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On 20/01/18 16:48, Simon Avery wrote: > Always keen to have a geeky project, I've been dabbling a bit with Home > Automation lately. I've had a 1wire system measuring temps and CCTV IP > cameras for many years, and two years ago got a Nest thermostat - but > recently I've added some more things. A few remote control sockets, a > CurrentCost power meter, a lot of thermometer/humidistats and door > switches (Using the cheap Xiaomi hub) > > Like everyone else, you get fed up with all the different apps. Alexa > helps but I wanted something to tie it all together. > > There are two main choices - Home Assistant and OpenHAB. Neither of > which I liked, both have steep learning curves and require extensive > twiddling to get working. It was actually quite disappointing to find > this out. > > After a while, I stumbled upon Domoticz which does most of the setup > through a web interface. I run this on my home server and it's > compatible with all my equipment. > > Due to our dogs and lifestyle, we have a specific problem with high > humidity in the house, so a while ago I installed a MVHR home > ventilation system. This has been awesome, but it tended to need being > left on all the time, which in very cold weather reduced the temp inside > a fair bit - or manually control it. With the addition of a simple IP > controllable plug adapter and a humidistat in a few key rooms, it's now > nicely automated. When someone draws a bath, the humidity rises in the > bathroom and within 30 seconds the fan kicks in and stays on until the > humidity drops down again. This is just one example and genuinely makes > life a little easier and will prolong the life of the fan, save power > and keep the house warmer and more comfortable. I have other little > things that make life a little nicer as well as satisfy my inner geek. > (It's just told me that the kitchen door opened as the wife comes home, > for example) > > Below is a screenshot of a new interface I knocked up last night using > Dashticz. This will be displayed on a tablet in the hall. The CCTV and > Rain Radar updates every second too. This is just the key info - in > total I have around 20 temperature sensors around the house and garage, > 4 cctv cameras. Some of it exists just because I like data but also for > house-health reasons. > > Has anyone in here done something similar with home automation? > > https://i.imgur.com/wM2CdVX.jpg As a lifetime member of the "GUI Control Panel Appreciation Society" that gives me the warm fuzzies :] I've never come across Dashticz before so I'm going to check it out this afternoon but your setup is really, really intriguing - I haven't done anything like this yet but I get asked about it with increasing regularity as more and more random friends and clients get gadgets like solar panel inverters (with built in webservers), smart meters, NESTs, garage door openers... home automaton is fascinating stuff. I'm definitely going to have some questions for you a bit later once I've done some more reading up. >> Some of it exists just because I like data Haha, are you my long lost brother? But to get started, how is the control panel getting the information about TV recordings - is it talking to a Myth box somehow? That's cool. And what weather API are you using, is it weather underground? Lastly and most importantly, is all of this running entirely on your own equipment without cloud or remote hosted infrastructure? Pulling data from remote APIs for things like weather and TV/Radio scheduling is obviously fine but for me it's essential that I control everything locally. You mentioned Alexa for example, which is firmly on the wrong side of the line for me. Is that also tied in to your system somehow? Are you using anything like IFTTT? Cheers -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG https://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq