homeassistant

Hi all,

I'm in the UK and I would like to replace my old switches that turn on/off the lights in the corridor. There are two switches and they are working as a two way switches (3 wires connected to each of them). I would like to replace them with two smart switches that ideally don't require additional apps to set up and ideally no need to connect to any cloud services. Any advice is welcome.

Thanks,

Hi all! I have a HA server in my LAN and all my IoT devices are in a separate VLAN. In this way to insert all the devices I have to configure them all manually using MQTT commands. Since I'm fed up about this method, I've added a second NIC to the HA VM (Proxmox) that is in the IoT VLAN. When I enter the terminal I see that HA has 2 IPs, one for each network and I thought that all the Shelly (they use the same MQTT broker that uses HA, they're not configured for cloud connection and ColoT is enabled) devices would appear in HA, but...they don't. How do you think that I can troubleshoot this problem?

This was a bit of a crazy release because it requires people to update adapter firmware and also add

  adapter: ember
  rtscts: false

To your configuration.yaml. Needless to say there's a bunch that have run into issues as a result.

The problem I try to solve Looking for a temperature sensor using Bluetooth that can report to Home Assistant through my phone when out and about and preferably (but not necessarily) report through my ESPhome BT-proxies at home.

Background I have a 3 year old son with type 1 diabetes. As a result I always have to carry insulin, a temperature sensitive medication. The vials are stored long term in the door of my fridge together with a ZigBee sensor monitoring the temperature of the insulin. If it freezes the Insulin denatures and won’t have any relevant effect if used. The vial that I carry with me will last for around a month as long as it stays above 0 °C (and under around 25-30 °C). My son uses a CGM/pump-based system, creating a BAN that also involves his smartphone. This means that phone is always near the vial and could record temperature (and send telemetry data) continuously, even away from home. I want to use a temperature sensor to identify spoiled medication due to thermal conditions even when my son leaves our home.

My current (imperfect) solution I currently deploy a solution where I use a Meshtastic node with a BME280 sensor. It reports through the mesh to a node at home. This node uses MQTT to talk to Home Assistant. The problem with this system (although nice being totally independent from the Internet) is limited coverage of the surroundings as well as very infrequent telemetry reporting to not overload the common mesh in my city.

Is there an easier solution? Preferably one that uses the smartphones bluetooth (BLE?) and reports back over the Internet.

Hi, all. I recently received two Zooz Zen51 dry contact relays, and installed one of them in an outdoor flood light fixture with a motion sensor. I thought I'd share my thoughts on the device in case anyone else is thinking about it. Note, I'm in the US and only familiar with US electrical wiring.

1. I didn't notice until after I installed it that the recommended temperature is 32-100 F (0-38 C), and it's marked for "indoor use only". Well, it's safely in an electrical box with a gasket and won't get wet, so I'm too worried about the latter thing, but I am curious if I'll have issues with temperature with it. It's supposed to get really cold here in a few days, so we'll see then!

2. Size - it's pretty small, but won't fit in every box, especially smaller switch boxes. There was plenty of room in the box behind the motion sensor light, but that's not surprising.

3. It gives HA a control to turn the light on and off via a switch entity, which is what I expected.

4. I was surprised that the "switch" function (in my case, the motion sensor is the switch, but it could also be a regular light switch) status is not reported, unlike the Shelly 1 I have. Instead, there's an event that is fired when the motion sensor turns on or off. So I can't (directly - I could program a template sensor) see what the current status of the motion sensor is (i.e., is it calling for light or not?).

5. Pairing - the directions are a little sloppy on this point. To start the pairing mode, you have to hit the button on the device VERY quickly three times. The slowly blinking green light is the normal operating mode. This is clear when you look up the HA directions on their website, but it's not really in the directions that come with it. The directions that come with it imply it'll automatically connect once you hit the pairing mode in HA. (I installed Zooz's smoke detector sensor a few weeks ago and had the same gripe then...but I forgot when I went to install the Zen51.)

(Note this also means you want to pair before you reassemble everything!)

6. There are a bunch of configuration options that can do interesting things. For example I could have it automatically shut off the light after a few seconds or minutes. Or I could "reverse" the operation of the motion sensor - turn off the light when it senses motion, and turn it on otherwise. (I can't think of a use case for that latter situation, but the possibility exists, and I'm sure someone can find a use for it.)

7. Configuration is very easy through HA. Go to the device, click configure, then ...configure it. Most options are explained well, but a few aren't clear enough to use without looking it up. For an example of the latter, the "Auto timer unit" setting lets you choose seconds or minutes for the automatic turn off/turn on features...but it doesn't say whether "1" is minutes or seconds. But this is a minor issue; once you have it configured once, you'll probably not need to worry about it again.

8. The configuration option "External switch type" was interesting. I set mine to "Toggle switch"...then discovered, the next morning, that the light was on all night. In that mode, any state change of the connected switch (either on to off, or off to on) prompts a flip in the on/off status of the device. So what happened was that I had the light shut off when I went to bed, then the motion sensor turned off, and the Zen51 interpreted that as me wanting the light to come on.

"Toggle switch with fixed actions" was what I actually wanted (and is the default). Motion sensor comes on: light comes on. Motion sensor tells the light to turn off: light turns off if it's on.

I haven't tried the other three modes - Momentary Switch (seems self-explanatory), Split 3-way, and Garage door mode momentary (also seems self-explanatory). Split 3-way lets you use the Zen51 when there's a 3-way switch setup (two switches controlling one light, usually).

9. Without any special actions in HA, the light works normally. But I now have the ability to turn it on for reasons other than motion, or turn it off manually when triggered by motion (i.e., I trigger it while walking the dog, then go to bed - my "bedtime" scene will turn it off, if it's still on at that point). I'm planning an "all outdoor lights on" mode that will turn on, well, all outdoor lights, and this will fit right into that plan.

10. The other reason I wanted to install this was to provide a point that is closer to the detached garage in the hopes that the Z-wave switch I installed there would now be able to connect to the network. No go on that front, though. :( It should act as a relay but that switch might still be too far away. I might pull that other Z-wave switch back out and put a standard light switch in, and use the second Zen51 to control a different set of lights in the garage (it's a long story as to why I'd do this).

11. The secure pairing failed. I didn't retry it, so I don't know if that was a fluke or something more; it did connect in insecure mode. Unfortunately to retry it, I would have had to exclude the device, then re-include it, and I was running short on daylight to finish this installation.

That's all I have, I hope that helps someone who is thinking about these.

What companies are currently creating #ESPHome devices that you have bought and used? @homeassistant #homeassistant

Examples:

Apollo Automation (https://apolloautomation.com/)

Elevated Sensors (https://www.elevatedsensors.com/)

I recently started using AutoBackup and every now and then, after it runs, zigbee2mqtt isn't running anymore and needs to be manually restarted. "Start on boot" and "Watchdog" are both enabled for z2m. Has anyone else experienced this?

I suppose I could add a step on to the backup automation to explicitly restart z2m, but I feel like that would just be a bandaid for a problem better fixed somewhere else. I just don't know where that might be.

Hey everyone.

I have my homeassistant setup. Something I'm looking to do is a simple alarm clock, slowly turning up my LED strip, and gradually say turning on music in 1% increments. But I really haven't had much luck coming up with a not silly $100 + system to, just have a music player that hass can control. I have a basic bottom line tablet in our bedroom set up as a home assistant dashboard. we have a paid spotify account.

But I'm kind of losing my head trying to wrap around exactly what or how to actually get a controllable system. that can be set up in my bedroom without any costly additions to my bedroom. We have plenty of bluetooth speakers, but to my knowledge all of them require actually turning them on manually if they weren't playing music before. Which kind of negates their value for an alarm clock.

After a recent update to ESPHome, my ATOM Echos no longer show a wake word in Home Assistant and the wake word field isn't even editable:

And indeed they aren't responding to me speaking the wake word.

Has anyone encountered this? Does anyone know of a fix or has a suggestion?

Hi everyone!

I’ve had my Hassio Yellow for a while and I am really happy with it – and because feck Philips and their spy-app.

However, I haven’t set up remote access yet because it seems really daunting and I’m worried I’ll make a mess. I am not bad with tech, but I’m not a computer engineer – and reading some Hassio texts makes me feel like I should, and I get easily overwhelmed…

I found the TOR add-on and I was considering that – but it mentions VPN, which I use, and to which my Hassio is connected.

My questions are:

• Do I need to install the add-on if I use VPN?
• If not, how do I set up remote access with my VPN?
• Should I stop using VPN if I set up TOR remote access?

Thank you all in advance.

Hey all,

A couple of weeks ago I posted my 3D printable pegboard organizers, and today I’m releasing the Only Sensor line of home automation sensors.

Fully free and open, complete with wiring diagrams, cases, component bill of materials, and instructions for assembly.

You source and build them yourself, with acquisition costs ranging from $2-$35 to build, and options for:

• mmWave presence
• PIR motion detection
• Temperature
• Humidity
• LUX
• PM <10µm AQI
• PM <2.5µm AQI
• PM <1µm AQI
• NOX
• VOC

All integrate with Home Assistant via ESPHome.

All the details can be found at: https://nowsci.com/only-sensor/

It's Christmas and I'm not at work but my bloody alarm clock automation was set up wrong so my alarm went off at 6.30am and my body wouldn't let me get back off to sleep.

So I made a coffee and sat down at my PC and went "What project am I sorting out now?" which is a typical thought when I'm out of bed before everyone else.

Today I knew my Wife wanted me to get the house tidy for Xmas so what better time to get my head around ToDo lists?

Incidentally I have just made a bed sensor so at some point I hit "Deploy" in Node Red and all my lights got brighter, which was odd because I wasn't tinkering with them, but it turned out my Wife had just gotten out of bed and that turned off the night lights.

So I've made separate ToDo lists for each of us and made specific Lovelace pages for each of them. At certain times of the day Node Red will check if there's jobs outstanding on the list and send an actionable notification if you're home. The notification has a button that will open the Lovelace page with your list on.

I've then added a check of the number of jobs in the list and if they increase you get a notification. If they hit zero you get a congratulations notification.

Turns out it was a great project to set up. I've been adding jobs to the kids lists all day, they've been knocking them down again. Wife has added jobs to my list. Happy Wife happy Life eh?

So hopefully going forward there will be less conflict in the house over housework as they jobs will all be handed out with this method.

I've yet to set up recurring jobs like washing up or changing the cat litters, but theoretically I can add these automatically.

I've since taken what I've learned from this project and applied it to my shopping list. I've managed to import my Google Keep shopping list into HA and can now get actionable notification when I hit the supermarket, and still use Google Assistant to add items.

What do you use Todo lists to do? Is there some cool tricks I'm missing?

This looks like a viable competitor to the recently announced HA Voice Preview hardware. Looks like it's sold out at this point but there will be more coming. More microphones, presence detection and a builtin amplifier to run fairly substantial speakers.

https://futureproofhomes.net/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=product_shelf

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/23317790

Just rings for now, going to expand functionality later to handle authentication for unlocking the door and maybe other things lol

I've made a python server script that can send serial commands to a connected usb serial device. I use this to control my retrotink 4k using a raspberrypi zero w, but it is generic enough that you could control other devices. In the readme, it shows how to setup a restful command.

In my house I have 3 circuits of floor heating elements, each is connected to single phase (230V) 16A fuse and on one of them I have Heatit Z-TRM3 connected via z-wave to my home assistant. Others are manually controlled dumb thermostats.

That thing works, but at least the particular one I got causes a lot of interference to the z-wave network, so I'm a bit hesistant to add any more of those.

Features I must have:

• Option for a floor temperature sensor. Each thermostat has separate pipe going to the floor and the floor sensor is easy enough to replace, but it is a must have option
• Air temperature sensor. 2/3 of the heating elements are in a concrete slab and that means that measured temperature of the slab very slowly affects the air temperature, so I need both. ESP32 or equivalent as a separate sensor might be a decent workaround, but I'd rather have both on a single unit.
• Obviously the 230V 16A capability as that's what they're wired on and even if I don't have 3kW elements on the floor it's what's needed to meet the code
• Manual controls on the device itself. Should my raspberry pi running home assistant kick the bucket or some other major issue with the automations happens, I still need an option to control the device. And that's a strict requirement, no bluetooth apps on the phone or anything, I must have manual buttons or some other way to control the thing without home assistant or any other smart device.
• And addition to previous one: No cloud requirement. Allowing the device to the internet for a setup is fine, but in the long run it must be happy in a isolated network without internet connectivity

For the communication I don't really care. I currently have only wifi/z-wave as an option, but if there's something on zigbee which ticks all the boxes I can invest in a usb-dongle or a hub.

Price is obviously a concern, but it's hard to set any strict boundaries. I won't throw a 1000€ for a thermostat, but anything even remotely reasonable goes.

What are your suggestions for a situation like this?

As Home Assistant continues to grow and evolve, so does our commitment to making it more inclusive, accessible, and aligned with the diverse needs of our community. To that end, we’re launching an annual survey—and we hope you’ll participate!

We could keep assuming our community’s wants and needs, but we’d rather base our decisions on data-driven insights 😉. With this survey, we aim to better understand not just how you use Home Assistant, but also who you are as a person, a smart home user, and a member of our community.

First and foremost, the survey is entirely anonymous, and you can skip any question you don’t want to answer. For sensitive questions (e.g., gender), we provide options like “prefer not to say” or open text fields.

Normally I wouldn't spread word of a survey, but considering Fenick has suggested the Home Assistant community use BlueSky over Mastodon, I thought it might be a good idea to reaffirm to them that the Fediverse has a voice. I also wrote in Lemmy in "Other" responses where applicable.

It's a fairly long survey; they estimate 20 minutes, I think it took me around 15 after skipping a few questions.

How many of you have a @homeassistant controlled #Christmas ornament?!

This awesome #ESPHome device from Apollo Automation can work standalone by pressing a button on the ornament, or you can flash the firmware with ESPHome capable firmware so you can control it with Home Assistant. Now I can automate the ornament turning on and off, change the colors, and even play built-in songs or even upload my own!

Better yet? 100% of profit goes to #charity !

https://apolloautomation.com/products/apollo-h-1-annual-holiday-ornament

It could be the thing that makes Home Assistant suddenly interesting for many ""normies"".

Hello 👋

I have Shinobi running with 6 cameras connected, 2 are unifi things and 4 are Reolink Duo 2 PoE.

The 2 unifi cameras record on motion fine, but the Reolink cameras dont seem to record much at all.

Has anyone used the Reolink Duo 2 with Shinobi and do you have them recording motion only?

Hey guys,

I've absolutely had it with my Ring camera and doorbell, ive started using a network wide VPN and they are just too unreliable and expensive to continue - let alone actively blocking IPs from VPNs which I didnt know about and think is ridiculous.

I have looked in to Reolink cameras because I've seen someone talking about them before on lemmy, question is:

Have any of you used Reolink cameras and NVR in your setup and how well does it integrate / whats your opinion on the cameras themselves?