5 ms·

> I may link it up with Home Asssistant Which one? And why would you not consider Facebook's speaker but are apparently using somebody else's same product.

gh02t 9y ago
Home Assistant is an open source home automation tool, not a voice assistant. It's very good, I've been using it since early days. They also place a big emphasis on privacy and local control. https://www.home-assistant.io/ https://www.home-assistant.io/
- acidburnNSA 9y ago
  It's extremely good. I've been using it for a few years now in multiple locations and it's really incredibly powerful. Turn an old boiler into a smart furnace with a $5 MCU and a relay? Done. Full security system with email notifications containing snapshots from your webcam? Done. Turn old IR remote control into a full-house controller with a $1 IR receiver? Done. Man I love home-assistant.
  - potench 9y ago
    Do you have any tutorials, docs, code or anywhere you can send me for helpful tips on doing this with an IR remote/receiver? I want to automate a garage door and a gate because I accidentally leave them open all the time and they aren’t easy to see from the house so it would be nice to have a notification or state manager on my phone.
    - gh02t 9y ago
      There's a lot to learn if you're starting with electronics and automation from scratch, but you can start with the Adafruit tutorial on IR: https://learn.adafruit.com/using-an-infrared-library/hardware-needed https://learn.adafruit.com/using-an-infrared-library/hardwar... I do something similar, I have an ESP8266 microcontroller hooked up to an IR sender/receiver that I can use to send and receive codes from Home Assistant to control some stuff. The module I use takes care of encoding and decoding the IR and simply dumps it to serial, which the micro reads and forwards to Home Assistant via MQTT (and vice versa). It's this one https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5V-IR-Infrared-Remote-Decoder-Encoding-Transmitter-Receiver-Wireless-Module/32580582483.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5V-IR-Infrared-Remote-Decode... but it's not hard to do it with a bare IR emitter and receiver. Unfortunately I haven't had have much time lately to document many of my projects for other people, but you can learn a lot from Youtube and Google these days.
    - craftyguy 9y ago
      Here's my garage door project, that I've integrated into Home Assistant: https://github.com/craftyguy/esp-garage https://github.com/craftyguy/esp-garage I use an ultrasonic sensor to detect when the door is open or closed. It's very reliable. I even wired up Home Assistant to contact me (over sms by sending an email to my number@carrier) if the door has been open for >5 minutes, because I was precisely in your position of forgetting to close it.
    - acidburnNSA 9y ago
      Here's a blog post where the original LIRC component in Home Assistant was developed along with some info about how to use it [1]. In here an A/C unit, a TV, and a stereo are all controlled with one little IR LED. With a little z-wave door sensor (just a magnetic reed switch), you could have Home Assistant run an automation that says "If gate is open at 9:30am, close it." so then you don't even have to log in to click it. [1] https://partofthething.com/thoughts/adding-a-ir-send-and-receive-capabilities-to-my-home-assistant-based-smart-home/ https://partofthething.com/thoughts/adding-a-ir-send-and-rec...
    - Symbiote 9y ago
      Can your garage door close itself anyway? Some have a setting to close a few minutes after being opened. Might be simplest.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    > Full security system with email notifications containing snapshots from your webcam? I've been wanting to add this to my setup. Do you have any more details on what you have done? My main hurdles would be choosing decent cameras that can be used by Home Assistant... Cameras that don't want to phone home all the damn time.
    - gh02t 9y ago
      Making one with a Pi Zero W + the camera is pretty straightforward. Most of the good network cameras with simple APIs (RTSP or MJPEG) are not so trustworthy on the security side.
      - craftyguy 9y ago
        > + the camera What camera?! Seriously though, I don't necessarily want to write device drivers for a camera, maybe it's time I start looking at usb webcams to use?
        stryk 9y ago
        There's an "official" raspberry pi camera module with mature libraries already written, and I believe it comes in both a regular IR and a No-IR version for night-ish vision. There are also a ton of different 3D-printable mounts and jigs for them on sites like thingiverse and instructables. My favorite[1] comes as a kit with the jig, 3 servo motors, and an add-on board for a raspi. Using this I have a live-feed camera that can rotate up to 180 degress on 3 axis that I can control from anywhere in the world using my phone as long as my internet connection is up at home. All hosted locally, even the live feed frontend. It's not hard to build or set up either, took me a lazy day and I'm far from a good coder. 1: https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry-pi/products/pan-tilt-hat https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry-pi/products/...
        hanklazard 9y ago
        Mildly off-topic, but what’s your method for accessing your LAN remotely? Openvpn? I want to eventually get a secure way to remote in ...

gh02t 9y ago

Home Assistant is an open source home automation tool, not a voice assistant. It's very good, I've been using it since early days. They also place a big emphasis on privacy and local control. https://www.home-assistant.io/ https://www.home-assistant.io/

acidburnNSA 9y ago
It's extremely good. I've been using it for a few years now in multiple locations and it's really incredibly powerful. Turn an old boiler into a smart furnace with a $5 MCU and a relay? Done. Full security system with email notifications containing snapshots from your webcam? Done. Turn old IR remote control into a full-house controller with a $1 IR receiver? Done. Man I love home-assistant.
- potench 9y ago
  Do you have any tutorials, docs, code or anywhere you can send me for helpful tips on doing this with an IR remote/receiver? I want to automate a garage door and a gate because I accidentally leave them open all the time and they aren’t easy to see from the house so it would be nice to have a notification or state manager on my phone.
  - gh02t 9y ago
    There's a lot to learn if you're starting with electronics and automation from scratch, but you can start with the Adafruit tutorial on IR: https://learn.adafruit.com/using-an-infrared-library/hardware-needed https://learn.adafruit.com/using-an-infrared-library/hardwar... I do something similar, I have an ESP8266 microcontroller hooked up to an IR sender/receiver that I can use to send and receive codes from Home Assistant to control some stuff. The module I use takes care of encoding and decoding the IR and simply dumps it to serial, which the micro reads and forwards to Home Assistant via MQTT (and vice versa). It's this one https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5V-IR-Infrared-Remote-Decoder-Encoding-Transmitter-Receiver-Wireless-Module/32580582483.html https://www.aliexpress.com/item/5V-IR-Infrared-Remote-Decode... but it's not hard to do it with a bare IR emitter and receiver. Unfortunately I haven't had have much time lately to document many of my projects for other people, but you can learn a lot from Youtube and Google these days.
  - craftyguy 9y ago
    Here's my garage door project, that I've integrated into Home Assistant: https://github.com/craftyguy/esp-garage https://github.com/craftyguy/esp-garage I use an ultrasonic sensor to detect when the door is open or closed. It's very reliable. I even wired up Home Assistant to contact me (over sms by sending an email to my number@carrier) if the door has been open for >5 minutes, because I was precisely in your position of forgetting to close it.
  - acidburnNSA 9y ago
    Here's a blog post where the original LIRC component in Home Assistant was developed along with some info about how to use it [1]. In here an A/C unit, a TV, and a stereo are all controlled with one little IR LED. With a little z-wave door sensor (just a magnetic reed switch), you could have Home Assistant run an automation that says "If gate is open at 9:30am, close it." so then you don't even have to log in to click it. [1] https://partofthething.com/thoughts/adding-a-ir-send-and-receive-capabilities-to-my-home-assistant-based-smart-home/ https://partofthething.com/thoughts/adding-a-ir-send-and-rec...
  - Symbiote 9y ago
    Can your garage door close itself anyway? Some have a setting to close a few minutes after being opened. Might be simplest.
- craftyguy 9y ago
  > Full security system with email notifications containing snapshots from your webcam? I've been wanting to add this to my setup. Do you have any more details on what you have done? My main hurdles would be choosing decent cameras that can be used by Home Assistant... Cameras that don't want to phone home all the damn time.
  - gh02t 9y ago
    Making one with a Pi Zero W + the camera is pretty straightforward. Most of the good network cameras with simple APIs (RTSP or MJPEG) are not so trustworthy on the security side.
    - craftyguy 9y ago
      > + the camera What camera?! Seriously though, I don't necessarily want to write device drivers for a camera, maybe it's time I start looking at usb webcams to use?
      - stryk 9y ago
        There's an "official" raspberry pi camera module with mature libraries already written, and I believe it comes in both a regular IR and a No-IR version for night-ish vision. There are also a ton of different 3D-printable mounts and jigs for them on sites like thingiverse and instructables. My favorite[1] comes as a kit with the jig, 3 servo motors, and an add-on board for a raspi. Using this I have a live-feed camera that can rotate up to 180 degress on 3 axis that I can control from anywhere in the world using my phone as long as my internet connection is up at home. All hosted locally, even the live feed frontend. It's not hard to build or set up either, took me a lazy day and I'm far from a good coder. 1: https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry-pi/products/pan-tilt-hat https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry-pi/products/...
        hanklazard 9y ago
        Mildly off-topic, but what’s your method for accessing your LAN remotely? Openvpn? I want to eventually get a secure way to remote in ...