuff 3d printed 😉

sharp apex
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maybe I should just order one and try. i also have (as plan b) a wled ring (16 RGB pixels), but that still misses a sensible case 😉

thick oriole
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why not using something like gu10 directly

sharp apex
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that would also work, of course, but the "stick it directly to the wall" formfactor of the Ikea halvklart would be attractive to me. think like the stuff inside the house in the home assistant logo, only lighting up 😉

grave idol
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Was wondering if I could get some other perspectives on zwave/ZigBee controller hardware. I currently have a hubzb1 manufactured in 2015. As my controller and it's working fine. It handles both protocols.

I was wondering if upgrading for the newer zwave/ZigBee standards is worth it? If there is an obvious reason to do so I'm open to upgrading I just can't think of one. Any inputs are appreciated. I would need to buy two sticks and repair all my devices so I'm looking for a good reason to do this before pulling the plug.

blissful cosmos
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ConbeeII is good for zigbee

grave idol
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I was looking at that one, I just don't know if the newer ZigBee version on the stick offers anything that makes it worth unpairing and repairing, I may have to ask this in the ZigBee/zwave channels but I didn't want to spam chat.

blissful cosmos
thick oriole
grave idol
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Will do, thanks

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@thick oriole checked them out but besides the firmware being older and the chip being older I was asking more if I am missing features or losing compatibility by not having the most up to date firmware. I am looking for a valid reason to either flash my controller or more probably go through the hassle of replacing it. I think that may be a better question for the other channels so I will take it there. Thank you for the help.

potent spruce
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Hello, has anyone been able to flash tasmota on a Shelly PLUS 1? It's the ESP32 version. I can't seem to connect to the chip via serial. I connected GND, VCC, RX and TX but it seems there is some procedure to setup the device in flash mode but I can't find it.

winged knoll
quartz root
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any good product that i can use as a wall/touchscreen for HA? with a build in sensor for movement, that goes stand by and power up when somebody is near by?

thick oriole
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Tablet + motion sensor

quartz root
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any good tablet for a reasonable price/quality ?

crimson sparrow
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Does anyone know of a Zigbee ceiling light with backlight similar to this one? I would like to have an area lamp with bright light - but with a (coloured) backlight as an option. Both with Zigbee, of course.

bright jacinthBOT
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@grave idol Buy something CC2652 based. This list is a good one, both Tube and Electrolama have been proven to have excellent customer service. The current generation of EZSP sticks (see here for some) are also a good choice for ZHA.

Anything CC2530 or CC2531 based should be avoided - they're old, slow, and only suitable for a dozen or so devices. The Sonoff ZBbridge isn't advised since it uses WiFi (built in interference causing stability/reliability issues), and the HUSBZB-1 uses an older chipset so should be avoided.

Finally, the ConBee range are fine with deCONZ, but experience with ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT appears to be mixed.

Command '.pickyourstick' was invoked by: atxbyea
sharp apex
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Synaptic: Many people seem to use Amazon Fire tablets. The larger ones have a very decent display, and there is some guy who 3d print wall mounts.

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That is probably the way i will go.

thick oriole
terse lichen
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Anybody able to advise me on hardware towards a HA assisted home alarm system?

keen crown
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@terse lichen motion sensors, security cameras, and indoor and outdoor lighting is where I would start

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question to all: if you could retrofit Shelly’s in all the switches or plugs in your home (with neutral wire), would you? Or would you opt for connecting zwave switches or smart devices (i.e., bulbs)? Why?

grave idol
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does anyone know of a Home Assistant OS compatable long range bluetooth dongle? I am looking for one with a good external antenna to hopefully get the extra bit of range I need

sharp apex
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DOMEbusta: I would go shelly (again): I've got Shellies in 80% of my switches and lights now, and they work very well.

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I find WiFi much less trouble than Z-Wave (tried fibaro switches too). WiFi is also easier to debug if it breaks, in my opinion.

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Also the shelly integration is very good (i am using vendor firmware, no reflashing to tasmota or esphome), it is really integrated perfectly.

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Shelly is also rather cheap, but still a quality product. Their firmware is well thought out (eg devces have a timer, e.g. to limit a doorbell ring to 2 seconds at firmware level if you want.

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Only downside with shellies behind switches: the problem that swiches don't change position when switched from the shelly and notnthe physical switch. Especially problematic with double switches: You switch off one frommthe computer, and now you have to switch them either in different directions or have one extra dead step, to bring one switch back into the right position. I have chosen the latter, because double switches switching in different directions drives everybody mad. Shelly has a setting for this choice.

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Of course going Z-Wave or Zigbee does not solve that problem, only going to momentary switches/buttons does.

proven girder
sharp apex
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MadMan: also don't forget the less traditional presence detection methods: if a light switch is toggled, there is a high probabiliy of a person in the house. Don't know if criminals are careful not to use light switches.

proven girder
sharp apex
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I thought too much pinging is bothersome in here, it is intentional

proven girder
sharp apex
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Ok. I have smart switches and smart bulbs behind them in some places btw (for colour), everything has its pros and cons. With shelly switches you cannot have smooth dimming in and out but only on/off.

proven girder
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Are you allowed to have sockets with no physical off switch? Or do you toggle the actual power of the socket each time

sharp apex
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Yes, we can have switchless sockets, there is a RCD and fuse somewhere of course to switch off in an emergency.

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What i am struggling with most at the moment are childrens lamps on a cord. If i switch the socket or use a smart bulb, switching off with the inline cable switch makes it dead. Probably have to swap those for shellies too.

vernal heart
fringe moon
willow kiln
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Anyone have experience with Tuya and rtsp streams from cameras? I have followed everything and been talking with their support with no help.

gentle fossil
fringe moon
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Ugh tuya

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$20 Poe cameras Yes

sharp apex
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Shelly has been deploying a new firmware for Gen1 devices yesterday or so, with an Eco mode. Did anyone notice problems with that (while it was still in beta)?

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Updating them all, but still not sure if Eco is a good idea.

subtle flame
desert tartan
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Anybody have a good site/list you like to work from for a home assistant "hardware catalog"? I imagine something that lets you find hardware compatible with Hass, grouped by cloud/z-wave/local wifi/ZigBee and different device types, but I'd settle for just a big list in a fit repo too 😅

fringe moon
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You mean the integration list?

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But ZigBee / zwave is pretty independent of ha

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If it works with your coordinator, it works with ha

sharp apex
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As somebody buying stuff in Austria/Germany, in additon to the Integrations list, geizhals.at is my goto site to see what is on the market. You can filter by network protocol, device type, ....
eg: https://geizhals.eu/?cat=hwhafeld

honest veldt
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what alternatives are there for a raaberry pi 4 as they are totaly sold out!?

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i would like to use the rasberry install if possible

fringe moon
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Anything is an upgrade from a pi

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A laptop or minicomputer from the last decade is good

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And power efficient

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And has headroom

peak talon
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I wouldn't say power efficient. 😀

peak talon
fringe moon
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Pfff, sub 50w is a lightbulb

peak talon
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Rpi takes a good 6w with sonoff dongle and a USB mic connected woth 25 odd contianers

sharp apex
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I'd just use any old PC you've got lyng around or get for free from the junk. And copy the installation onto a Pi if you want in a year or so (or whenever they are available again). HassOS on a PC does not seem to be very different from a Pi.

fringe moon
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It isn't

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It's just more

solid salmon
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i know this is probably a long shot, but does anyone know if you can buy the Shelly products in a physical store somewhere in Bulgaria (as I understood they are a Bulgarian company)?
it's literally cheaper for me to drive to Bulgaria (eg. Sofia) and buy everything i need there than to pay the DHL shipping costs.

grave idol
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@fringe moon do you know of a good tutorial for using esp32? I only need one and don't really want to go with room assistant necessarily as it seems overkill but I will if it's the most reliable. To be clear I am hoping to keep the device_tracker entity reported by HA Bluetooth from being set away

fringe moon
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Both esphome and tasmota can do ble tracking

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Depends on what you are trying to do

grave idol
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Just stop a Bluetooth Mac sensor from being reported as not_home in HA in the back of my house, sounds like I may as well slowly add in room assistant and track ble addresses though. I just did not want to manually match up Mac addresses with known devices like tutorials I have seen suggest you need to do

fringe moon
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Bluetooth is a horrible tracking mechanism

grave idol
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Yes but for some devices it is the best option sadly

fringe moon
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Just do leave / arrive scan if you must

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Then track based on gps or WiFi connectivity

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What is the device?

grave idol
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I would but I don't get gps info and wifi is not always connected. It's an iPhone but the user does not want the HA app on the phone nor do they stay on wifi and I do not want to force any software install on them. Ble and combined normal Bluetooth under the person integration seems the best bet but I. Open to other ideas. Just frustrating because if I had a bit stronger Bluetooth device it would work perfect

fringe moon
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Can you track a smart watch?

grave idol
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User does not have one

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The person has Bluetooth ear pods but I cannot reliably detect Bluetooth in the very back of the house

fringe moon
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Yeah, bt is horrible in range

grave idol
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Yeah, I have a tiny dongle one now, I was hoping to find one with an external antenna to hopefully boost reception range just the little bit I needed

fringe moon
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Block off the rooms in the back of the house smart

grave idol
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I found a realtek one that has an antenna but it does not work with the HA os image I have on proxmox. I get transmit errors.

fringe moon
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Yeah, having stuff connected to ha is very limiting

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You could do a temporary step stone by placing the stick on a machine more in the middle of the house

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That runs HA and connect the two instances

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If it is just the current placement which isn't optimal

grave idol
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I have thought about that, if I am going to connect two instances like that I should probably setup room assistant and get additional functionality though it would be a bit more hassle but be far more useful.

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Assuming room assistant runs on esp32's that is

fringe moon
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Probably, I've seen no real use for Bluetooth tracking, i have one esp32 running to get some Xiaomi temp sensors connected

willow kiln
void moth
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I'm looking for a way to install a RTC on top of HassOs (RPI3B+). Cannot find much info on this.

grave idol
void moth
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This is a single PI setup with no ethernet plugged in.
I need it to collect data offline and some time to time someone will go collect data

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So a inboard rtc should be used

grave idol
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you could setup homeassistant and the NTP server on the same PI and change the time source for HA to 127.127.20.0 to use the onboard NTP service. by changing timesyncd.conf with HA and NTP installed on the same Pi with a gps module you would have milisecond accurate time with no ethernet required. the same procedure should work with some other rtc source as well

void moth
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Will work on official hassos ? Since the Os is pretty locked down, some action arent supported

grave idol
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if you modify the filesystem like the guide suggests to change the source it would need to be redone on an upgrade.

void moth
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Not very pratical..

grave idol
white plinth
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I just got my Sonoff 3.0 zigbee usb stick. What are peoples thoughts on ZHA vs Zigbee2MQTT?
I already have a MQTT server up and running. Im going to be installing Aqara zigbee sensors. My initial research says Zigbee2MQTT might be better?

toxic tangle
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anyone get wirelesstag pir sensors to display temperature info?

hollow lance
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@fringe moon btrfs question - is RAID5 still advised against?

hollow lance
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actually sorry ZHA seems to do this as well 🤔

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looks like more of a ball-ache to do it with ZHA though

white plinth
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I went with Z2M. Tested with my aqara remote and it worked well

fringe moon
brittle topaz
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I followed the recent Everything Smart Home video about ESPresense. I bought 3 "HiLetgo ESP-WROOM-32 ESP32 ESP-32S". When I flash them I'm having all kinds of problems. First they don't talk to my MQTT broker (might be my network) but if I flash them a second time and clear all user settings they won't even fully boot. Anyone else having luck with ESPresense? I filed a bug at https://github.com/ESPresense/ESPresense/issues/243

winged knoll
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I flashed a few devices with them to test it out, it worked

fringe moon
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If anyone needs specialized cables i have a friend who is shutting down his cable shop after a few decades of operation, lots of discounts and strange cables, but also regular cables, he can probably be helpful work with postage if needed https://www.datakabel.no/

hollow lance
fringe moon
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Then raid5 is fine

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Or raidz1 if you are doing zfs

hollow lance
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Nah not enough memory for zfs

fringe moon
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Ah for btrfs it is discouraged to do 5/6

hollow lance
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Yeah

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That’s why I didn’t set it up in the first place

fringe moon
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You could do snapraid / mergefs

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Lots of people doing that these days

hollow lance
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Eh or I’ll just take the plunge and buy a sixth disk and set up raid1 btrfs

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That way I don’t lose any capacity

fringe moon
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Or you could do whatever nonsense unraid is doing

hollow lance
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(From what I have now)

fringe moon
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I need upgrade my capacity soon too

hollow lance
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Pretty keen to stick with Debian

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Not looking to replace my OS with some specialised NAS OS

fringe moon
mint prawn
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So basically, i want to make my Smoke detectors smart, but i have a few requirements and theirfor need some help finding what I need.

I want them to be a independent system, such as 443 mhz or something (so not zigbee or ZWave what I already have), because i simply don't trust my RPI with my life lol.
Best would probably if the Connecting Station had wifi and could communicate with HA instead of each smoke detector with zigbbee / ZWave.

It also wouldn't be too bad if it at least mostly comply with Germany's regulations with that stuff.

If you know any system that works like that, I'd be really greatful for some help :)

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Oh and also if in one room a detector triggers, the alarm should go off in all rooms.

fringe moon
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Upgrade to a usable computer outside of a pi and use ZigBee smoke detectors, also they will still alert locally even if the coordinator can't be reached

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I have one Xiaomi Honeywell smoke detector, haven't tested it with actual smoke yet though

mint prawn
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Can they set off the alarm in all rooms if one goes off?

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Cause i got some ZWave ones from fibaro here to test, but you can't manually make it sound an alarm

fringe moon
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Anything is possible with automations

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I can test with mine

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If I can toggle the alarm

mint prawn
fervent ocean
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I'm looking for a zigbee plug in Ireland/EU, but I'm only interested to measure the power consumption, any recommendations?

winged knoll
fervent ocean
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wow what price for those Salus 😮

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I wanted to do some little experiment with it, but I think I'll hold on for now lol

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thanks!

fervent ocean
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what's wrong with Tuya BTW? bad quality I guess?

winged knoll
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They take extreme liberties with the Zigbee spec

fervent ocean
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That's why they're so cheap then

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I wanted to have some automations either when I connect my laptop or when I turn on the piano or some kitchen appliance, but 30 quid or more just for that... Not sure if it's justifiable

sharp apex
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Guinnberg: For metering I use the Shelly Plug S, works perfectly, WiFi though

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It is really a shame that there are no metering only plugs, without the relay.

robust bramble
sharp apex
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Relays have several downsides: in case of a software glitch they might switch off, they might overheat (most people use metering for washers/dryers, rather high powered devices), contacts might go bad, and they add to cost, size and complexity.

fervent ocean
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everything I have up to now is zigbee... what could be the downside of mixing it with wifi?

sharp apex
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No direct pairing for switching.

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One integration more

fervent ocean
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I actually have 2 I bought like 4 years ago, but I don't even know what brand they were as I bought them just to control them with google home... I might try to see if I can find what they are and maybe they have the energy reading

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the only thing I can see is that they're using and app called Seetime Smart, nut no brand or model 🤔

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😭

sharp apex
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Everything with unknown brand has a high likelyhood of being rebranded Tuya

fervent ocean
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now you say it, they were getting disconnected every now and then... LOL

fringe moon
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If they are older they are surely esp based

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And can be flashed with Tuya convert to tasmota

fervent ocean
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I have no idea about those techs, I'll have to research and see what's inside this

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thanks for the idea... I was thinking to just get rid of them

vocal crest
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My Philips Hue motion sensor has been reporting occupancy for the past 9 hours. I've restarted HA and it's still reporting occupancy both in HA and also in Z2M so it's probably at the Zigbee level. Any ideas? Battery is reporting 96%

chrome portal
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Anyone ever turn an old MacBook Pro into a Home Assistant? I might be getting one for free and it would be a lot better than my current RasPi 3. Is it just as simple as setting target disk mode and flashing HAOS onto it as an external device?

chrome portal
thick oriole
glad hill
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Should I be worried about SD card life in a dedicated Pi running raspberry pi OS and docker for zigbee2mqtt and zwavejs2mqtt?

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Seems overkill to add a usb SSD for this use case

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I can run log2ram and redirect ZigBee logs to it but not sure about zwavejs.

uncut sapphire
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I've been thinking about moving my HassOS Raspberry Pi4 setup over to a HassIO container(s) on my OpenMediaVault NAS.
Do you think this will be a step forward or backwards in terms of performance?
I'm trying to decide if I'm going to free up my Pi for other things by making this change, or add an SSD to protect my SD card.

OMV NAS
CPU: AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor
Motherboard: M4A88T-M/USB3

solid kraken
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Hi Ron your post is already a few months old and I'm now also planning to use HA for my next house build. As my Zwave experience is not at a 100% I'd also prefer some WIRED bus system that reports its status to HA. Everything I found (KNX seems to be really complicated and super expensive and requires a 1000€ purchase of some programming software but is compatible with HA, Loxone is incompatible with HA, etc.). In short: I'd like any light switches etc. to report their status to HA but I do NOT want to rely only on Zwave or Zigbee to get some lights turned on... Have you found anything usable?

sharp apex
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Yop: There is HomeMatic wired, don't know how well support is

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Shelly also has wired din rail modules (Ethernet), no switches though
Some people are using indistrial control solutions like Siemens Logo

thick oriole
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Beckhof Ethercat 🤣

high marlin
fringe moon
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Anyone running on a SD card should be worried all the time

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Tbf

zinc hazel
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Hello I have a question, I have a Zigbee Bridge and i want to conect him whit Homeassistant, I have the add on Zigbee2Mqtt, but i Dont know what i have to do

fringe moon
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Which bridge?

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The sonoff wireless bridge is... Rubbish, so you should get something else

zinc hazel
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I think its the sonoff wirelesd

fringe moon
north parrot
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Hi everyone.. I just installed "Aqara T1 with neutral" (wiered as Diagram 1).
The wallswitch connected thru s0 and s1 is a momentary switch.
HA 2022.2.6
ConBee II Zigbee USB

Behavior: the light can be turned on and stays on when controlled by Home assistant

but here to the problem:
When controlled by the lightswitch itself it turn on when I hold the button and turns off when i let go of it.

I have read on the internet that when using the aqara hub you should be able to reconfigure the Aqara T1 to be used with a momentary switch.

What I want help with:
How can I reconfigure the T1 using HA to be used with the momentary switch?

gentle fossil
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you can just trigger light.toggle instead of turn_on/turn_off?

north parrot
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in HA it works work.. but the problem is when I use the wallswitch itself

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I Toggle it in HA to "on"... now the Light is off when hold down the button and turns on when I let go again

gentle fossil
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only use either the "on" or "off" trigger, not both

north parrot
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where can I find the setting for that? Im not talking about any software buttons here but the Hardware momentary siwtch directly wierd to the aqara T1

fluid zinc
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This question is asked a million times I'm sure, but after reading 10382171 blogs and forum posts, I still struggle to decide.
We have a new electric network (all boxes have 3 wires), and I'm going to get startes with HASS. First step, light and dimmers. I can't choose between wifi, zigbee and z-wave.
The house isn't big, and the floors are wood, so not much interference.

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Too much choice!
Wifi: Cheap
Z-wave: no interference
Zigbee: loads of options

fringe moon
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There is no right answer

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I do ZigBee bulbs and outlets, we don't use switches anymore, i do ZigBee motion door and temperature sensors, for stuff i need to diy i do esphome or tasmota

broken flower
fluid zinc
fringe moon
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I dropped zwave after a week

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Too expensive

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No bulbs

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Now I have 120+ zigbee devices

twilit quartz
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I've had issues with trying to get homeassistant on kubernetes to handle the UDP broadcast

gloomy trellis
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How can I find the radio type? It's a Conbee Zigbee II

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I bought the Conbee Zigbee II but it "Failed to ceonnect"

untold latch
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Hello, I still have an iPad mini (1) - but unfortunately it doesn't support the javascript needed for the homeassistant dash. Anyone a idea how to use it anyways?

gentle fossil
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you can utilize tileboard for HA, afaik it does not use websockets which yours apparently lack

untold latch
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@gentle fossil sounds good thanks, I will take a look at it

drifting grove
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I want a couple of door sensors; is it worth looking into Xiaomi devices?

gentle fossil
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yus

winged knoll
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If you're going to have enough Zigbee devices to build a mesh, or everything's in one room, yes

drifting grove
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I'm not planning on building a mesh and they won't be in the same room. Would they need a hub?

gentle fossil
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zigbee needs a hub, yes

drifting grove
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Xiaomi are zigbee devices? I didn't realise. I know nothing about this stuff, obviously. 🙂

gentle fossil
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wifi door sensors? haven't seen these and likely don't make much sense since you'd need a battery replacement every few months

drifting grove
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I've read some people only need to replace batteries once a year. So who knows, really.

winged knoll
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Zigbee is a mesh network, without (Zigbee) routers you may have a "less than ideal" experience

drifting grove
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Good to know.

boreal oar
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Ive tried leviton zigbee switches and zooz zwave ones. I miss the on-device configurability with the leviton zigbee ones

fringe moon
boreal oar
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Thx

sharp apex
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The Osram/Ledvance rubbery 3-button switches also work (with minor weirdness on the middle button). I like them for their strange design.

vague stump
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Any recommendations for what to run home assistant on. Would include 6-8 cameras 2k resolution (would use sub streams)

gentle fossil
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as most services and players accept h264 natively I‘d look at the output format of these and decide if you really need a beefy hardware based on these. a rpi4 can pass 8 h264 streams without trouble

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h265 is a different story though

fringe moon
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Passing streams sure

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Processing streams

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Detection streams

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Writing streams

gloomy spoke
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just not crossing streams. that's bad

gentle fossil
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its all transcoding, muxing or piping

fringe moon
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Mux me like one of your French girls

grave idol
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@fringe moon ok but remember you asked

FFMPEG: error: muxer does not support non seekable output
fringe moon
blissful comet
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So I would like to monitor several 3d printer using a camera connected ideally through POE. I do have unifi setup today but dont have their protect platform so I believe I need to invest in that to get the cameras to work in my setup.

So I was wondering, is there any recommendations for cheaper cameras that I can integrate into HA instead?

hollow lance
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The raspberry pi camera, assuming you’re using octoprint

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Just get a POE adapter for your pi

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Using a UniFi camera on your printer is a very expensive way to go

narrow flame
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USA
$1000
Dunno
Not sure

wispy marlin
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hello guys

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I am just wondering if is possible to pair a BT Speaker to HomeAssistant in a RPi4??

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Thanks

mossy pumice
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i need some temperature sensors and some really generic switches (like literally bridging 2 low volt contacts), i only need 2 temp sensors and 3 switches, is it worth it to invest in a zigbee or zwave solution

boreal oar
mossy pumice
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yeah

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wondering with the quantity of devices it pays off

boreal oar
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Are you finding wifi is cheaper than zigbee?

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A big diff will be your zigbee temp sensors will be battery and your wifi ones would be mains powered

mossy pumice
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ok so

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i need 2 temp sensors at other ends of the house

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2 generic switches at one end, and 1 at the other

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im not sure thats enough to get a good mesh

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wifi in my house is very reliable

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battery is preferrable but it aint the end of the world

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Not exactly at other ends

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But at least though one floor

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So I'm not sure if that's a good connection

sharp apex
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regulad: probably depends a lot on the size and build of your house. I have tried (and thrown out) z-wave, tried and kept ZigBee and use lots of WiFi. In my not all too large house all three types of radio cannot reach every corner with one centeal decice, especially not my garage and some rooms in the lower floors.
WiFi started to get full coverage with three acess points. Works flawlessly now.
Zwave would work most of the time with a router in each direction, but was too expensive eventually, especially after Ikea and Aqara came to market. Probably would have needed 4 or 5 routers.
With ZigBee i have slightly less reach than Z-Wave (maybe) and still need to add routers to get reliable coverage. I have 5 devices strategically placey as routers, will probably need 1 or 2 more to fill the darkest corners with signal.

proven girder
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@sharp apex with zigbee just get some globes or smart PowerPoints/ switches dotted around and the mesh will work. Wouldn’t need to strategically place it then

sharp apex
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Yes, that is a good way to do it, unless you switch off bulbs with hardware switches.

proven girder
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Just leave them on all the time and smartify the bulbs think

sharp apex
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I want to have the fallback of working lightswitches when ha is down, at least for now.

proven girder
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You can still use the light switches. The zigbee lights I have turn on/ off with the mains power

Otherwise just get buttons and bind them to the lights and they’ll work when HA is down

sharp apex
#

I'll probably wait a year or two, until me and my wife are convinced that ha works reliably in the long run, and then uncouple switches from the outputs, and use more smart bulbs to dim/change colours.

fringe moon
#

I just did it all while the wife was studying and I was watching the baby

valid frigate
#

wife says to me I dont like using the tablets or telling alexa to turn of lights... she comes home and finds new aqara opple switches every light switch.... I have not had the heart to tell her yet that the switches can be removed from wall and still work lol I will leave that as a surprise..

fringe moon
#

We only use switches in the bedrooms anyway, and all ZigBee

valid frigate
#

I even became a contributor to a hacs addon to make the tablets show actual devices icon, but still lol so the opple swithces are fine anyway.

sharp apex
#

atxbyea: so everything outside bedrooms runs on motion/presence, basically? Zigbee motion detectors?

thick oriole
#

Just running all lights all the time until he sets the house to sleep 😂

fringe moon
#

Yes @sharp apex

#

Downstairs is triggered by Door + motion

#

Same with garage

#

And storage rooms

#

And bathrooms

#

And attic and offices

#

Only one that is constant on is currently living room and kitchen

#

And bedrooms is manual

#

Adding automation to kitchen and living room Soon

sharp apex
#

what type of motion detectors do you use? i've got a hue one, and it works, though it is stupid, that after swapping battery you have to finetune the detection area

#

i also have one from aqara, but i do not use them seriously yet. i think the philips ones are prettier too, important for a device you have to put somewhere in plain sight.

fringe moon
#

I use aqara for mostly anything

sharp apex
#

hm, have to try them out in earnest, good to know they work well enough for real day-to-day use.

fringe moon
#

I've changed 2 batteries in 3 years

#

On 40ish devices

sharp apex
#

it probably adds to my pain that the one motion detector i actually use is in a place above stairs where reaching it without a ladder is impossible, and putting up a ladder on stairs is, well ... interesting 😉

#

maybe it would be sensible to put up two detectors easier to reach instead, now that i think about it. at the time the position seemed so clever to me 😉

tribal swift
#

I always think putting something out of the way in a hard to reach spot is a great idea until I need to reach it. Then I'm swearing at myself like nobody's business.

lofty umbra
#

what's a decent thermometer that will work in a constantly high humidity environment?

#

my brother has a terrarium with beetles and the one he had broke and rusted

#

he already has a smart plug though for it

sharp apex
#

he could try one of the encapsulated ds18b20 temperature sensors in a small metal tube with the rest of the electronics (several options) outside the high humidity

#

(no endorsment of the seller, just to show an example, lots of sellers of these)

#

you can read them with e.g. a shelly device, no soldering necessary, i think

vague stump
# gentle fossil its all transcoding, muxing or piping

I am guessing the cameras will be mostly viewed in frigate/HA through apple products (safari/IOS app). Recording would be the full resolution and only for motion trigger events. This is for my father who is currently running blue iris on some very old desktop. I would assume the Pi 4 could do this but when I look at frigate hardware recommendations it is to general and makes me think we need to push into more powerful mini PC for 250-300 without the coral

lofty umbra
boreal oar
#

Aliexpress stuff probably wont cut it

sharp apex
#

Also the DS18b20 stuff is probably among the most faked chips out there. it is really hard to get a genuine one

#

the market is flooded with cheap chinese fakes of the chips.

thick oriole
#

Esp8266 + i2c pt100 measurement modul + any pt 100 probe

white plinth
#

I just got my Zooz Zwave 700 stick in the mail and want to add zwave to my HA OS. Im a little confused. If I use zwave2mqtt, do I also need z-wave js as well? I already run zigbee2mqtt and have a mqtt broker setup.

winged knoll
white plinth
mossy pumice
thick oriole
#

Wifi = not always the best choice ( i see you have already discussed your application, sorry)

buoyant tree
#

Hello! Kind of a noob with this and not sure if I'm asking in the right place, but I was curious about using HA in a server/client type of configuration where a client Raspberry Pi could both stream multiroom audio to a speaker it's wired to, as well as get a temp sensor reading from the GPIO ports and communicate with the main HA "server" computer, or if maybe I'm making a mistake in my concept of home automation architecture in general, since I've noticed that there's basically the one local address for HA when it's set up (which means other instances might conflict?), not to mention how IoT devices will often have their own apps, hubs, etc... (or if maybe I wouldn't use HA for the client at all and there is better hardware/Pi software for the client end of things that would do this and/or they just need to be different devices).
I can't get over the fact that this feels like a dumb question, and that maybe I missed something obvious looking into this stuff, but I'd really appreciate any advice.

thick oriole
#

Well you would have one HA instance on your server, on the raspberry client no HA is running but you can send sensor data to HA

#

Multiroom can be done with something like snapcast wich has a interface that can be connected to HA

thick oriole
thick oriole
mossy pumice
#

I could use a relay but I want it to be discreet

thick oriole
mossy pumice
#

I'm trying to make my own smart thermostat using genetic thermostat

#

*generic

#

The setup in my house is wacky

#

Actually

#

Ok

#

I just need separate temp and humidity sensors

#

Nothing else

#

What should I use then

#

I need like... 3

#

On different floors, so a mesh may not be viable

thick oriole
#

If you want to use wlan, esp32

mossy pumice
thick oriole
#

To sensors most likely not

sharp apex
#

I would plan to buy a few routers. They cost next to nothing, are cheaper than most sensors.

#

Of course you can try without first.

buoyant tree
# thick oriole Multiroom can be done with something like snapcast wich has a interface that can...

So snapcast would be the client OS then, right? But would snapcast (or a similar OS) also be able to send the temp sensor data to HA, or is it just for audio streaming? That’s why I was thinking a “client” HA would be beneficial due to the integrations (not to mention potentially less breaking updates due to them being the same OS)… I’m wanting to do volume control centrally as well but that’s another conversation.

thick oriole
#

No snapcast is only a software module for music streaming. You could run raspberry pi os on the raspberry clients on wich software packages like snapcast and a something for temperature sensor reading are installed.

#

Centralized volume control for the snapcast clients is possible

#

Instead of using raspberrys for temperature measurement, i am only using them for music streaming and i use zigbee for sensors like temperature and motions etc

#

One reason is, that if you have a audio hat on the raspberry over gpio you have to look if temperature sensors over gpio is still possible, the audio jack of raspberrys is not very good and the zero dont even has one

mossy pumice
#

Is there a good ZigBee store?

#

I've decided

winged knoll
#

AliExpress

buoyant tree
#

Ok, this is what I figured so I'm not quite sure of the solution yet. I don't mind the audio jack for my purposes which is why I was hoping for a "client" HA OS option or something similar, but thanks for the info.

valid frigate
# mossy pumice I've decided

I dont know about anyone else but I love the aqara stuff for sensors, especially as the one in my shed 12-15 meters away from nearest router in house works fine.

fringe moon
#

Yeah, my mailbox is 21 meters away

#

Door sensor works fine

valid frigate
fringe moon
#

Yeah, I've replaced two batteries in 3 years

#

Across 40 devices

valid frigate
#

I am in love with the cube tbh it suits my front room massively, due to ceiling lights, office corner lighting, tv lighting and lamps, enables me to control individual and all from one device 🙂 and then one side to rotate between the scenes clockwise for next cycle and counter for previous..

fringe moon
#

I have three of them in boxes still

#

Should use them for something

valid frigate
#

are you using z2m

fringe moon
#

Yes

valid frigate
fringe moon
#

Yeah, I did my first blueprint a week ago

valid frigate
#

lol I tried and failed my last atempt at a blueprint it sent my wall tablets into meltdown and kept turning on and off their power supply lol, so just switched back to the two seperate automations. for each one 😦

fringe moon
#

It just made the symfonisk rotary button easier for me

#

Should do the same for the cubes

valid frigate
#

yep that blueprint I linked is not mine, but it works flawlessly for me.

pallid lotus
#

Hi all. While I'm very happy with my Aqara temp/humidity sensors I am interested in a specific temp sensor for one location that updates frequently (even if the temperature hasn't changed much since the last check-in). Is there a temp sensor, regardless of zigbee/zwave/wifi that offers either controllable check-in intervals or by nature does this more frequently anyway? Battery life is not a priority for this particular scenario.

fringe moon
#

diy esphome then

#

but what is the need for an update if the temperature hasn't changed?

pallid lotus
#

my current temp sensors update semi regularly but only if the temperature has changed by a certain amount. I'm using an automation with my thermostat which includes focusing on a specific temp sensor. Because of that I'd simply like a sensor that updates more frequently even if the changes have been minimal so the furnace can stay more "up to date" on doing its own job.

#

on that note, perhaps "more constant temperature updates" is less critical and maybe "reporting temperature changes when the noted changes are in a smaller window/threshold" would be a good benefit as well or instead. I think my current temp sensors just have a bit more of a "sway" feeling in them which can cause me to look at my dashboard wondering why the automation isn't kicking in. Thing is, it does kick in, it does work, but hinging it on a temp sensor that feels a bit more pokey overall is where I think I might be able to improve things a bit more.

fringe moon
#

a wired esp with a proper temp sensor can send updates every second or better

pallid lotus
#

Good thought. I haven't messed with ESPHome at all though. I should look into that and see as it came up a few times.

#

Another admittedly silly thought that just hit my mind is I have a spare zigbee thermostat sitting around. One of its entities is temperature. In my experience thermostats update their temp far more regularly (I assume due to their role). Makes me wonder if I could slap some AA's in this and leverage that temp entity on it for this case. 😄

thick oriole
#

sounds like botch

fervent ocean
#

I'm trying to buy some smart switches with no neutral (I live in Ireland) and been looking to this one: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/QBKG22LM.html
But I have a rather complex setup specially in one of the switches:

  1. There's a switch with 4 gangs, but 2 of them will be controlling smart bulbs as I want to be able to control the color temperature.
  2. One of the switches controls the light of the bathroom plus the extractor, hence the need of using a switch.
  3. The last one controls a light I have no intention to make smart on any way, but since I'm messing around...

What could be my choices here? I was told that is better not to mix up smart bulbs with smart switches as the bulbs will get disconnected from the mesh, but not sure how to tackle this particular situation 🤔

fervent ocean
sick cave
fervent ocean
#

I'm not too savy on electricity, but no, that's not what I mean

#

It was related to the previous message I sent, I need some of them to act as an actual switch

#

But I don't understand what the operation mode is if it's not what I was describing, which actually would solve my issue

#

Any example of relay BTW? I only saw one from sonoff and looks huge to place it behind the switch, socially with 4 gangs

sick cave
#

I think I see what you mean, you want the bathroom and extractor switchs to remain the same. That I understand. If you have full control (on/off) regarding the smart bulbs, why bother. Just leave those always on. Those smart relays are smaller then they look. Space behind a switch is always a constraint.

fervent ocean
#

well.. yeah.. you got a point there LOL

#

also... I know this is more about electricity than hardware... but I have a single switch for both light and extractor... I guess that wouldn't change anything for me to install the switch, right?

sick cave
#

It's hard to say without having a look, and where your going with this..
Keep giving it some thought.

fervent ocean
#

ok thanks

pallid lotus
#

hm, stumbled across the Shelly H&T sensor. Battery powered but it sounds like it can be powered by mains. UI has options for updating temp with controllable degree offset (minimum 1.0). Wonder if that would be more predictable than the Aqara I've been using regarding its update/polling behavior.

#

though looking at photos of the device I have no idea how you'd actually wire it up to be powered by mains...

#

but it's got a bigger battery than the little button cells that my Aqaras have so maybe battery alone would be acceptable.

small mauve
#

Hi, today i had to install a new hassos for my rpi4. So I decided to upgrade from 32 to 64 bit. I installed version 7.4, but now my raspbee is not working anymore. I tried every topic I found in the ha Forum and edited the config.txt but no efford. Is there maybe any other reason why it’s not working? Has anybody the same experience? I would be very glad für some help, because my flat is dark right now

fringe moon
valid spindle
sharp apex
#

@pallid lotus iI think they can be powered by Micro USB power supply

#

If you look closely, there is a micro usb connector

tardy sphinx
#

Anyone have any hints on getting tplink plugs to work on the latest version of HA? I hadn't upgraded in a bit, and when I did, I lost my plugs. I had the ip addresses hard coded in the configuration yaml and things were working. Now, regardless of whether I have the ip addresses in the config, or I use the integration, no joy...

#

Cancel that, sometimes typing thing out get the grey stuff working. added the ip address via the integration rather than discovery, and its working.

pallid lotus
#

@sharp apex yeah - in literally all of the photos I first looked at I never saw the port. Even on a video, it was never mentioned nor was it ever held in a way that I could see the port. I later found some photos on google images that clear as day had it. In another review it sounds like if the sensor is plugged in to mains it won't set a requirement for power saving. Makes me wonder if when plugged in to mains it would literally update to the hub every minute or even every so many seconds. Already ordered one with an ETA tomorrow but kind of anxious to see first hand. If so it'll go fantastic with my furnace automation.

spare vigil
#

How do you guys know what to choose from? Whta will stay and what will disappear?

For example if I'd get a Raspberry Pi and get some lamps.. how do I know what to choose? There's so many to choose from, and some require their own hubs and what not.. and some have already been discontinued..?

ripe copper
#

any way to make aqara vibration sensors update more often?

#

i have an automation where

#

I'm trying to say "if vibration detected for x seconds" and one shake keeps setting it off

pallid lotus
#

@spare vigil I'm young in the HA game but with the amount of reading I've stumbled across there are certain brands that stick out to me. I've had great luck with basically anything Aqara. They seem established and not some corner Amazon shop. Sonoff is out there quite a lot, Shelly, Sengled, etc. So far those brands stick out to me the most that I tend to gravitate to.

timid garnet
#

Sup my dudes. I need some help with a question about the inovelli zwave bulb...do I still need to follow the github with the file that they link for open zwave if I use zwavejs?

tepid heart
covert minnow
#

hello - anyone from the uk here ?

hushed quest
#

Can anybody help me to light a gpio led when my alarm is unarmed?

sharp apex
#

@spare vigil in addition to what others have said, Philips Hue and Ikea Tradfri are also lines that won't be discontinued tomorrow.

#

Aqara has Xiaomi behind it, and wow the sensords are amazing. Phantastic design, small, very small, blend into every environment.

autumn wyvern
remote patio
#

Hello, I just updated to the latest hassos, and suddenly my hassos wont boot without a monitor connected, anyone have any suggestions for a solution? Running on a RPI4, Ethernet

fringe moon
sly owl
#

I have 4 Develco 10A ZigBee smart plugs. One of them is making a noise when things are connected to it, even when the things are turned off. I'm getting shipped a new one but is it a bad idea to keep using the noisy one?

drifting grove
#

hi, i'm looking to DIY a esp32 burner.
can anyone tell me the name / designation of the pins/clip for a esp32 fixture burner as seen in the photo?
thank you

hidden ocean
#

@sly owl In general, it is a good idea not to use it if it is making noise. It kind of depends on what noise it is making. *Not an electrician, just an IT guy.

pallid lotus
#

Just got the Shelly H&T sensor. Running it on battery mode until my USB-port-cover comes in. While I'm happy with it, I'm almost confused. The UI suggests I need to choose what offset to update on, e.g. 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, etc. That's great and all but it seems to be waking up once every 5 minutes to update regardless of whether or not there's any change. This is actually preferred behavior (for me) but I'm almost confused as to what the point of the threshold-for-wakeup setting is.

#

although maybe my moving it around was just enough to trigger. Who knows. Nice little sensor though.

thin flax
#

Has anyone ever opened up a Lenovo SE-141DC CCT light bulb? I can’t seem to pop the shell off.

#

The Blackadder instructions are rather…vague.

thin flax
#

I finally got the bulb open but I don’t understand how I can connect the correct pins without unsoldering the board

#

The board is deep inside the bottom of the light bulb and is non-removable

pallid lotus
#

well shoot. My Shelly H&T keeps going unavailable... despite having ColoT unicast set as per the documentation...

pallid lotus
#

this must just be the way it acts if the temperature hasn't changed enough to trigger the threshold to report in. I kind of just let it go and it seems to come back now and then when the temp changes enough. I suppose it is using enough battery to acknowledge last temp vs current temp and only kicks on wifi to report if it's over threshold...

sharp apex
#

@pallid lotus there is a shelly forum somewhere, with people knowing the details of these devices and guys from alterco checking in once in a while. maybe ask there? they also improve their firmware (as in making new features available, not just fixing the odd bug), one of the few companies where asking maybe even helps 😉

#

it is a weird mix of german and english, though

fringe moon
#

Gerlish

#

Or Engman

sharp apex
#

yes .. so basically what I use to post here 😉

fringe moon
#

I verstand

valid spindle
#

Denglish

#

Eutsch

cerulean crater
#

Hey all, I've had home assistant running on my Raspi 4 for a long time, over a year I think. And it's stopped working recently. It seems to still be grabbing the right IP address, but any attempt to connect to port 8123 is failing. Many things are still working, like my zigbee switches are still controlling my WiFi lights, so I have to assume its not broken yet...

fringe moon
#

Your install method can help you

cerulean crater
#

I dont understand what you mean, @fringe moon can you elaborate?

fringe moon
pallid lotus
#

@sharp apex thanks for that. Yeah it does seem like Shelly forums were a bit more active based on my searches. With having to, you know, sleep at night and let this ride I think I kind of discovered how it works, most of it being pretty expected. Sensor seems to always be awake and checking, but only wakes wifi to report to hub if threshold exceeded (e.g. 1 degree). Only rub is if the temp stays the same for too long (15-20 mins or more it seems), HA reports it as "unavailable". Annoying... would be nice if I could get it to still display it's last reported temp instead of throwing up a useless "unavailable" msg since it drops that over the field where it would otherwise display the temp reading...

sharp apex
#

You could maybe put the sensor value into a helper, and use that in whatever you want tp do?

north star
fierce finch
#

hello everyone, i'm helping a friend with making his place more (wheelchair) friendly, and i am looking for a automatic door opener for his frontdoor

#

it's important that if his door closes, that it will get locked

#

is there anyone with a idea?

pallid lotus
#

@sharp apex yeah, perhaps. I may have accidentally "fixed" it though. That sensor supports battery or hard wire. Funny thing is you can adjust the settings to say you're hard wired even if you're on battery (I suppose this is a neat little hidden feature if you'd rather sacrifice battery for more frequent updates). In that context it seems to check in consistently every 10 minutes. Since doing that HA hasn't dropped the sensor to unavailable one time which is great. This may use more battery but I only need it to last a few more days -- hard wired adapter was already ordered. 😄

sharp apex
#

That is great! How do you like the sensor?

twilit wing
#

hi! I think my cheap BT dongle has cheap range, as my furthest BLE devices update much less frequently. what's a known good BT5 dongle with an antenna?

fringe moon
#

An esp32 with tasmota or esphome might be able to make whatever you are doing easier

karmic crypt
#

Anyone has a recommendation for an analog led strip controller that's home assistant compatible (zigbee). I want to control some 24v led strips used as main lighting in bathroom with home assistant.

civic kraken
#

#zigbee-archived and check the link to Blakadder's list for some options. Gledopto I think is popular.

twilit wing
#

@fringe moon do you mean something like having the esp32 catch the BLE broadcasts and translate them to mqtt (or other) and then having a virtual sensor in HA?

fringe moon
#

Yes

#

Depending on what you are trying to reach

twilit wing
#

really just a xiaomi BLE thermometer, the cheap square ones

sharp apex
#

there are cheap round ones that use zigbee, not officially Xiaomi, I think

twilit wing
#

it looks like it's just a problem of a meter or two, so with a better dongle the problem should be solved 😅

fringe moon
#

So yes it will be fine

#

Currently running tasmota to pick up two of them

#

Esp placed 6m from each of them on opposite sides of the house

sharp apex
#

@fringe moon is there some pre-cooked esphome BLE to WiFi repeater software for this?

#

oh .. sorry or tasmota, more or less the same 😉

fringe moon
#

Well, any esp32 board and a usb cable you mean?

sharp apex
#

no, i mean the software

fringe moon
#

Tasmota-bt is precompiled as a bin

sharp apex
#

ok

fringe moon
#

Then flash it, connect to your mqtt broker

zinc haven
dense wedge
#

is it possible to change the polling of lux ina philips hue motion sensor....
now it takes forever for it to update it's current lux state

fringe moon
#

I'd recommend a standalone lux sensor

#

I use a aqara one outdoors

#

And it updates continuously

dense wedge
#

yeah i figured as it's main assignment is motion i guess

#

but had to pop the Q atleast

#

and the Aqara one works out of the box with a zigbee dongle ?

fringe moon
#

With zigbee2mqtt i still haven't had a device not work

dense wedge
#

i meant. does it require re-flashing or ready2go

fringe moon
#

I have never reflashed a ZigBee device, so not sure what you are asking

#

You should keep your device firmware up to date

#

And the coordinator firmware too

dense wedge
#

great. that answers my question.....
better find a shop in sweden that holds one then.

fringe moon
#

I ordered mine from AliExpress

#

Was 13 days delivery to Norway

dense wedge
#

that's pretty good

#

aqara light sensor ?

fringe moon
#

ZigBee 3 too

#

Round device

dense wedge
#

cool...good thing i got my cc2652 zigbee 3.0 then

#

you don't happen to have a picture of it if i ask nicely ?

fringe moon
#

Ag

#

It is branded as mijia

#

NOK 124.41 | Original Xiaomi Mijia Smart Light Sensor Light Detection Intelligent Linkage Waterproof Used With Smart Multi-mode Gateway
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mPrZd3A

dense wedge
#

no wonder i couldn't find it when searching for aqara 😄

#

thx a lot

#

bummer.....item discontinued....well....i know what to look for atleast

frigid shoal
#

A lot of info in the forum post.

modern ginkgo
#

I have a few echo show 5s, I'm switching over to google for the home asistants, is there anything I can do with these without linking to an amazon account?

#

Same thing for the dots, can I use them as an input without getting all the amazon notifications?

long pier
#

trying to add a z-wave thermostat with the nortek stick. HA spins on "Searching for device", the thermostat times out with Err after 1 minute. How can I debug this?

terse lichen
#

anybody able to recommend a decent ZigBee hub, I need some thing reliable for home security.

bright jacinthBOT
#

Buy something CC2652 based. This list is a good one, both Tube and Electrolama have been proven to have excellent customer service. The current generation of EZSP sticks (see here for some) are also a good choice for ZHA.

Anything CC2530 or CC2531 based should be avoided - they're old, slow, and only suitable for a dozen or so devices. The Sonoff ZBbridge isn't advised since it uses WiFi (built in interference causing stability/reliability issues), and the HUSBZB-1 uses an older chipset so should be avoided.

Finally, the ConBee range are fine with deCONZ, but experience with ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT appears to be mixed.

Command '.pickyourstick' was invoked by: Draxter
slate kelp
#

Hi all, I'm new to HA, and have no Z-Wave devices or experience. I want to buy a Aeotec multi-sensor 6, but I'm overwhelmed by how much documentation and methods there are. Can I just buy the sensor and have HA work with it? Or do I need other hardware? I'm running HA OS in a Synology VM.

fringe moon
#

You need a zwave coordinator

#

And preferably mains powered zwave devices to increase coverage

dull halo
#

Anyone have a recommendation for a black open/close sensor? Prefer zwave but can do zigbee as well. The only one I’ve found is the fibaro one and that would work great, except I can’t find it in-stock anywhere.

warm basin
#

I'm looking for an outdoor keypad (numbers) where the goal is to enable gate access for deliveries via punching in a certain code. Any recommendations?

lean pawn
#

Has anyone tried to drive an IR LED with something like an esp8266 and then controlled it with HA?

dull ivy
#

Hi guys. New to the discord channel.

#

I was wondering if anyone had some opinions on how to best integrate an outdoor security light with home assistant. I am aware that there is a zwave smart sensor that can be retrofit, but id rather do something with zigbee if possible

#

I think some people wire up a shelly em as well

#

and i guess another way to do it would be to use a smart light bulb right?

boreal oar
# north star What did you mean by "on device" configurability of the Leviton? I'm currently b...

My Leviton Zigbee switch has no configurable options that are programmed directly onto the switch itself. So my zwave ones for example have settings that let you control if the LED on the switch is on/off, brightness, etc. Some of the better configurable features though are the min/max brightness the switch will set the bulbs to, what to do on a double tap, what state to put the switch in following a power outage

boreal oar
#

But, on that topic, sort of, has anyone found a list of light bulbs that use trailing edge vs leading edge dimming technology? I'm learning that some dimmer switches use one or the other, MOSFET or Triac, and they need to be paired with the right light bulbs to avoid flickering and poor min brightness control

dull ivy
#

leviton smart decora supports minimum settings to my knowledge. no personal experience with them though.

#

but that doesnt really answer your question

boreal oar
#

leviton zigbeedo not have any configuratble settings

#

i'm saying i have direct experience

thick oriole
ruby cove
#

whats the best way to get bluetooth to HA? im running HA on rpi 🙂

#

any recommended dongle?

fringe moon
#

Esp32 can accomplish what most people need

#

And be placed wherever

gentle fossil
#

rpi has bluetooth built in 🤔

fringe moon
#

Not if it is a pi0

thick oriole
#

piO 2w has

fringe moon
#

No you

oak thicket
#

I got a display cabinet with glass boards in it. i want to have an rgb light (Spotlight?)at the top that illuminates the whole cabinet from the inside. Living in germany zigbee/wifi should work zigbee preffered

finite dock
#

If I'm looking for a weather sensor package (temperature, wind speed/direction. rain would be nice but not essential) to use with HA, where does the smart money go please? I don't want to waste money by going top of the range. I also don't want to end up with junk because I saved £50

fringe moon
#

I would say DIY

quick shore
#

Who wants $200 to get my Russound MCA-C5 working on Rio? I will get whatever hardware is needed. Currently running on Hassos o n PI3. The documentation is crazy and I don't have the time to sort it out. I have a TCP to serial adapter plugged into my MCA-C5's , I have pointed the RIO integration to the IP of the serial, Conifgured the Serial as per required and nothing. As per usual the IP of the MCA is unstable despite having the best routers and switches you can think of.

#

Just crazy trying to wade through everything.

#

Make that $400

#

Reach out and I will set up a teams call

fervent ocean
quick shore
#

All I want to do is expose the sources to alexa so I can turn the zones on and off.

#

I don't even to change the source.

#

I Don't even need to change the sources.

#

BTW the newer stuff isn't any better. Just replace your speakers.

#

the S/N ratio is about the same as the 88.

#

ser2net fits in there somwhere , I suspect that I can't run it on the Pi version.

#

of Hassos

lusty wedge
#

anyone knows a good white-spectrum lightstrip controller ? i have an GRB controller from magichome but i need another one for a whitespectrum led strip

dull ivy
#

does anyone have an opinion on the outdoor security light question i asked earlier?

drifting grove
#

This might be off topic, but any suggestions for providing 5V DC (not a battery) to an ESP8266 connected to HA in a garage? It can get down to -15C, even colder if the door is open.

gentle fossil
#

every usb wall charger provides 5v ?

drifting grove
#

Yeah but are they reliable outside (well in the garage) in cold temps? Not sure how much I trust any specs written on them for temperature.

gentle fossil
#

humidity wouldn‘t make the same trouble as outside when placed inside, i think a garage applies to this too. i would not cheap out on the plug in this case but when powered (and in use) it should keep itself well above the -15C

#

you can always put it in a proper box and seal it off, just to make sure

quick shore
#

$400 for Mca-c5 serial integration

thick oriole
sharp apex
#

@drifting grove if the charger is pumping out about a Watt of power, it will never be too cold.
I've got an old Samsung charger for my Zogbee router and a meanwell din rail supply for the shelly 1 of my garage door opener. Both work fine.

tender aurora
#

i have a project where i want to deploy smart lighting for 170+ nodes.. they are spread out in a ski course in a forest.. the map of the nodes look like this: https://i.postimg.cc/fTx1zXPF/poles.png . each pole are on average 40 meters apart.. any tips to which technology to connect these?

#

i want to be able to dim the lights.. and maybe also change colours

gentle fossil
#

you could just deploy wifi for the whole area

#

2.4ghz has more coverage, but you will run into issues with that aswell because rain is in the same spectrum.
definitely no cheap way to accomplish that

fringe moon
#

Wired is the way

#

Or LoRA

#

Plus some trickery

cold moon
#

is lora fast enough for that many clients?

#

what kind of delays would he be subjected to

fringe moon
#

Since it will then be multicast, i guess it won't matter

#

And even in my diy testing with an antenna inside a car and an antenna inside my office i got 250m

cold moon
#

ya the swiss accent guy did some impressive tests

gentle fossil
#

what is the zwave range? isnt it like 5mhz?

fringe moon
#

It's 7-800 I believe

#

Like LoRA

gentle fossil
#

oh no lora is, zwave is around 500

#

oi lora is also there ok

fringe moon
#

868 for LoRA if I remember correctly

gentle fossil
#

would probably work with strong nodes (preferrably with proper antennas) on every pole,

fringe moon
#

With LoRA you should be fine with one concentrator and 170 end devices

#

Which in reality is esp boards

#

Unsure how many clients you can have per concentrator

#

But then you could just move to LoRAWAN and multiple ones

lone ridge
#

What zigbee bulbs is everyone using? (I'm in the US)

fringe moon
#

Tradfri 4 lyfe

thick oriole
#

Hue is also good mostly but expensive

broken flower
tender aurora
fringe moon
broken flower
#

Oh. Then I guess DALI and KNX are out. DMX maybe with some boosters, but no experience with it.

thick oriole
#

Seems as there is no cheap solution

modest herald
#

Hi, I'm still developing the project "MrDIY Notifier" :
https://github.com/schmurtzm/MrDiy-Audio-Notifier
it is an audio player / local TTS player (samvoice generated locally on the ESP) / ringtone player / web radio player based on ESP8226 or ESP32.
It's MQTT controlled.

Very cheap : one ESP and a speaker is enough to start.

I'm looking for help to manage some problematic :

  • I have implemented Google TTS but still some bugs in esp8266audio library to manage it correctly. (See issue here : https://github.com/earlephilhower/ESP8266Audio/issues/475)
  • I would like that Home Assistant recognize it as a media player. So can we create a media player entity and drive it with MQTT commands in HA ?
  • As immediate alternative for Google TTS I would like to use HA. I know that HA can generate MP3 for TTS but is there a way to separate the tts mp3 creation and the command to launch the playback ?

Thanks for your help 🙂

acoustic lake
#

Hello, I’m having an issue keeping an Aqara E1 door sensor connected for more than half a day. Using Sonoff 3.0 Zigbee USB coordinator with 20211217 firmware, have a couple Sonoff Zigbee lite plugs as routers. The door sensor is about 40-50 feet away and connects through one of the routers with. Most LQI for all connected devices is 40-100. Did and scan and moved the Zigbee coordinator to channel 20 which had the lowest congestion. I do have 3 Unifi APs, a Linksys router and Arlo base station, as well as a Phillips hue hub. One AP, the Linksys router and Arlo base station are a few feet from the coordinator. Using a 3ft extension to get it as far away as possible, but the Home Assistant hardware is installed near these WiFi devices. Phillips hue hub is about 15 feet away in another room. Is there anything else I can do to fix my LQI, or is that even the problem?

hot sun
#

No expert here and perhaps better suited for #zigbee-archived. To me those are a lot of variable that could play a role. 3 APs depending on what channel you have those yes they might be interfering if they're screaming at the same channel as your coordinator. Then having the Philips hue hub you essentially have two zigbee networks in your house, so also depends on the network the hub is at.

#

You'd greatly increase your zigbee coverage and reliability if you were to include all your lights into the other network

north trellis
#

Hi, I have this mini pc server running an ubuntu and docker (with hass in a container) and several other home automation things.. it runs perfect but after a few days the server hangs, and it's impossible to access through SSH or any web service.. I'm clueless where to start looking at..
What should I look for? which logs? settings? any recommendations?

acoustic lake
hot sun
#

I believe that depends on the software you use. I'm 99% sure Zigbee2MQTT usually has that feature (at least for the the few lights I have on it). But I don't think ZHA has that option (also not used ZHA so can't say for sure)

hot sun
#

could look at journalctl for logs around the time it happens maybe

north trellis
winged pollen
#

Which Bluetooth chips are supported for integrations (to be exact switchbot) in home assistant?

unborn igloo
#

Hey guys I have a door or a door lock from inosmart is there a way to integrate that to ha?

fringe moon
#

NOK 131.67 54%OFF | Yagusmart 6 Gangs Tuya Zigbee Switch with Push Button Alexa Voice Control Smart Wireless Scene Switches Smart Home Device
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mq12sRI

#

After reading the description i still don't know if the middle thing is a button

thick oriole
sharp apex
#

@fringe moon : when a rotary phone and the wifi logo had an illegitimate child

#

There are not enough rotary phone dial based scene selectors ;)

#

@north trellis run a memory test (memtest86 or similar), overnight if possible. Try another power supply.

#

A machine that freezes even on the physical console more often than not has broken hardware.

north trellis
thick oriole
#

And if you look into the running processes? Is there something with high workload

#

Or is the ram full

thick oriole
sharp apex
#

@leech: if super super slow, is this seen in the system load, eg load levels of 50+? That is more of a software problem, if i had to guess. Memory leak beahviour.

#

Can you still run "top" if this happens (mabe slowly, like doing something every few minutes)?

#

It would be interresting if load goes up slowly over hours, or if everything is running fine, and then bam within a few minutes things go wrong. Slowly over hours is often a memory leak, you "just" have to find the leaky software.

slate rover
#

hey new to this discord so sorry if wrong place to ask... but - about to pull the pin on an Roborock S5 Max and was wanting to see if people here have experience with it. Especially want to check whether zoned cleanups are possible. Eg I want to automate that it will only clean certain rooms depending on some logic (eg if there's someone in there etc). Also would be stoked to hear different recommendations if theres a better vacuum out there to consider. Thanks!

gentle fossil
#

i run the s6vmax without trouble

#

given that the s5 max uses the traditional firmware compared to the s6maxv I'd say you are fine

#

they both have nearly the same feature set, s6 has a camera added

slate rover
#

cool, thanks man. Can you access the camera on the s6?

#

Would be a cool security feature 🙂

gentle fossil
#

you cannot. access to cam only works with the roborock app for now, but by using the roborock app instead of xiaomi mi home app you cannot extract permanent tokens. they rotate, and its talking tuya when paired with the roborock app

slate rover
#

ah cool. I started looking to see if valetudo enables it

gentle fossil
#

no valetudo for s6maxv without completely taking that thing apart

slate rover
#

oh damn

#

this is probably a good thing, so I spend less money :p

gentle fossil
slate rover
#

_"This class only exists for the unfortunate souls who already own one" _

#

ouch

#

the valetudo devs love it

#

thanks for linking. Love the idea of the camera & avoidance with it, but think maybe I'll just go the S5 Max and be happy enough with it

#

actually relegating our current one to do outdoor terrace duty, going to be interesting to see how it holds up to it

#

its quite crazy that there are no outdoor vacbots

gentle fossil
#

you can still view photos the camera takes when the robot detects objects in the way, i think the whole camera thing was a joint venture with tuya…

harsh tangle
#

Hi, anyone knows if the Amazon Smart Plug works with home assistant without sync with amazon?

sharp apex
#

Is there something like the Amazon smart plug, or rather lots of different plugs labelled "works with Alexa"?

winged knoll
#

There are many smart plugs that work with HA

#

Sadly, "works with X" means only that, and those voice assistants don't allow you to use those devices

acoustic lake
fringe moon
#

Yes, that is also possible with zigbee2mqtt and ZHA too

thick oriole
#

Thats stored on the device and not dependend on the hub

#

Even if you have to set it again after repairing on zigbee2mqtt

thick oriole
humble jackal
#

So i've got a few questions before I pull the plug on a lot of money. I've got a current camera system thats aging and starting to get outdated. Looking to upgrade to nearly 10 Amcrest cameras and wondering what hardware would work to run that.

Would an ODroid N2+ work fine to run Home Assistant + FrigateNVR Addon for 10 1080p cameras, or would I have to get something more powerful like a NUC or Minisforum GK41?

winged knoll
#

You'll want something that supports the Coral stick/board

humble jackal
#

Sorry, including the coral USB accelerator

#

Everything i've looked at shows its supported with odroid n2+, as well as either miniPC

#

Frigates docs don't specify how many, just several when run in docker

winged knoll
#

The USB isn't as good as the M.2 version, but it's still better than none

plush pagoda
#

hey every one ive been messing with home assitant in a virtual box for a while. i just got my odroid n2+ from ameridroid with everything already installed. i didnt log in i just tried to load a partial back up. now i cant get in using my nabu casa or the ip or the home assistant.local. i plugged a monitor in and it is running i'd like o just reverse the back up...any one have any ideas?

fringe moon
plush pagoda
#

sorry just stuck

rose jewel
thick oriole
#

You could use a tablet for that

rose jewel
#

@thick oriole good point

rose jewel
#

Which one of the two sounds like a better solution:

  1. HA Core on OpenWRT router + Zigbee USB. Vote smart
  2. HA Core on Android Tablet + Zigbee USB. Vote smile
winged knoll
#

Both of those sound like terrible ideas

#

(also, not supported)

rose jewel
#

@winged knoll explain why, I'd like to know more. Got each working, support is not an issue.

winged knoll
#

Router ... underpowered
Android tablet ... not designed to run as a server

#

WiFi for a server is a bad idea

#

Built in spicy pillow is also a bad idea

#

Still, if you have a working Python 3.10 ... and you're happy to handle all your own support when things don't work ... why not cause yourself needless pain and suffering?

#

It's not often I'd say a Pi would be a better choice, but ... it really would

rose jewel
#

Latest OpenWRT has Docker support, makes the pain pill easier to swallow, exclusively exposing zigbee device to container, encrypted overlayfs, depends on the outlook

#

@winged knoll so you're recommending a NUC?

bright jacinthBOT
#

@rose jewel Discord isn't like IRC, you don't have to tag people on every response. Keep in mind that every time you tag somebody, they get a notification ping. That can very quickly become annoying and people may block you.

When using Discord's new Reply feature it defaults to pinging the person you reply to, click @ ON to @ OFF to stop this - on the right side of the compose bar.

You have to change this every time (thank the Discord devs for that).

Command '~irc' was invoked by: Tinkerer
winged knoll
#

A NUC will be worlds better than some crappy router

#

You also don't have to worry about the write life of your storage

rose jewel
#

Allright, thanks 🙂 let's see where this goes

north star
sharp apex
dull ivy
sharp apex
thick oriole
honest veldt
#

Does anybody know which smart radiator appliance is any good? Do they need a plug to work or do they work with batterie?

wooden sundial
#

If you guys were to start over completely with your HA setup, what hub device/usb stick would you recommend? Something in the 700 series, even though it sounds like there are some growing pains with it?

winged knoll
#

700 series suggests you've already chosen Z-Wave

#

You'd want to ask the folks in #zwave-archived if you've narrowed things down that far already, though the answer is generally Aeotec

wooden sundial
#

Good point. I certainly haven't settled on z wave. Is there a stick like the HUSBZB-1 that can work with both z wave and zigbee, but is a little more future proof?

#

What would be the zigbee equivalent to the 700 series at this stage?

bright jacinthBOT
#

Buy something CC2652 based. This list is a good one, both Tube and Electrolama have been proven to have excellent customer service. The current generation of EZSP sticks (see here for some) are also a good choice for ZHA.

Anything CC2530 or CC2531 based should be avoided - they're old, slow, and only suitable for a dozen or so devices. The Sonoff ZBbridge isn't advised since it uses WiFi (built in interference causing stability/reliability issues), and the HUSBZB-1 uses an older chipset so should be avoided.

Finally, the ConBee range are fine with deCONZ, but experience with ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT appears to be mixed.

Command '.pickyourstick' was invoked by: Tediore
thick oriole
winged knoll
#

Tube sells some nice network connected CC2652 based coordinators, including PoE ones

wooden sundial
#

Gotcha, makes sense. So if I end up needing a mix of z wave and zigbee, the best thing to do is get a (likely aeotec) 700 series and the also something cc2652 based?

#

Yea, the tube offerings look nice

#

Cool, appreciate the insight. I guess my next question is a matter of placement. I currently have an UnRaid server in my unfinished basement, that I could very easily plug USB sticks into. (And I believe there is a HA docker.) Would I want to just plug right in there, or would I likely want to find a way to get the two hubs more centrally located in the house?

winged knoll
#

Well, if you go with one of Tube's devices you can place that centrally

wooden sundial
#

I do have Ethernet run to most rooms in the house, so poe could be really nice

winged knoll
#

Central is better than off in the corner, you could run the Z-Wave JS core on a Pi placed centrally

wooden sundial
#

Is there an equivalent to the cc2652 tube coordinator for z wave? I.e. something suitable to being centrally placed?

winged knoll
#

Sadly no

gloomy spoke
#

A RPi with a PoE hat and zwave dongle could work with zwavejs2mqtt. Basically make your own

winged knoll
#

That's how I'd tackle it

wooden sundial
#

I wonder if maybe just trying the zwave dongle plugged directly into my UnRaid machine (or maybe with an extension USB to bring it to the ceiling of the basement) would be a good first step to ease my way into things? And if range seems to be an issue, then go the RPi route?

gloomy spoke
#

That's a fine strategy. It's a mesh network

pallid lotus
#

I can't lie... been messing with the shelly H&T more lately and I'm not sure I find it any better than my Aqara zigbee temp sensor that I was using leading up to the shelly... it almost feels like the Aqara is a bit more precise and consistent. The reporting from the shelly strikes me as a bit more hit and miss.

#

Not to mention the shelly was only in use for 2 weeks and I cooked the battery (well, 3% remaining), whereas the Aqara I've had employed since middle of December and it's right around 50%...

gritty wolf
#

I'm running HA in a VM in Unraid, and apparently my Zooz Z-Wave USB transmitter and my Sonoff USB Zigbee transmitter use the same USB-to-serial chipset and report the same hardware ID, meaning I can't pass them both through to my HA VM at the same time. Any suggestions on Zigbee transmitters I should look at? I've thought about getting a PCIe USB bus but the slots on my supermicro​ x9-sri-f are so tight together that I may need a riser, or a whole new board with further placed slots, which is a nightmare I do not want to undertake.

languid fulcrum
#

Is everyone’s tablet for wall mount fire HD?

#

And does anyone have a recommendation on a good weather station

pallid lotus
#

Haven't gone the route of a wall mounted tablet yet. Not sure if I will personally. I have a 24" wall mounted desktop LCD and I've found I prefer the larger screen, though I stream cameras 247 on it in a 1/3 HA 2/3 BlueIris split. I don't think I could go 10" with those preferences 😦 For weather station what were you looking for? Like a forecast card?

boreal oar
#

i believe its what allows you to have the display turn off/on based on motion detection

#

I haven't found any other way to do that outside of android/kiosk app

boreal oar
chrome quarry
#

I am trying to connect a new Zigbee thermostat to HA using ZHA but it does not expose any entities, such as temperate set point and current temperature. Any reecomendations on how to debug this?

languid fulcrum
#

I have a house dashboard im aiming for for lights, music etc. I just hate Amazon.

#

But it’s hard to fight the price

vivid anchor
#

I'm also looking for a switch with a motion sensor built in, but can't find anything that would indicate if the motion sensor would be picked up independently in Home Assistant.

boreal oar
#

Are you not in zigbee or zwave ecosystems?

#

Wifi is commonly cloud based

vivid anchor
#

Is it true that some of the Amazon Echos have Zigbee radios built in? Is that something HA can work with?

thick oriole
#

Use a proper stick

winged knoll
vivid anchor
#

I might need to completely rethink my current setup. Right now it's just running inside a HyperV VM.

#

I don't think a USB stick will work with that.

winged knoll
#

Buy one of Tube's network connected Zigbee coordinators

bright jacinthBOT
#

Buy something CC2652 based. This list is a good one, both Tube and Electrolama have been proven to have excellent customer service. The current generation of EZSP sticks (see here for some) are also a good choice for ZHA.

Anything CC2530 or CC2531 based should be avoided - they're old, slow, and only suitable for a dozen or so devices. The Sonoff ZBbridge isn't advised since it uses WiFi (built in interference causing stability/reliability issues), and the HUSBZB-1 uses an older chipset so should be avoided.

Finally, the ConBee range are fine with deCONZ, but experience with ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT appears to be mixed.

Command '.pickyourstick' was invoked by: Tinkerer
vivid anchor
#

Oh neat. That could work.

thick oriole
#

Usb pass through probably works with hyperV too

pallid lotus
#

I thought hyper v didn’t have usb pass thru?

#

I run hyper v but thought I ran in to that in the past when I read about it…

#

I’m suddenly curious about these network zigbee coordinators though. Although I currently have some zwave devices set up as I’m using a nortek adapter that does both so I’d have to account for zwave too… might be a non starter.

thick oriole
solar relic
#

Hey everyone, I am building a house now (should move in in about 4-5 months). I am planning the infrastructure for the house to also allow for smart home elements. I love the idea of using home assistant (open-source etc.).

Not sure if this is the right place, but would like to chat about what infrastructure I should build-in to the house to prep properly. For instance, with lighting should I go for smart bulbs or should I install smart switches?

If this is the wrong channel for this please let me know where you might recommend I go (another channel/ another discord server).

winged knoll
#

Smart switches >>>> smart bulbs

#

There are a few dozen forum threads touching on this though

solar relic
winged knoll
#

If I meant reddit I'd have said reddit ablobwink

bright jacinthBOT
civic kraken
solar relic
winged knoll
civic kraken
#

Or do both separately with some accent lights here and there. For main lighting colors are pretty useless anyway in my experience

winged knoll
#

Yeah, white temperature is the most I want - and you can get dumb bulbs that get warmer as they dim

fringe moon
#

I'll go bulbs over switches any day

dull ivy
fringe moon
#

2008r2 hyperv certainly did not have usb passthrough

dull ivy
#

i did it for storage sorry. it looks like most other things will not work with a vm guest

#

as in everything else wont work.. you could try virtual box or vmware workstation if you need to keep your host operating system on windows. Or vmware esxi has a free edition if you don't need a usable host os

boreal oar
#

They also only go from 2200k to 2700k

green pine
#

I'm after a multipurpose sensor for Ensuite, wanting to do Motion sensor, and Humidity as the 2 main things, anybody know of anything? Also need to be able to get it here in Australia, which limits me

boreal oar
#

Whats ensuite

hollow lance
#

A small bathroom attached to the main bedroom

hollow lance
winged knoll
hollow lance
#

It’s not one sensor, but it fits your requirements

green pine
winged knoll
#

AliExpress

hollow lance
green pine
tender aurora
#

does anyone know of a smart light that supports control over ethernet?

#

LED, outdoor, dimmable and also color support

proven girder
green pine
fringe moon
#

aqara

green pine
fringe moon
#

I don't think I've ever seen a hardwired outdoor light with ethernet

tender aurora
#

yeah, but i need something that's wired and controlled over something

fringe moon
#

outside of DIY

tender aurora
#

what kind of DIY solutions are available?

#

i'm up for that

fringe moon
#

Anything with an ESP32 with ethernet board

green pine
tender aurora
#

this is outdoor.. i have 180 lights all spread out of several kms.. i don't want to have 180 different wifi networks

#

i will probably have cellular/mobile connection to each point

green pine
#

You don't need 180 different WiFi networks, several km really isn't that bad for WiFi

proven girder
tender aurora
proven girder
#

All broadcasting the same SSID

green pine
# tender aurora in a forest?

You can't run Poe or a single cable over that distance, so already need to run power with switches etc, just have a ap point every few lights, as needed

tender aurora
green pine
#

A proper AP with a directional antenna will go quite a long way, and lights barley need a connection, just 1mbps is more than rnough

tender aurora
#

and they are all on a "string"

#

so one light will generally just see the one before and after itself

#

so in practice you'd need one ap per point

green pine
#

Sounds like you should be using DMX controller, not IOT devices

proven girder
#

^^

#

IoT the DMX or other control tbh

tender aurora
#

DMX? does that run over power line?

green pine
#

Yeah, IOT control over DMX is easy, and DMX works how you want, you just daisy chain the entire string

#

It's how proper professional lights work

tender aurora
#

because we don't want to be running separate cabling for this

green pine
#

POE won't work over distances your talking, you already need power + control cables, with DMX it's just DMX instead of ethernet

tender aurora
#

we already have power

proven girder
#

Whether thats ethernet or directional microwave link/ wifi

tender aurora
#

well, we're probably going for cellular (mobile)

proven girder
#

Then (and its not often recommended) a cloud based solution may be better

green pine
#

Then just a single DMX cable will do it all easily, but I still don't get why putting in a few AP's wouldn't work and using regular smart bulbs, you just have 1 4g dongle, and run a network with that as the router

proven girder
#

Unless you can force every mobile device through a singular VPN

#

To your network

green pine
#

Site to site VPN setup is fairly easy, but your basically just doing DIY cloud at that point

tender aurora
#

yeah, the vpn setup is easy

#

wireguard each point

proven girder
#

Then just do VPN and your many 4g sim idea

tender aurora
#

but i still need some light to be controlled from the 4G

proven girder
#

If they all think they're on your network and HA can talk to them then it doesn't matter

proven girder
green pine
#

The vpn turns 4g into "local"

fringe moon
#

if you can do cellular for each you could do cloud mqtt

tender aurora
#

it feels kind of wrong to set up one AP per cellular point to just control a light 5 cm from the cellular modem

fringe moon
#

via aws or similar

green pine
#

180 Sims is crazy expensive, you can do it with a single SIM and just a few AP's

tender aurora
green pine
#

Why do you keep saying you need 1 AP per light?

tender aurora
#

you see the scale at the bottom of the image

proven girder
#

Directional AP can go far

tender aurora
#

that's inside a forest.. the trees are taller than the light poles

proven girder
#

Then you’re not leaving much option

green pine
#

Yeah, you'd be supprised how few APs you need to cover that, use proper directional antennas, 2.4g will be okay in a forrest

proven girder
#

You could also just set them all to the same SSID if they don’t reach, it won’t matter

green pine
#

Just don't use crappy home use all on ones, use proper AP's and antennas

#

I like ubiquiti gear, you can use a few just use some mesh AP then just create one large mesh networo

proven girder
#

Or you may have to make custom bulbs that can convert Ethernet into say an esp32

#

But then it’s diy

tender aurora
#

hm, hm

green pine
#

Usually for this stuff power is the hard part, and you've already got that covered which makes this so easy, just run a big mesh networo, no more cables to run and you can easily test, and move AP's as needed. The lights barley need a 2.4ghz connection 1mbps is more than enough, so your not trying to get a proper connection, you just barley need one

tender aurora
#

yeah, i agree

#

but when you say "mesh" network?

#

what do you really mean then?

#

single SSID?

#

same SSID broadcasted all over?

green pine
#

Mesh network just means a single SSID and the next AP connects to other AP's, so you don't need to run cables between them, it's all wifi, no cables at all

tender aurora
#

and also.. for the repeater stations.. if the client side of the repeater should connect to the same SSID, then it could potentially risk connecting to itself thus making a dead node?

green pine
#

The software manages it properly, you need to use proper mesh AP's not just a bunch of regular ones

tender aurora
#

which software?

#

and what's a proper mesh ap?

green pine
#

Look up the Unifi design centre, you can put on your floor plan and scale and it will estimate range and coverage etc

tender aurora
#

=

#

?

green pine
#

Yep, that's the best option

#

There's other ones that give better performance, for most cost, but you don't need that better performance for this

tender aurora
#

ok, i'm intrigued

#

but the trees are still a concern

green pine
#

You may want to get bigger antennas, but antennas are not cheap, may just be easier to put in more AP's since power and position and client density isn't an issue

tender aurora
#

are not cheap?

#

or are cheap?

green pine
#

2.4ghz is okay with obstructions, no amount of planning will tell you what performance you'll get

tender aurora
#

then i need outdoor lights that work over wifi 🙂

green pine
#

The better antennas can cost more than the mesh AP, so for your use case just put more AP in, since you have power everywhere

tender aurora
#

LED, dimmable and colour

green pine
#

I know Lifx make them, but can probably find cheaper ones

tender aurora
#

need proper lights.. like flood lights

green pine
#

Yeah, they are made for that

#

You can even get the IR version to help with security cameras at night if the lights are off

tender aurora
#

what is made for what?

green pine
#

The lightbulbs are made as outdoor flood lights, and can have IR always on, even when visible.light isn't, for cameras

tender aurora
#

as i said, i need flood lights 🙂

#

which model?

green pine
#

I don't know of any better floodlights that are also RGB, I've got a light that's a much better floodlights, but no RGB

#

Br30 is their outdoor one

#

It's not floodlight floodlight, but made for outdoors

tender aurora
#

1100 lumen

green pine
#

Yeah, it's not great, I've got a 3000 lumen smart floodlight, but no rgb

#

I don't know any better floodlights that have rgb

tender aurora
#

maybe we can skip the rgb part.. it was just nice to have 🙂

#

do you know of a floodlight that can dim that's running off wifi

green pine
#

Yes, but it's Australia only, but it's just a Tuya device, so I'm sure there's versions wherever you are

tender aurora
#

link me, plz 🙂

green pine
#

That's what I have, only 1650 lumens, but cheaper than lifx as well

#

Pretty sure they have a more powerful version, I just didn't need it, but can't find it online atm

tender aurora
#

open api and local control?

green pine
#

Tuya devices have the local API now. Are you wanting to integrate this with something external? Or can you put a Pi running HA at the site that you control remotely? Would work much better if the HA server is on site

tender aurora
#

yes, probably ha local on site

green pine
#

Have a look at Tuya, probably the most common IOT thing, so many companies white label them

#

I've got like 4 different brands of stuff that's all just Tuya and I control it with the Tuya app, not each whitelabeled version

#

IMO buy a 5 pack of the Aps and like 20 of the lights, and the Pi or yellow etc to run HA and set it up and get it working, make sure it works as expected.

Then buy all the lights, set them all up and labelled etc, then install all lights at site, then set up your primary AP where your server and 4g connection is, then just get a couple of really long extension leads, and just walk each AP as far away as it works, and put it on the closest light and keep repeating, buying and using more AP as needed, you'd have a good idea of how many you need after you have first 5 setup. At least that's how I would do this, it's a big project

#

You need to run the unifi controller for it to work properly, but that can run as a HA add-on, or in docker or dedicated hardware, which option is best mostly depends on how many AP you end up needing, but if you got the dream machine router, then it will manage all the AP take in your 4g connection via LAN and it can do the VPN stuff

tender aurora
#

yeah, i've worked a bit with the ubiquiti stuff before 🙂

#

got quite a few p2p links already set up

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and also a site that's dream machine-managed

green pine
#

Soudns like you've got it all covered, just need to find the best floodlight

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If your willing to remove dimming you can just do it all with smart plugs, opens up light options more, but dimming is nice, just restricts choices a lot

tender aurora
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dimming is more or less the main reason for doing this 🙂

#

so we can save power by dimming down the lights when there's no activity in the course

green pine
#

I'd be interested to see the business case for this, every cusumption now, vs expected with cost of install, and payback calvulations

tender aurora
#

exactly

thick oriole
#

Dunno if its possible to combine a led zigbee driver like gledopto with a led flood light

#

Sorry you wanted to make wlan right

#

Then a wlan led driver maybe

tender aurora
#

@green pine what about directional antennas added to the ubiquiti? like buy something from aliexpress? would that work?

#

if i don't want the 360 coverage, but more like direction x and direction y

green pine
#

LPWAN is made for your use case, very low frequency, so much better distance and deals with obsitcales better, you can get 10km/ap from what I've seen, howwer the tech is pretty new and not really production ready or anything yet, but may be worth testing it, it's made for low bandwidth like IOT devices

tender aurora
#

well.. the problem is then how to bridge the ip space with controlling the light

green pine
#

I'm not sure what you mean by that?

tender aurora
#

i can get ip to the light pole.. but then connecting from that to the light source is the challenge

#

for instance.. if i wanted to use lora and then get presence in each pole.. then i would still need another box/device to set up a wifi network

#

too many boxes and too much that can go wrong

#

the wifi solution is ok.. with the access points

green pine
#

Presence detection? So only turns on with movement?

#

You can get smart floodlights that also have sensors in them, so can be forced on or responding to it's sensor

tender aurora
#

yes

green pine
#

Well yeah those all in ones units make physical wiring much easier but also software control, setting up hundreds of motion sensors and their floodlight and managing that with automations would be a nightmare

tender aurora
#

exactly

#

the problem with using sensors on the lights is that we still want to be able to control when and if the motion sensor should be active.. so that's why we probably want external sensors

#

but something that's wired in and that uses wifi

#

that should work just fine

green pine
#

I haven't used that light I linked, but it seams like you can control all the Params for the sensor, as well as have the light on/off/sensor

tender aurora
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since this is outdoors in the woods.. we don't want an elk to trigger the lights in the middle of the night 🙂

green pine
#

Then you need cameras with person detection AI running, and then your needing a lot more wifi bandwidth and processing power

#

And all that running will probably be cheaper to just leave floodlights on a good old fashioned timer

tender aurora
#

yeah

green pine
#

Unless you just mean like between 8pm and mightnigjt they are in sensor mode, then turn off the rest of the night?

tender aurora
#

but what we want is a "dim function".. so for instance.. a master lux sensor that detects how much background light there is.. if it's between 7 in the morning and 23 in the night.. then the lux sensor will be used to decide if the lights should be on..

#

and then we want a motion sensors to decide if the lights should be dimmed at 100% or maybe just 30%

#

so if someone moves around in the course, then it should dim the lights up based on movement

#

but the "master switch", based on time of day and how much background light there is, decides if the lights should be on in the first place

#

motion just decides the brightness

#

yeah, basically what you said above 🙂

#

that light you linked to seems to be nearly exactly what we're after, apart from the dimming part

green pine
#

Yeah, you may just need to use an external wifi PIR

tender aurora
#

yup

green pine
#

They are almost certently going to be battery powered... And that's a nightmare of a job to change the batteries, but you can get little DC power supplies that just emulate the battery, either with a dummy battery or just bare leads you solder onto the battery tabz

tender aurora
#

here you see an example of the light poles

green pine
#

That's a pretty serious floodlight already on there

#

This may be crazy but what if instead of dimming you just used 2 lights? Have a 1000 lumen bulb then a 3000 lumen one, and if you want it dim only have the 1000 lumen on, if you need more turn the other one, not dimming but gets the same end result I think your after, then the lights are easy to find, and can just use smart plugs

tender aurora
#

yeah, i see what you mean.. but.. not as elegant... 🙂

#

what do you mean by pretty serious floodlight? more than 1800 lumesn?

#

lumens*

green pine
#

Yeah, looks like it to me, but photos can be misleading for lights

tender aurora
#

but what you see with that beam angle from the picture.. it's a bit too narrow.. so instead of having 3000 lumens pointed in a 30 degree angle, then it would also be better to have that spread a bit more

green pine
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Yeah, which usually means more lumens to get usable light on theaeger area

tender aurora
#

yeah

#

how does the wifi mesh work with several hops?

green pine
#

It works perfectly fine, you of course get more and more latency, but for your use case isn't a problem at all

#

My parents in laws house uses their neighbours mesh wifi for their home internet, them and their neighbours both have about 15 acres, and neighbour uses mesh wifi for his whole block, and PIR just have a wifi recieber into a normal all in one unit, and it works pretty good with decent latency, and that's about 4 hops across the neighbours mesh

tender aurora
#

yeah

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i actually have a link that goes several kms out over open sea.. it's 4 p2p links 🙂

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the longest one is 12 km 🙂

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5km -> 12km -> 500m -> 700m

green pine
#

Yeah P2P over distance is easy, unifi will do 40km with 1gbps or something, with like $400 of hardware it's crazy what you can do with budget now

tender aurora
#

yeah

#

and the liteap is awesome

#

i'm blown away by its performance

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it works as an ap for the 12km link

green pine
#

Yeah, they make good hardware, they just need more qc for their software

tender aurora
#

yeah, and they need to open a bit more up.. struggling with their access kit currently.. but that's another project

green pine
#

Yeah, I looked into access for home, but yeah looked to locked down, and I would need a pro POE switch to power it, which turned it from already expensive to defintly not close to worth it for me

tender aurora
#

i ended up buying the dream machine for that purpose only.. but i believe i have to scratch the entire project.. i can still use the dream machine, of course, but it's just not worth it anymore 🙂

green pine
#

Yeah, it's a shame I'm on the lookout for a good smart lock, but can't find much that meats my specific requirements and are available in Australia, and don't cost an arm and a leg

tender aurora
#

i quite like the ones that doesn't require you to change the lock.. you can still use the same lock and key, but they only turn the bolt around physically

#

from the outside the door looks the same

#

for instance the danalock

green pine
#

Yeah I'd ideally like something like that, clean from the outside and I can use HA to unlock when anybody is home

tender aurora
#

yup

green pine
#

I don't need pin codes etc for my home, it's not an Airbnb or something

#

Danalock looks good, will have to look into it properly

tender aurora
#

i have a couple of them

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works fine.. using z-wave

green pine
#

Yeah zwave version seams to be the only one worth getting from the different types

tender aurora
#

there's another that uses the same concept.. but i can't remember the name

gloomy elbow
#

Does anyone have a recommendation for a doorbell? I don't currently have a "real" one, I was using an Aqara Zigbee button but it died in a storm this weekend. I thought before replacing it I would ask here in case someone has a better recommendation.

sharp apex
#

sadly I had to disable it, because my 1 and a half year old was clever enough to open our front door with it 😉

wind breach
#

hi guys, can anyone recommend tunable bulbs that go to 100w, have good cool white color at 6000k or 6500k, and can go to 3000k or so? No need for RGB, can be either zigbee or wifi, but must be able to change color temperature

So far I only found tunable 100w bulbs that also include RGB - and those are either expensive philips hue, or WiZ lights (and their idea of "cool white" looks very green and relatively dim...)

winged knoll
#

Why not just get a smart dimmer?

wind breach
#

smart dimmer just changes brightness, not color temperature

#

I have a routine which has lights at 6000k(ish) white during the day, then gradually shifts them to yellow in the evening
used to have some Tuya bulb in the past, which burned out and the company is no longer in business, so I'm looking for a replacement that's maybe more reliable

gloomy elbow
thick oriole
gloomy elbow
#

Ahh yes, my bad. Can you tell it's Monday?

thick oriole
#

Tell me why, i don‘t like mondays.

drifting grove
#

What size standoffs do you guys typical use, M2, M2.5, M3, other...?

winged knoll
#

For what?

#

You probably want to ask a more complete question over in #diy-archived

drifting grove
#

Good point, will do.

pallid lotus
#

I'm currently running a nortek zigbee/zwave combo dongle. I like it, but am looking long term with when I'll inevitably have to upgrade coordinators. Googling around it sounds like there's a thousand ways to migrate to a different coordinator with varying levels of success. Is there not a straight forward way to keep all devices/entities and just point them at a new coordinator?

winged knoll
pallid lotus
#

technically both

winged knoll
#

And what integrations you're using for those

pallid lotus
#

Z-Wave JS and ZHA

winged knoll
pallid lotus
#

thanks

drifting grove
#

I am having trouble getting a bluetooth doongle to work on HA blue. IT is an "Asus BT400". It can't find the firmware. I download the firmware to "/lib/firmware", but it removes the firmware on reboot so I can't get it to work

fringe moon
#

That is a locked down appliance experience for you

wicked pine
#

You can't modify the container as it won't survive restarts unless you commit the changes

fringe moon
#

Most Bluetooth issues can be solved with an esp32 though

wicked pine
#

ah either way simple linux driver installation