Category: Home Automation

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Home Assistant Home Automation Z Wave

Home Assistant / HASSOS 2020 Build out

With all that has been going on in the world I decided with all my extra free time to get back into my Home Assistant setup and do some updates. There had been many changes and updates since the last time I looked at my system and let me tell you right off the bat, my system was running great. It had been up for about a year or so since the last catastrophic failure, which in my defense was due to my SD card becoming no longer readable. Before that my Home Assistant (that’s right not HASS.io) ran for like 3 years before this happened.

So I logged into my HASS.io setup and decided to start updating…. and that is where things went wrong. I tried to install OpenZWave which caused my zStick to stop working and my APIs for my smart thermostat and IKEA TRADFRI stopped working as well.

Needless to say I had to start from scratch so I downloaded the latest version of HASS.io and turned off my Raspberry Pi. Here is what I am working with for this setup:

  • Raspberry Pi 3 B+
  • 128 GB San Disk SD Card
  • Aeotec Z-Stick Gen 5

I loaded up my setup and fired up the Pi….. then I realized I forgot to configure my static networking for HASS.io. Fiddle sticks, So I hit the power button on my USB Dongle, popped the SD card back in my PC and made the Network changes (I can create a walk through for this later, or you can RTFM on the Home Assistant Website. Then I replaced the SD card again and fired up the Pi, and after 3 hours, nada. It didn’t work. ARGH!!!!

Apparently HASSOS (the OS for HASS.io) does not like it when you pull the power out while it is attempting to download files and databases. Go figure.

So I powered off the Pi and flashed the Card again and we were off to the races. FYI, I didn’t do the network config file this time either and it worked fine…. Thanks DHCP!

Once I got to the log in screen my first order of business was to get Open Z Wave running. I went to the Supervisor section of Home Assistant and added the Open Z Wave Add-on. What I didn’t realize was the fact that I needed to install MQTT before Turning on the Open Z Wave service. I can go into details on that in a later post as well but for now just know 2 things. First, once you turn on Open Z Wave for the first time it may take 2 or 3 tries for it to actually start and stay started. Even then it will take about 2 minutes for the service to load (depending on your hard ware). 2. Even if you click start on boot, it does not start on boot.

After all of that I finally got it to load as seen here:

Open Z Wave Dashboard

If I can give any first timers or even those who are used to the older Z Wave Interface any advice, it would be to be patient. It took about 12 hours for all of my Z Wave devices to finally report in.

Currently my Z Wave Devices are as follows

  • GE Z Wave Smart Switch (Gen 1)
  • Zooz Motion Sensor
  • Zooz 4 in 1 Sensor
  • Z Wave Door Sensor
  • Wave Door Sensor
  • GE Z Wave Smart Switch (Gen 2) (Not installed yet)

I am going to end this post here, but I plan to document my build out of Home Assistant and maybe even my VMware Home Lab where I might start to run Home Assistant on a VM!.

Categories
Home Assistant Home Automation Z Wave

Home Automation…. reinventing the wheel

A few months back I had a catastrophic failure with the Raspberry Pi that had been running my Home Automation Platform (Home Assistant). Long Story short, I reached the physical limit of writes available on an SD Card. Who knew you could reach that limit on less than 2 years if you are running an a Home Automation System, Logging Location Services, Temperature monitoring, well as an MQTT Broker on the same box?? 

Unfortunately my schedule did not allow for me to rebuild my Raspberry Pi sooner, and I am kind of glad that it did. During the time of being Home Assistant-less, I learned that I was really not using it to it’s fullest extent and that overtime most of the features that I depended on it for had been transitioned over to my Google Home/Smart Things Hub, or my kids ended up reprogramming (more on this later).
I started to think about what I really needed Home Assistant for, well besides turning on my Z Wave Controlled office lights for me (that was very handy). I also thought about how my Google Homes had been taking over my life. Then it occurred to me. 90% of what I use my Google Homes for is Voice controlling my lights. That is not Automation, 4 times out of 10 I have to repeat myself to get it to work, and the effort of turning on a light switch with my hand is not very taxing. 
Really, I am just being lazy….. End of Story!
Just kidding….
In all seriousness I decided to get back to basics and figure out what I had going on in my house that could use Automating and here is a list of projects I have come up with that I will do blog posts about in the future.
  • Install Philips Hue Lights (the wife bought me these about a year ago, Time I put them to work)
  • Automating Dehumidifier – using a Z Wave humidity sensor and a WEMO Outlet
  • Automating Basement Space Heater – Same concept as above
  • Automating Office Fan – Now this one is going to be tricky. I am not sure if I want it to turn on when I open the door, or at a certain temperature. 
  • Automating my Bearded Dragon’s Lights – Using a WiFi Enabled power strip
  • Automating Exterior lights – Using Presence of all family members and time of day
I have other lists of things that I would like to do down the road, but for now, this should keep me busy. 
Just so you are aware, I do have vanilla Home Assistant running on my Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and I am still trying to figure out what I am going to do about an MQTT Broker to communicate with my Smart Things Hub. I have been playing around with Docker and I am thinking that is a good place for it to live, as well as hosting it on a separate Pi or Linux machine. 
Come September my schedule will be going back to crazy, if not worse with some additional things I am putting on my plate which I hope to talk about soon.
Categories
Home Automation Z Wave

Home Automation Platform Discussion Continued……

In my previous post I spoke about the shut down of the Lowe’s IRIS Home Automation Platform. I went into great detail about several of the Open Source options that exist out there such as:

Home Assistant
HomeGenie
openHAB

I also made mention to there being paid Home Automation Systems that are available that do not require a subscription. But I did not make mention of them in my last post. I would like to take this opportunity to list some of the (in my opinion) more popular ones.

Depending on which one you plan on going with, you might be locked into a particular type of hardware or protocol, in other cases the platform might me more Open.

Google Home/Alexa – I mostly have experience dealing with the Google Home line of products, however I do have some experience with writing Alexa skills. I can say for sure that Google Home is compatible with a wide variety of products and services including some open source ones like Home Assistant.

Smartthings – Samsung is another one of those platforms that will accept different pieces of hardware. However I am pretty sure that you are locked into using the Zigbee protocol. Oddly enough, if you sign up for their developer portal, you can reprogram IKEA TRADFRI lights to work with it as seen in this Blog post I did years ago.

Philips Hue – I believe they only deal with lights, many different kinds of lights. From Bulbs, to LED Strips, to Wireless LED bulbs. Within their app you can set different Profiles or scenes for each device so you an set the mood.

Ikea Tradfri – I would call this one the poor man’s Hue. That does not mean that this product is any worse that the Hue, but I will say that the lights are cheaper, like $12 a bulb vs $20 a bulb for the hue. Like I said above, the TRADFRI operates using the Zigbee Protocol, so you can reprogram them to work with a Smartthings Hub if you follow the guides.

What I like the most about all of the hubs that I listed above is that they all can integrate with Home Assistant which is by far my favorite home automation platform. The downside is I now have 4 or more hubs running on my home network, but that is my problem.

I hope you guys found this article helpful and if so please share.

If you are interested in purchasing anything covered in this post, feel free to check out some of these links below.

Alexa: https://amzn.to/2CpgDiK

Hue: https://amzn.to/2CqcpHt

Smartthings: https://amzn.to/2HDzmKW

Raspberry Pi: https://amzn.to/2CjoMVV

Categories
Home Automation Z Wave

Lowe’s to shut down IRIS Home Automation Platform…..

A few weeks ago I saw this Article about Lowe’s Home Improvement Store shutting down it’s own proprietary home automation system. Here is the article if you wish to read it:

https://www-techhive-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.techhive.com/article/3337249/hubs-controllers/lowes-will-shut-down-its-iris-by-lowes-smart-home-platform.amp.html?amp_js_v=0.1#referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.techhive.com%2Farticle%2F3337249%2Fhubs-controllers%2Flowes-will-shut-down-its-iris-by-lowes-smart-home-platform.html

I have never used this system before, but my very first Home Automation System was a Nexia Home System. I thought it was awesome, until I realized it was a pay service, and I needed to use their hardware which was very hard to find.

The purpose of this post is not to mark the death of another proprietary home automation platform, but to bring awareness to some of the open platforms like Home Assistant, OpenHab, and others.

There ares several issues with these proprietary systems such as:

Locked into hardware – You have to use a set hardware list provided by the hub supplier. This limits you on what hardware you can use, and where you can procure it. Also non-branded hardware might not be supported by your hub.

Large up front costs – Just to get into the Home Automation game you not only need to pay for the “Smart” Hardware, but you will also need to pay for the Smart Hub, or Gateway.

Subscription Cost – You are required to purchase a subscription to use your home automation system. If you do not pay, your services will be terminated.

Locked into protocol – Each proprietary hub uses their own protocol. It could be ZWave, ZIGBEE, WiFi, or something else entirely. But either way you only get to use one.

Security – Instead of all events being handled on the local HUB (sometimes called a Gateway) all functions are handled in the “Cloud”. This means not only do you need an internet connection, but you are relying on the vendor for the security of your data, and your home.

Once you realize this you are going to think, is it even worth it to look into Home Automation?? Why should I do this when the cost is so much??

Well I am here to help show you another way. You see there are several open source options out there as well as non-subscription based Smart Home Solutions available to you.

Open Source Solutions

The benefits of Open Source Solutions include the following:

Open Hardware – You are not locked into specific hardware, which means that you can get your hardware from anywhere.

Low upfront cost – Most if not all Open Source Solutions can run their software on cheap/low cost hardware such as a Raspberry Pi.

Open Protocols – Most if not all Open Source Solutions support any protocol, if not multiple protocols at the same time.

Security – As the hub is running in your house, it is not necessary to connect it to a cloud service (but you can if you want) so you can prevent your system from being accessed from the internet if you want to.

Below is a list of Open Source solutions that I would recommend looking into:

OpenHab – I do not have much experience with Open Hab, but like most Open Source Home Automation Solutions, you can run the Hub software on a Raspberry Pi.

Home Genie – This was the first Home Automation Solution that I used. It was very easy to administer, but I found it limiting with what I could do. Now it has been several years since I looked at it, so I would suggest checking it out again. This one also can run on a Raspberry Pi.

Home Assistant – This is the Solution that I am currently using, and I have to say I love it. I have not found a limitation with the system, except for my SD card running out (but that was my Error). It is super simple to setup and even has a cloud connector is you want to be able to connect to cloud services like Alexa or Google Home.

I hope you found this guide helpful, please share with your friends.

If you are interested in purchasing anything mentioned in this post, please feel free to check it out in the links below.

Raspberry Pi: https://amzn.to/2CjoMVV

Nexia Home Automation: https://amzn.to/2FiEm5T