home assistant
Discussion
Comacchio said:
Have just built a Pi4 HA server and now looking for ideas on automations. Have some sonos gear, reolink NVR with 9 cameras, some other random bits and pieces kicking about. Not really sure what I'm trying to achieve but want to do some tinkering.
First off trying to run cameras using a pi4 may cause issues without using Frigate and a coral tpu. Especially with that many cameras. Even with a coral you will struggle with 9 cameras.If you fancy some real tinkering then look at making some cheap sensors using ESP home. An esp32 and some cheap sensors can help with loads of automations.
Comacchio said:
Have just built a Pi4 HA server and now looking for ideas on automations. Have some sonos gear, reolink NVR with 9 cameras, some other random bits and pieces kicking about. Not really sure what I'm trying to achieve but want to do some tinkering.
Smart light switches and motion sensors are great. The purists will tell you it's not true automation but I also like being able to voice activate lights (using emulated Hue via Alexa). Lots of people go for smart bulbs bit I'm of the opinion everything should also work as normal.If you go down the smart devices route spend a bit of time thinking if you want to use wifi, zigbee, z-wave, bluetooth or thread. All have thier downsides.
Comacchio said:
Have just built a Pi4 HA server and now looking for ideas on automations. Have some sonos gear, reolink NVR with 9 cameras, some other random bits and pieces kicking about. Not really sure what I'm trying to achieve but want to do some tinkering.
What's working well for me - with 5 cameras and a Pi4 HA is using HA to control the cameras as I want, but not streaming from the cameras to HA - I have left that in the camera software/device. It's working well - I can change the camera modes depending on whether we're home or not, and integrated it into the alarm, garage door and other stuff - but have left (in my case Eufy AI) doing all the facial recognition, AI, motion detection and so forth.ARHarh said:
dmsims said:
Engage Crystal Ball - That Pi will soon be replaced by a much cheaper NUC and an SSD
And then that NUC will have another more powerful pc added to it for running AI and frigate stuff. See you at the end of the rabbit hole
Oh what's that it doesn't have an end 
spants said:
ARHarh said:
dmsims said:
Engage Crystal Ball - That Pi will soon be replaced by a much cheaper NUC and an SSD
And then that NUC will have another more powerful pc added to it for running AI and frigate stuff. See you at the end of the rabbit hole
Oh what's that it doesn't have an end Starting to get to grips with things. Have started configuring areas and assigning devices, built a cctv dashboard although will still be using reolink app for that for the main part. I tried to set up the Waste Collection Schedule from HACS with my local council but cant seem to get that working at all.
Just going to mess around with a few things at a time - have added zones for my work, wifes work, parents house etc - interested in getting the google maps ping for journey times working on those.
Just going to mess around with a few things at a time - have added zones for my work, wifes work, parents house etc - interested in getting the google maps ping for journey times working on those.
The Google Maps thing is pretty easy to setup, it will take dynamic locations too, so you can get the time to/from you to various places. I have a widget on my phone home screen that tells me how far I am from my wife, which is handy....
If you setup your commute then when you look at the history you can see how the traffic impacts the journey time and what happens if you get out of bed earlier.
If you setup your commute then when you look at the history you can see how the traffic impacts the journey time and what happens if you get out of bed earlier.
paulrockliffe said:
The Google Maps thing is pretty easy to setup, it will take dynamic locations too, so you can get the time to/from you to various places. I have a widget on my phone home screen that tells me how far I am from my wife, which is handy....
If you setup your commute then when you look at the history you can see how the traffic impacts the journey time and what happens if you get out of bed earlier.
Any chance you can share how you've this up please? Some brief research suggests the google API can land you in hot water with costs, Waze possibly not. I've got Tailscale installed on my HA server, my phone and my wife's phone. Logged into HA app on my phone and wife's phone. Long term thinking about having a tablet in the kitchen for morning info - weather, commute etc. Evening tracking when either of us will be home can be added later.If you setup your commute then when you look at the history you can see how the traffic impacts the journey time and what happens if you get out of bed earlier.
I have used waze travel time for years, just does what it says it does. Not tried google maps as it didn't exist when I set up waze so I had no choice. I use a combination of Waze and the app to let me know when the wife has left work, and how long it will take her to get home etc. This triggers notifications on my voice assist. I also have a tablet to view the map if needed.
This is very useful to know where either one of us is, the only issue is we live on the north Wales border and phone coverage can get a bit sketchy to say the least.
I would buy a cheap tablet to use as a dashboard it is very useful, far easier to walk to a dedicated tablet than open an app for info, or turning something on.
This is very useful to know where either one of us is, the only issue is we live on the north Wales border and phone coverage can get a bit sketchy to say the least.
I would buy a cheap tablet to use as a dashboard it is very useful, far easier to walk to a dedicated tablet than open an app for info, or turning something on.
Comacchio said:
Any chance you can share how you've this up please? Some brief research suggests the google API can land you in hot water with costs, Waze possibly not. I've got Tailscale installed on my HA server, my phone and my wife's phone. Logged into HA app on my phone and wife's phone. Long term thinking about having a tablet in the kitchen for morning info - weather, commute etc. Evening tracking when either of us will be home can be added later.
I just Googled it, needed to configure an App on the Google Developer dashboard and use it's Secret to authenticate. Think it just stops working if you hammer the API, but it's not really hammering it either.I'm using Cloudflare with my own domain to allow devices to communicate with HA when they're out and about.
ARHarh said:
I would buy a cheap tablet to use as a dashboard it is very useful, far easier to walk to a dedicated tablet than open an app for info, or turning something on.
Interesting - my perspective is completely the opposite, the main benefit to me of HA is in being able to control stuff from "wherever". So we have no dashboards other than the app on our phones.ARHarh said:
spants said:
ARHarh said:
dmsims said:
Engage Crystal Ball - That Pi will soon be replaced by a much cheaper NUC and an SSD
And then that NUC will have another more powerful pc added to it for running AI and frigate stuff. See you at the end of the rabbit hole
Oh what's that it doesn't have an end Arnold Cunningham said:
ARHarh said:
I would buy a cheap tablet to use as a dashboard it is very useful, far easier to walk to a dedicated tablet than open an app for info, or turning something on.
Interesting - my perspective is completely the opposite, the main benefit to me of HA is in being able to control stuff from "wherever". So we have no dashboards other than the app on our phones.We've got a tablet running HA on the wall in the kitchen and it gets used all the time.
There's a calendar, weather and a map on the dashboard, plus there's the usual lights and heating and stuff. Then it's one click for local traffic and todo lists. We also have a button on there that summons everyone to dinner.
It comes on automatically when you walk up to it so always ready to go, and that makes for a more elegant user experience than getting your phone out.
I just bought a second hand Lenovo off ebay for £80 I think it was and it does the job nicely. Handily the Lenovo ones have a specific mode for looking after the battery when permanently plugged in, so I don't need to worry about that.
There's a calendar, weather and a map on the dashboard, plus there's the usual lights and heating and stuff. Then it's one click for local traffic and todo lists. We also have a button on there that summons everyone to dinner.
It comes on automatically when you walk up to it so always ready to go, and that makes for a more elegant user experience than getting your phone out.
I just bought a second hand Lenovo off ebay for £80 I think it was and it does the job nicely. Handily the Lenovo ones have a specific mode for looking after the battery when permanently plugged in, so I don't need to worry about that.
Any HA guru's able to tell me what I'm doing wrong here? I have a couple of Sonoff temperature/humidity sensors that I use to calculate absolute humidity, and then use the difference between the two (bathroom and stair well) to control the bathroom fan. One of the sensors reads a couple of % higher than the other, not that surprising for cheap sensors, so I was thinking I'd add an additional virtual sensor and apply an offset to get them to match
My attempt below doesn't seem to work though, what am I doing wrong?
template:
- sensor:
- name: "Bathroom_humidity_Offset"
state: >
{{states('sensor.bathroom_temp_humidity_humidity')|round(1) - 2 }}
unit_of_measurement: "%"
device_class: "humidity"
state_class: "measurement"
My attempt below doesn't seem to work though, what am I doing wrong?
template:
- sensor:
- name: "Bathroom_humidity_Offset"
state: >
{{states('sensor.bathroom_temp_humidity_humidity')|round(1) - 2 }}
unit_of_measurement: "%"
device_class: "humidity"
state_class: "measurement"
Edited by RizzoTheRat on Thursday 31st October 09:13
That's more or less what I used to do, but the problem of just using the relative humidity percentage is on a really humid day the background humidity level in the house can be higher than the threshold I've set the fans to turn off at (I live by the coast).
My current setup turns the fans on when the bathroom is 4g/m3 higher than the stairs, and off again when it drops below 2. This seems to work a lot better apart from the slight inaccuracy between the two sensors which means I have to set the trigger a bit higher than I would otherwise.
My initial thought is just do an offset to calibrate one sensor to the other every so often, but I could potentially do it automatically at a time when I'm confident the bathroom should be about the same humidity as the rest of the house.
My current setup turns the fans on when the bathroom is 4g/m3 higher than the stairs, and off again when it drops below 2. This seems to work a lot better apart from the slight inaccuracy between the two sensors which means I have to set the trigger a bit higher than I would otherwise.
My initial thought is just do an offset to calibrate one sensor to the other every so often, but I could potentially do it automatically at a time when I'm confident the bathroom should be about the same humidity as the rest of the house.
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