discussion General Home Automation / Home Assistant thread

[lowfat]

Had a problem with the ESPHome devices disconnecting from HA. Didn't fret too long before converting it to the same style MQTT as the Airthings stuff.

Any idea why? I have at least 20 ESPHome devices and have had zero issues. Well besides the fact that the ESP32's will drop from the Ruckus AP. I guess for sensors it doesn't really matter. But for lights, the native connection is significantly faster.

 

[Ziploc]

Hiya, clone the github here: https://github.com/zhoulander/Powermon433MQTT
Compile the .INO file and upload it to your UNO, plug it into your Pi, and edit and run the Python script to reflect your own MQTT server address.

The steps in the readme should be straight forward as long as you have a little bit of Linux experience (file editing, installing Python, finding your Arduino COM port)

If you have Home Assistant and are using the add-on store MQTT Broker make sure you follow the documentation on how to allow anonymous logins and how to setup unrestricted access to all topics via the ACL files.

I've got the JSON going over serial now. Thanks for posting this information because I'm not sure I would have found out about it otherwise.

I'm going to see if I can get away with plugging the UNO directly into my HomeAssistant server and reading the JSON data through serial that way.

 

[lowfat]

Wanted to move away from emulated Hues since i didn't like how everything showed up as a light bulb. I couldn't add my TV automations to Alexa rooms as if i said 'lights off' my TV would shut off. So I a trying out Nabu Casa, and TBH it is so slow sometimes. Like 5s sometimes to respond. And even then Alexa tells me the device isn't responding after it turns it on. Not sure I can handle that.

Honestly don't care about the 'cloud' aspect at all. I just want to be able to pass through my devices to Alexa and GH and still have local control.

 

[lowfat]

2.5 months and I can't handle Nabu Casa. I don't mind paying for a service. But it isn't usable. 1/4 of the time when I call an Alexa automation it times out or it it takes 5 seconds, runs automation, then proceeds to tell me it timed out. I rely on this. Time to go back to the DIY solution. Sucks as I need to redo all my Node Red automations, again.

EDIT: Ended up going w/ this to get Google Home voice automatons working. Was a bit of work figuring out how to get it to work w/ HA. But I've been able to get RGB + brightness working for lights, which was the hard part.

Node-RED Google Assistant Bridge

googlehome.hardill.me.uk

 

[lowfat]

2.5 months and I can't handle Nabu Casa. I don't mind paying for a service. But it isn't usable. 1/4 of the time when I call an Alexa automation it times out or it it takes 5 seconds, runs automation, then proceeds to tell me it timed out. I rely on this. Time to go back to the DIY solution. Sucks as I need to redo all my Node Red automations, again.

EDIT: Ended up going w/ this to get Google Home voice automatons working. Was a bit of work figuring out how to get it to work w/ HA. But I've been able to get RGB + brightness working for lights, which was the hard part.

Node-RED Google Assistant Bridge

googlehome.hardill.me.uk

Ended up just ditching GH. The above just wasnt reliable enough.



Got just a sweet automation setup. As I have an OLED I try to minimize the amount of time the TV is paused. I was using voice commands to turn off the display when paused. But always not the best at that. So I automated it. Finally figured out how to get HA to detect if the FireTV is paused. Was a pain to setup and Plex ended up being impossible. BUT There is also a Plex integration for HA that uses the Plex server to detect play/pause. So I setup 2 automations. One for Plex and one for the others.

 

[lowfat]

Was always disappointed I couldn't call HA services from my Harmony remote. A couple days ago I found out that HA can emulate a Roku. Was kind of a pain to setup but eventually got it working. So I've added the fake Roku to all my Harmony activities, which can now call automations from HA. Specifically in my quest to help prevent burn in on my OLEDs I can bind buttons to get HA to send a com.webos.service.tvpower/power/turnOffScreen to the TV to turn the display off but leave TV on. So when I'm laying down and gaming w/ a controller, when I need to pause, I can use the remote to turn the display off.

2.5 months and I can't handle Nabu Casa. I don't mind paying for a service. But it isn't usable. 1/4 of the time when I call an Alexa automation it times out or it it takes 5 seconds, runs automation, then proceeds to tell me it timed out. I rely on this. Time to go back to the DIY solution. Sucks as I need to redo all my Node Red automations, again.

EDIT: Ended up going w/ this to get Google Home voice automatons working. Was a bit of work figuring out how to get it to work w/ HA. But I've been able to get RGB + brightness working for lights, which was the hard part.

Node-RED Google Assistant Bridge

googlehome.hardill.me.uk

Ditched Google all together. And ended up creating my own Alexa skill. Setup an AWS account and created the skill. Took a few hours but so much better. Not limited to everything showing up as a lightbulb and everything is near instant. AWS is free as long as I stay under 1,000,00 API calls a month. As voice is thing I want to rely on last I'm sure I'm not anywhere near that.

 

[zoob]

Haven't done nearly as much customization as you lowfat, but finally hit a few of the long needed changes:

1. Migrated to zwave js
   • Migration wizard broke a while ago but the setup kept hobbling along until a HA stopped working with old zwave
   • accidentally deleted a bunch of nodes, still need to re-add them
   • It's so much faster!!!
2. New automations
   • Ikea symfonisk remote (via zigbee2mqtt) is my new favourite dimmer remote! Push to toggle, rotate to dim. Have it controlling an old zwave plug-in lamp dimmer.
3. New zigbee2mqtt with web interface!
   • Map feature is great! I have an Ikea outlet switch at my stairwell landing and can confirm it's routing my upstairs zigbee devices
   • Web interface for permitting join is much simpler than going into terminal for a simple task

Still need to tackle the ESPHome update, and convert some of my enviro sensors over (Sensair S8 + BME680). A while back I setup an ESP in my shed to control my shed exhaust fan Airlift T12 speed when it gets too hot in there, using bme680_bsec for the environment sensor, and a simple reed sensor for the door open/close detection. Works super well! I'm a little bit afraid to update ESPHome in case it breaks this.

Shed fan controller was done using this as a guide:

Idiots guide to getting an esp32 to control AC Infinity Cloudline EC fans esphome/HA

Hey guys, finally got my esp32 properly controlling my 6" AC Infinity Cloudline EC motor fans and figured I would lay it all out for you. As the title suggests I'm an idiot and just getting back into electronics, so be kind if i'm off on terminology haha. Most of the hard lifting for this...

www.rollitup.org

binary_sensor:
  - platform: gpio
    name: Shed door
    id: shed_door_sensor
    device_class: door
    pin:
      number: GPIO4
      mode: INPUT_PULLUP

output:
  - platform: ledc
    pin: GPIO5
    id: shed_exhaust_fan_op
    inverted: true
    frequency: 1000

fan:
  - platform: speed
    output: shed_exhaust_fan_op
    name: "Shed exhaust fan"
    speed_count: 10
    id: shed_exhaust_fan

https://imgur.com/a/Sb1rbET

 

[lowfat]

I bought a zigbee usb adapter late last year but haven't got around to flashing it yet. Didn't know they needed to be flashed when I ordered. Then I ordered the flashing adapter. Then realized you need a special damn cable to flash it. Have it all now. But haven't flashed it. I have a few zigbee motion sensors. But the RF ones were so great I didn't bother......

Up until about 5 days ago. I had updated ESPHome on my RF Bridge. Not sure if it coincidence or not. But ever since I have to power cycle it a couple times a day. Tried reverting to a 6 month of version of ESPHome today and still seems to have the same issue.

Thankfully I do have another RF Bridge to test with. So went through the hassle to get it flashed to ESPHome just now. And I'm going to try to revert my existing one to Tasmota, to see if it issues continue.

EDIT: All done. Flashed the one w/ ESPHome and my original one w/ Tasmota. Both have the 'Portisch' RF firmware. Created binary sensor templates that combine results from both bridges. So if one goes down, the other will work as a backup flawlessly.

EDIT 2: Newly flashed RF bridge is down already. Exact same issue as the first. So obviously an ESPHome issue.

 

[lowfat]

Well the Emulated Roku for the Harmony ended up being a game changer. It has made my setups 11ty better. Setup a ton of input selects that get cycled w/ the Harmonys. Can cycle through brightness in the rooms, RGB colour. Between the 2 subs in the living room. Also added notifications to the C9 on which sub(s) are being used.


Also I did get a button setup to cycle brightness on both displays. But I ended up having to run a Windows VM to run ColorControl. Then use HASS Agent to send the commands via mqtt.

 

[lowfat]

Another post about how damn awesome the Roku emulation is. Bought a ShieldTV, launcher is absolute garbage. I find a solution to setup a custom launcher. But now I want the same launcher on my FireTV. Can't be done as the Launcher Manager app doesn't work.

So my solution was to create an automation in Home Assistant to start the new launcher. Bind it to a emulated Roku command. Then on the Harmony remote, use that Roku command for Home instead of Amazon home. And for the exit button I created a sequence on the Harmony. First it exits, then uses the emulated Roku command to open the new launcher. Works perfectly.