My new home automation micro server

[lowfat]

Finally got around to installing Node-RED on my HASS and spent a while spinning my wheels. Turns out often you need to ssh in to issue a "hassio homeassistant restart" for it to actually properly restart.

Do you have any real Hue stuff? I found this custom component that allows you to create automations using the Hue remote to trigger events - they report as a sensor and you trigger based on the state change of things like "1_click_up" for "On".

Hue motion sensors + remotes: custom component

Ahh yes I see. Can you give me a very simple automation example (which are the 8 states, I guess each button short and long press, so 4x2=8 states, yes?) Like this? - alias: 'Long Press ON Corridor switch' trigger: - platform: state entity_id: sensor.corridor_switch...

community.home-assistant.io

I managed to tie in SmartThings and Hue into my HASS and finally have "full" usage of the motion sensors and remotes on each system.

I don't use HASS.io so I'm not sure how it differs. But any config change you need to restart HA, and any time there is a config change in HA you'll need to restart NR to see the changes.

I've created a samba share of my HA folder. So I can edit all the configs w/ Notepad++. Then I've setup HA so I can reset my services through the UI easily.
An easy way to do this, is to create command line switches in HA. You can even control other machines over ssh if you setup ssh keys between the two machines. The command line switches are ugly in the UI tho, so I setup input booleans to use instead. The input booleans are just so I can toggle the automation in nodered, but through the HA UI.









Never used Hass.io so I'm not sure how easy it is to just restart the docker containers. So maybe all this isn't helpful.


And I use a few Hue's where I couldn't install my own switches, strips. Don't use a remote tho. I control everything w/ either complete automation or voice. So the default integration works fine.

 

[zoob]

Ah I think there is a misunderstanding - I had to ssh in and run that command on the console in order to restart it for config to pick up. Web interface isn't telling it to restart properly for some reason. I'm not using the hass.io cloud service.

BTW also found this: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/getting_started/what_do_i_need.html
Planning on using it to remove SmartThings Hub from my system to reduce latency/keep things local.

 

[lowfat]

Ah I think there is a misunderstanding - I had to ssh in and run that command on the console in order to restart it for config to pick up. Web interface isn't telling it to restart properly for some reason. I'm not using the hass.io cloud service.

BTW also found this: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/getting_started/what_do_i_need.html
Planning on using it to remove SmartThings Hub from my system to reduce latency/keep things local.

Hass / Hass.io is the name of the all-in-one image created for Home Assistant. It has build in Docker that it uses for everything. Which is what I believe you are running.

You can also just install Home Assistant bare-metal. Which is what I am doing since you can only install Hass.io on an SD card when using a Pi. I've never actually used Hass.io so somethings are different. Like I have no addons, and I'm not sure how/if you can restart services via the UI.

What I was suggesting was to create a 'command line switch' that would run the 'hassio homeassistant restart ' command. So you'd just hit the switch in the HA UI, and you wouldn't need to ssh in to the machine and do it manually.

I've redone most my Alexa automations in Node-Red yesterday. They are once again more complex yet simplified. The automations themselves do more, but the flows are cleaner.

 

[zoob]

Ahh I see, yes I'm using the premade hass image and using it on an Rpi3.

My node-red flow is pretty tame in comparison to yours

The basement lights are on two systems:
Smartthings for the basement stair motion sensor (zigbee) which triggers a zwave light switch.
Then it turns on the Home assistant zwave light switch for the basement light switch at the base of the stairs.
The zigbee2mqtt will enable me to have it all in HASS which will remove any delays from it going out to the internet.



I also think the sliding door function isn't quite working right so will need some further testing. FYI Ring contact sensors will join they just show up all weird. They're really cheap for being Zwave Plus though. $50 for a pair, vs $35 or $45 for a single from Dome or Monoprice. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they get properly added to openzwave.

 

[gingerbee]

wow, this is amazing. I tip my hat to those setting all this up. Truly a view of the future and great things to come

 

[zoob]

Going to try ESXi + Ubuntu + manual hassio install since there are no premade .ova images for it.
This will make me ready for the zigbee2mqtt portion and also speed up restarts. I have a simple config and it still takes a while on the Pi3.

 

[lowfat]

Going to try ESXi + Ubuntu + manual hassio install since there are no premade .ova images for it.
This will make me ready for the zigbee2mqtt portion and also speed up restarts. I have a simple config and it still takes a while on the Pi3.

Takes a while to do what? Restart the home assistant service or reboot the whole machine?

That is the problem w/ Hass.io, you have to install it on an microsd card. W/ the bare metal Home Assistant install, you obviously don't. But the addons sound nice and easy. I am hugely bottlenecked by USB2 for my SSD. But I notice zero difference between the LXC container I ran it in previously on my Proxmox machine. Really surprised that it runs so well on a RPi2B. CPU usage is generally like 5%, ram barely goes over 30%.

 

[zoob]

Takes a while to restart the service. It's not terrible but in my experimentation phase I'd like it to be faster.

I'm rebuilding it in a PC in pieces, and finally got the zigbee2mqtt setup. It's a lot easier than I thought! mqtt is running on the new server, and hassio is still running on the Pi. It'll get migrated to a VM soon.



Setup another Ubuntu VM for "home assistant interfaces" which is running mqtt service, and a docker for koenkk/zigbee2mqtt
Paired two sensors for now, a SmartThings motion sensor, and a Hue motion sensor. Eventually when zwave2mqtt is more stable I'll add another docker for that.



Here is how they show:
Hue:



SmartThings:



I'm not sure how often SmartThings sensor publishes Temperature. The Hue one doesn't come with every packet.

Simple flow for basement with the motion sensor - now I can bypass SmartThings hub and have it all run locally with no delay!


The hub will be kept around for updating firmware of end devices should the need arise.

 

[lowfat]

Since the last update I've completely stopped using MQTT and all my DIY ESP's now run ESPHome, which has native support w/ Home Assistant. I find it a whole lot easier to use.

Spent a whole lot of time on cleaning things up for my automation server. I upgraded to Rasbian Buster and swapped in a Pi3B. Tried a 4, but unfortunately it wouldn't boot.

Upgraded to newest version of HA. Spend all day today redoing the UI to make it look pretty.

NOTE: The % Job Completed only shows when something is actually printing.

Using way more Node-RED automations now as well.

 

[zoob]

Looks nice and dialed in now. Do you mind posting some pics of your ESP devices? Any issues with wifi congestion and/or battery life? Have you played around with any of those environmental sensors for TVOC/CO2 readings for your plants? Keeping things off Wifi was one of my goals but these DIY boxes seem a lot cheaper than doing everything over zwave.