Finally, a local WEEE company gets to make a few hundred bucks selling off the glorified VOC sensors at the end.
Finally, a local WEEE company gets to make a few hundred bucks selling off the glorified VOC sensors at the end.
A low-wiring way to do it would be to replace the bulbs with hue/similar bulbs, then just put a battery powered button in the location you want to have the controls. £10-ish for each button, plus however much the bulbs are.
Then just have the button set to toggle the lights on/off (you can also call different presets like dim etc by pressing and holding).
Then hass just directly sends the on/off commands to the bulbs.
My first integration is going to be putting my standard “going out” dashboard by the front door.
Being able to glance and see UV index, temperature, rain probability is dead useful.
Bear in mind that the US’ main parties do not define the extent of Left and Right.
imho, not dissimilar to model planes>drones.
To operate a model plane, there was a not-small amount of effort you needed to work through (building, specialist components, local club, access to a proper field, etc.).
This meant that by the time you were flying, you probably had a pretty good understanding of being responsible with the new skill.
In the era of self-stabilising GPS guided UAVs delivered next-day ready-to-fly, the barrier to entry flew down.
And it took a little while for the legislation to catch up from “the clubs are usually sensible” to “don’t fly a 2KG drone over a crowd of people at head height with no experience or training”
There are a few ways to go about it. You can try to use the microsoft RDP like system with XRDP. Or you can go over to VNC.
But I agree, it is a little bit of a fiddle. Keep at it!
I think this is it. Extra margin they can slap on at the last second.
Prosumers aren’t going to care, because if the hardware is still OK, they can just re-install.
But consumers end up buying gear that is hobbled with shiteware.
It’s pulled from my main router using it’s metric for it. It only updates once a minute or so, but it’s a nice metric.
Once I switch over to more powerful gear, I’ll probably have to start using SNMP, which I don’t look forward to!
I’m currently using the PoE doorbell from Reolink, and regularly use it for intercom, because I don’t like wasting delivery drivers time while I run to the door. I can definitely recommend it. It’s worth the effort running the cable to have something that just works.
The default Reolink integration can raise events on:
Recording can be on-device with a micro SD, on network (recording the incoming stream), or by FTP.
Recording can be set like a dashcam too (only save when needed, and overwrite after a certain time)
By default it lights up around the button when it detects movement, I do not like this, so I turned it off.
If the area outside your house isn’t busy, you can do cool things like getting the person detection to alert you as someone approaches, rather than waiting for them to press the bell. Can make the postman jump the first few times.
There are also some features like doing TTS replies if you don’t acknowledge the doorbell inside a certain time.
I haven’t gone through the effort of setting up return audio from Homeassistant, and just use the RL app.
One of my key buying points for hardware is “will this run without any internet, and could I set it all up again without internet?”.
This is why I’m so happy to finally have Hue on my zigbee controller. And it’s why I’m always on the lookout for a second hand Valetudo compatible robovac.
You could also set up a local NTP server, and block them entirely.
Currently, I have mine set with an invalid gateway, and blocked from the internet to be sure.
Chaos 2 saves the day again.
I’m a bit late, but if it helps, I’ve had good results with the Sonoff and Tuya zigbee sensors. I prefer the Tuyas, just because they use AA instead of CR2032 batteries.
$50 will easily get you everything you need to start.
You might also want to think about getting a 433MHz radio for the system.
If you live in a built up area, you’d be surprised how many people have equipment transmitting on 433MHz already (free data!).
And a lot of generic wireless temperature sensor kits use it as a standard, making it a good value way to get weatherproof gear.
I got a generic fridge/freezer kit for about £10 that works perfectly with this.
Again, $50 or so for a DVB-T2 receiver. Just be aware that it’s a little more technically involved than pairing zigbee devices.
Bother me with DMs if you like, I’ve been fiddling with just about every protocol I can get my hands on for under £100!
Someone else already raised the mains wired safety/budget issue, but I may have a side suggestion for you: Bulbs as repeaters.
I’ve added hue bulbs directly to my zigbee network, where they also act as repeaters.
The problem then was people switching off at the switch. This has been resolved by adding a little zigbee button by the switch (as people can achieve the function without the mains switch).
Which gives the bonus of being able to do different taps.
(So for example, I have one click as toggle on/off, two clicks is daytime+bright, press+hold is evening+dim)
This is the reason I haven’t gone down the smart light switches path yet.
Anything that I’d trust enough on 240v is out of budget!
It definitely threw me the first time I was out of the house.
I decided the best solution was just to limit alerts to non-sensitive things.
While I’m generally very big on privacy, I really don’t give a monkeys if Apple/Google is relaying a message that says “Cat in garden!”
For components and wires that are made to a spec, I feel far more comfortable buying from CPC or Mouser.
Amazon sellers just feel like a coin flip if the guy is going to ship you CCA 24 AWG instead of OFC 23, in the hope you don’t notice or bother complaining.
I can absolutely see that happening in vsphere.
And eventually, 10 years and over £100 for a domain you’ll never use.
It’s me. Too many domains I have no idea what to do with.
For most squishy remotes, you can disable the buttons by taking the remote apart, and putting tape on the underside of the rubber button.