5 ms·

I have been using home assistant for about 6 months now. Currently I am mainly using it to show what is happening around the home (device detection, adsl data

I have been using home assistant for about 6 months now. Currently I am mainly using it to show what is happening around the home (device detection, adsl data usage, weather from my simple weather station, house power usage etc, local train level crossing state (barrier down/up)) Very impressed with how easy it is to add new items to the overview. I have one smart plug, the intention is to control the Christmas lights this year. I did do this about 15 years ago with my old x10 system and it would be nice to try something a bit more advanced.

taxidump 7y ago
How do you track the train barrier state?
- mlaretallack 7y ago
  The data comes from the open rail data project https://wiki.openraildata.com//index.php?title=Main_Page https://wiki.openraildata.com//index.php?title=Main_Page Some crossings in the uk are directly available as a state within the data, mine is not so I have to track the trains into and out of a region. When the train enters the region, I assume the crossing must be down and when it leaves, I assume it must be up. Its about 30 seconds to a minute off, but for my purpose that's OK.
  - 0xffff2 7y ago
    Out of curiosity, what is your purpose? Do the crossings stay down long enough to cause backups sufficiently large that you alter your schedule to avoid them?
    - alexfoo 7y ago
      Probably yes (I'm guessing as I'm not the OP). There's a level crossing a few miles from me that has automated barriers. The tricky bit is the crossing is right next to a station and there will be various rules in force:- * barriers must be down at least X seconds before a train is due to go through * barriers must be down even if the train is coming in to the station to stop (before it gets to the crossing) - the barriers must be down in case it overshoots * etc Whilst the barriers can go up as soon as a train has passed there may be another one along shortly enough that it's not worth opening the barriers only to close them a few seconds later. Combine those with a timetable that puts 10+ trains an hour each direction and the barriers will probably be down for longer than they are up in peak times. I've seen them down for 10+ minutes at a time. Here's the google streetview that just happens to have a train that has already passed and stopped at the station: https://goo.gl/maps/jhzApjZHUAJ4FcSt6 https://goo.gl/maps/jhzApjZHUAJ4FcSt6 As a pedestrian (or a cyclist without lots of luggage) it's often faster to use the footbridge to cross rather than waiting for the train(s) to pass and the barriers to rise.
      - 0xffff2 7y ago
        Wow. There's a similar intersection near me in the bay area, and it always struck me as an incredibly poor design. I'm sort of surprised to see that there's another such intersection in the world. Fortunately (?), I don't think CalTrain runs any more than every 15 minutes, so the gates are rarely down for more than a couple minutes at a time.
    - mlaretallack 7y ago
      Originally it was curiosity, however of has moved on from that. I work in the traffic industry. If we can slow people down before they reach the queue, then we can reduce the impact of them joining the queue (co2 etc....).
  - gerdesj 7y ago
    Thanks for the link. There goes my evening ...
    - mlaretallack 7y ago
      And my last 4 years :)
canada_dry 7y ago
> old x10 According to wiki they filed for bankrupcy in 2013. Their www.x10.com website is still going - flogging the same stuff as 20 years ago. I still have a few boxes of x10 hardware that I spent a small fortune on back in the 90's. I like that signals went through mains (vs. radio signals) but the reliability is poor.
- mikepurvis 7y ago
  I looked into it a few years ago when the radio-based stuff was still fairly immature/expensive, and it seemed like it was super low bandwidth. Like, fine for on/off operations, but not really fast enough to do things like have a light track a dimmer.
- mlaretallack 7y ago
  I have my old flat in 2000(ish) fully linked. This. Included PIR sensors, door sensors, and lamps, lights. I also had. The heating fitted with an x10 switch. This meant that I could turn the heating on and my kettle on remotely on the way home from work. X10 was nice that it could communicate through main, but when I started to use Ethernet over power, it stopped working. It also was one-way. There was no confirm or status from the switch devices.
- jedberg 7y ago
  The nice thing about x10 is that most of the commands were idempotent. As such, I would send every signal once a second for 10 seconds. Usually the light came in within 3-5 seconds but sometimes it would be 10 seconds.
MrQuincle 7y ago
You mean like what I'm doing right now on a fair all the time... :-) https://twitter.com/annevanrossum/status/1200478825458622464?s=19 https://twitter.com/annevanrossum/status/1200478825458622464... This is not the interesting feature of this system by the way. That is microgeofencing, knowing per room where people are. Yes, you know where you are in the house. However, your "smart" home does not. Integration with home assistant is on the roadmap. We need a few more people to want it. Yes, it's a shameless plug. However, there aren't many open source hardware products on the market, so I think it contributes to the discussion.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  Mycroft gets my attention in this regard.
  - MrQuincle 7y ago
    Definitely! It's the only open source smart speaker I know. Here in Holland there's also the Homey, but they locked most of it. It's benefit is that you can run local connections. Even the Google Local SDK does not support BLE connections to local devices.
    - mackrevinack 7y ago
      there is Snips as well. you can install it on a raspberry pi but I think they are working on making an actual hardware speaker too
      - SEJeff 7y ago
        Snips was recently purchased by Sonos, who already makes actual hardware speakers.
- a254613e 7y ago
  > Yes, you know where you are in the house. However, your "smart" home does not. I solved this in home assistant by adding sensors to my doors inside the apartment. For example if the living room doors are closed, and after that there's movement inside, the room is marked as "occupied". It works really well. Same could be achieved with straight line movement sensors on the door frames, if you're someone who keeps the doors open all the time. And speaking of open source, my whole smart home setup (from sensors, lights, heating, etc) works offline and using open source software and protocols even if hardware isn't open source itself. Which I found to be a good tradeoff.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

taxidump 7y ago

How do you track the train barrier state?

mlaretallack 7y ago
The data comes from the open rail data project https://wiki.openraildata.com//index.php?title=Main_Page https://wiki.openraildata.com//index.php?title=Main_Page Some crossings in the uk are directly available as a state within the data, mine is not so I have to track the trains into and out of a region. When the train enters the region, I assume the crossing must be down and when it leaves, I assume it must be up. Its about 30 seconds to a minute off, but for my purpose that's OK.
- 0xffff2 7y ago
  Out of curiosity, what is your purpose? Do the crossings stay down long enough to cause backups sufficiently large that you alter your schedule to avoid them?
  - alexfoo 7y ago
    Probably yes (I'm guessing as I'm not the OP). There's a level crossing a few miles from me that has automated barriers. The tricky bit is the crossing is right next to a station and there will be various rules in force:- * barriers must be down at least X seconds before a train is due to go through * barriers must be down even if the train is coming in to the station to stop (before it gets to the crossing) - the barriers must be down in case it overshoots * etc Whilst the barriers can go up as soon as a train has passed there may be another one along shortly enough that it's not worth opening the barriers only to close them a few seconds later. Combine those with a timetable that puts 10+ trains an hour each direction and the barriers will probably be down for longer than they are up in peak times. I've seen them down for 10+ minutes at a time. Here's the google streetview that just happens to have a train that has already passed and stopped at the station: https://goo.gl/maps/jhzApjZHUAJ4FcSt6 https://goo.gl/maps/jhzApjZHUAJ4FcSt6 As a pedestrian (or a cyclist without lots of luggage) it's often faster to use the footbridge to cross rather than waiting for the train(s) to pass and the barriers to rise.
    - 0xffff2 7y ago
      Wow. There's a similar intersection near me in the bay area, and it always struck me as an incredibly poor design. I'm sort of surprised to see that there's another such intersection in the world. Fortunately (?), I don't think CalTrain runs any more than every 15 minutes, so the gates are rarely down for more than a couple minutes at a time.
  - mlaretallack 7y ago
    Originally it was curiosity, however of has moved on from that. I work in the traffic industry. If we can slow people down before they reach the queue, then we can reduce the impact of them joining the queue (co2 etc....).
- gerdesj 7y ago
  Thanks for the link. There goes my evening ...
  - mlaretallack 7y ago
    And my last 4 years :)

canada_dry 7y ago

> old x10 According to wiki they filed for bankrupcy in 2013. Their www.x10.com website is still going - flogging the same stuff as 20 years ago. I still have a few boxes of x10 hardware that I spent a small fortune on back in the 90's. I like that signals went through mains (vs. radio signals) but the reliability is poor.

mikepurvis 7y ago
I looked into it a few years ago when the radio-based stuff was still fairly immature/expensive, and it seemed like it was super low bandwidth. Like, fine for on/off operations, but not really fast enough to do things like have a light track a dimmer.
mlaretallack 7y ago
I have my old flat in 2000(ish) fully linked. This. Included PIR sensors, door sensors, and lamps, lights. I also had. The heating fitted with an x10 switch. This meant that I could turn the heating on and my kettle on remotely on the way home from work. X10 was nice that it could communicate through main, but when I started to use Ethernet over power, it stopped working. It also was one-way. There was no confirm or status from the switch devices.
jedberg 7y ago
The nice thing about x10 is that most of the commands were idempotent. As such, I would send every signal once a second for 10 seconds. Usually the light came in within 3-5 seconds but sometimes it would be 10 seconds.

MrQuincle 7y ago

You mean like what I'm doing right now on a fair all the time... :-) https://twitter.com/annevanrossum/status/1200478825458622464?s=19 https://twitter.com/annevanrossum/status/1200478825458622464... This is not the interesting feature of this system by the way. That is microgeofencing, knowing per room where people are. Yes, you know where you are in the house. However, your "smart" home does not. Integration with home assistant is on the roadmap. We need a few more people to want it. Yes, it's a shameless plug. However, there aren't many open source hardware products on the market, so I think it contributes to the discussion.

giancarlostoro 7y ago
Mycroft gets my attention in this regard.
- MrQuincle 7y ago
  Definitely! It's the only open source smart speaker I know. Here in Holland there's also the Homey, but they locked most of it. It's benefit is that you can run local connections. Even the Google Local SDK does not support BLE connections to local devices.
  - mackrevinack 7y ago
    there is Snips as well. you can install it on a raspberry pi but I think they are working on making an actual hardware speaker too
    - SEJeff 7y ago
      Snips was recently purchased by Sonos, who already makes actual hardware speakers.
a254613e 7y ago
> Yes, you know where you are in the house. However, your "smart" home does not. I solved this in home assistant by adding sensors to my doors inside the apartment. For example if the living room doors are closed, and after that there's movement inside, the room is marked as "occupied". It works really well. Same could be achieved with straight line movement sensors on the door frames, if you're someone who keeps the doors open all the time. And speaking of open source, my whole smart home setup (from sensors, lights, heating, etc) works offline and using open source software and protocols even if hardware isn't open source itself. Which I found to be a good tradeoff.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]