The Home Automation thread

[Rocket-Boy]

Anyone on the forum into home automation?

Projects with Arduinos or other micro controllers like the ESP8266 or ESP32?

 

I figured a thread is needed, even if you aren't into it then you might be after seeing a few examples and how cheap and easy it is to get started.

 

Im going to put up the first few projects I have done and expand them as I add more.

 

 

[Rocket-Boy]

I started with an Arduino Uno like most people do, its cheap and the Arduino IDE is great for writing start projects with a massive community and lots of example code. 

 

All of the coding is done in C++ and its generally very easy to learn at the level required to program a micro controller.

 

The main issue creeps in when you want network connectivity to make your project something you can interact with from your phone or any web browser.

To overcome the network issue you can get an ethernet shield for wired connections or connect something like an ESP8266...

 

Going down that rabbit hole I realised the ESP8266 is generally more capable than the Uno and quite a lot cheaper too, so most of my projects are now done natively on them.

 

Add a relay or two, a couple of sensors and you can control most electrical devices or even build yourself a weather station.

[Grebel]

Been looking at it for a while. Sonoff have a host of controllers for not a lot of money if you are looking to turn things on and off remotely. More of a novelty than anything else for me. 

 

I found this article interesting as well. Compares different types of protocols (not sure if that is the right term...) Apparently can be used with Google Home or Amazon Alexa.

[Vetplant]

Been looking at it for a while. Sonoff have a host of controllers for not a lot of money if you are looking to turn things on and off remotely. More of a novelty than anything else for me. 

 

I found this article interesting as well. Compares different types of protocols (not sure if that is the right term...) Apparently can be used with Google Home or Amazon Alexa.

Running two sets of outside Floodlights on Sonoff modules.

Does everything I want to and they are dirt cheap($4.49 when I ordered my next batch on BangGood):

•  Wired them so that I still use physical switch to put them On and Off, but if Physical switch if Off there is no way of getting them on Remotely.
• I just leave them ON and let the Schedule run which switches them On and Off.
• Use phone App to do any non-scheduled switching.
• Can use IFTTT to do funky stuff like switch On when I arrive home etc.

Bought some TH16 Sonoffs which will read the room temperature in the kids rooms and then switch on the Wall Panel Heaters accordingly.

 

Also bought 5V12V Sonoff units to wire into Gate Motor Trigger, another way to give access to Garden services or the like.

[Rocket-Boy]

This was one of my first automations, very simple one with a Wemos D1(ESP8266) and a dual relay board.

Its connected to an outside spotlight and a lamp.

 

The nice thing about the setup is I can control either of the lights with Alexa voice commands, via a web browser or through Home Assistant using MQTT.

 

 Try not to laugh at the plastic container it lives in

[Rocket-Boy]

Been looking at it for a while. Sonoff have a host of controllers for not a lot of money if you are looking to turn things on and off remotely. More of a novelty than anything else for me. 

 

I found this article interesting as well. Compares different types of protocols (not sure if that is the right term...) Apparently can be used with Google Home or Amazon Alexa.

Yup the Sonoffs are cheap, they are just basic ESP8266 devices. They get really interesting when you replace the stock firmware with Tasmota though.

 

That allows you to do way more with them and integrate them into a controller like Home Assistant which is free and completely awesome.

 

I have a routine in Home Assistant that reads the current sunset time from yr.no and turns some lights on when it gets dark. Sonoffs are great if you just want to turn things on and off and pretty cheap for what they can do.

[Rocket-Boy]

Running two sets of outside Floodlights on Sonoff modules.

Does everything I want to and they are dirt cheap($4.49 when I ordered my next batch on BangGood):

•  Wired them so that I still use physical switch to put them On and Off, but if Physical switch if Off there is no way of getting them on Remotely.
• I just leave them ON and let the Schedule run which switches them On and Off.
• Use phone App to do any non-scheduled switching.
• Can use IFTTT to do funky stuff like switch On when I arrive home etc.

Bought some TH16 Sonoffs which will read the room temperature in the kids rooms and then switch on the Wall Panel Heaters accordingly.

 

Also bought 5V12V Sonoff units to wire into Gate Motor Trigger, another way to give access to Garden services or the like.

I was going to do the same for the gate and garage motors but went the full micro controller route for more options.

 

This is getting mounted above the garage motor this evening:

Its a NodeMCU ESP8266 with a 2 channel relay(1 for garage and 1 for gate) 

It also has a BME280 temp, barometric pressure and humidity sensor

Last bit I really wanted was a hall effect sensor that reads a magnet stuck on the garage door crawler to tell me if the garage is open or closed. This is handy because I forget to close the door often, this way it sends me a message if I forget!

I added an 18650 battery to it to make sure it keeps running during loadshedding.

You can use a 5V relay connected to the remote which is great because then the buttons can still be used as a normal remote. The two wires going into it are just soldered to the contacts of the buttons.

 

This is the view from inside home assistant where I can open and close the garage/gate and the temp etc in the garage:

Edited April 18, 2019 by Rocket-Boy

[Grebel]

My gate uses the Centurion G-Speak module so I can remotely open and close with my phone and chat to whoever is at the gate from anywhere that has cell reception. Outside light are switched with day/night switches and I can't really think of anything else that I would need automated.

 

Only thing that I would really like is an indication of the gate status when I am not home (Open or closed) I have s status LED for when am home as we can't see the gate from the house.

 

House alarm is run off an app which is quite handy.

[Vetplant]

My gate uses the Centurion G-Speak module so I can remotely open and close with my phone and chat to whoever is at the gate from anywhere that has cell reception. Outside light are switched with day/night switches and I can't really think of anything else that I would need automated.

 

Only thing that I would really like is an indication of the gate status when I am not home (Open or closed) I have s status LED for when am home as we can't see the gate from the house.

 

House alarm is run off an app which is quite handy.

Had the G-ultra from Centsys, very nice piece of kit. But lighting took it out and the replacement quote was R2200, which I then rather splurged on BangGood for about 20 toys:)

[Stretch]

Had the G-ultra from Centsys, very nice piece of kit. But lighting took it out and the replacement quote was R2200, which I then rather splurged on BangGood for about 20 toys:)

The amount of times my controller got zapped by lightning I wouldn't put any expensive kit anywhere near the gate

[Rocket-Boy]

Had the G-ultra from Centsys, very nice piece of kit. But lighting took it out and the replacement quote was R2200, which I then rather splurged on BangGood for about 20 toys:)

Yeah thats the thing, I could make something similar for around R200.

The other plus is that you can then integrate it into anything or if any part stops working you can replace just that part.

[Vetplant]

Yeah thats the thing, I could make something similar for around R200.

The other plus is that you can then integrate it into anything or if any part stops working you can replace just that part.

Yep, they don't play nicely with other systems. CENTSYS likes to keep everything in-house, which gives you more control against security intrusions for less effort, but it isn't foolproof. It worked well for Access Automation, but moving towards Home Automation and IoT they will need to revisit their openness to acceptable protocols that are prevalent.

 

Very basic one is WiFi.

 

They are launching a BETA version of their new Generation Sliding Gate Motors and the word on the street is that it is going to be SMART(it might actually be in the name of the unit), so would like to see what Smart elements they decided to incorporate.

[RocknRolla]

The extend of my home automation is me sitting on the couch and shouting: "sit nou die F$%n badkamerlig af!!!!"

[The Ouzo]

The amount of times my controller got zapped by lightning I wouldn't put any expensive kit anywhere near the gate

I've also given up on expensive systems at the gate.

Went through countless video intercoms, but the first lightning storm that comes past and it zaps the thing, eventually just replaced it with a standard voice intercom, and even then only the doorbell feature gets used.

 

Would love to do some home automation so I'm following this thread.

I dont need any of it now, but coming from a geek background where at the time we only dreamt of being able to control the house from the PC (no smartphones back then), this kind of stuff gets my jimmies rustled.

[Rocket-Boy]

I've also given up on expensive systems at the gate.

Went through countless video intercoms, but the first lightning storm that comes past and it zaps the thing, eventually just replaced it with a standard voice intercom, and even then only the doorbell feature gets used.

 

Would love to do some home automation so I'm following this thread.

I dont need any of it now, but coming from a geek background where at the time we only dreamt of being able to control the house from the PC (no smartphones back then), this kind of stuff gets my jimmies rustled.

This is exactly why Im into it. It appeals to the geeky side of me. 

I love coding up something that does what I want it to and ends up costing me less than R100.

 

I should be done with my parking sensor in the next day or two, that is going to be super useful.

[Stretch]

This is exactly why Im into it. It appeals to the geeky side of me.

I love coding up something that does what I want it to and ends up costing me less than R100.

 

I should be done with my parking sensor in the next day or two, that is going to be super useful.

More info please. I would love to do some fiddling but just can't see any practical project inside the house... Unless there are some projects for working with the Amazon echo