6 ms·

I have a pretty big install of Home Assistant. You can see a screenshot of my main dashboard here. https://i.imgur.com/pJAGAZT.png https://i.imgur.com/pJAGAZT.

I have a pretty big install of Home Assistant. You can see a screenshot of my main dashboard here. https://i.imgur.com/pJAGAZT.png https://i.imgur.com/pJAGAZT.png When I built the house I decided that I was looking for a Home Automation system that was going to be: a) Open source, or open standards b) Everything can be done entirely locally I settled with using the KNX system for the primary actuators for the house, with Home Assistant for automation and control. One nice property of KNX is that it's distributed, you don't need any central manager for the system to work, so if you press a light switch, then that sends a packet on the KNX network directly to the light actuator. Then there is an IP/KNX bridge to allow you to interact with the KNX network to hack on it. All the "light" automation in the house is all done using KNX programming. For example, walk into hall, light turns on. You don't need a central authority for that. The motion sensor just talks to the light directly. For anything more complex, Home Assistant get's involved for all the more "global" automation via the IP/KNX bridge. And of course you can control everything through it's app. I love how fast and responsive it is since it's local. It's maybe 100ms at most from clicking the button in the app to the light being on. The main thing I can't do without the cloud is voice control. I'm using Google Homes for it which Home Assistant exposes all my devices to. Local voice control systems really suck compared to Google unfortunately. Another thing I'm happy I did is just put sensors for everything everywhere through the house. Here is a screenshot of most of them. https://i.imgur.com/5VeMuE1.png https://i.imgur.com/5VeMuE1.png I actually have more data then this that I haven't bothered to hook up yet since it hasn't been important. Like the motion sensors also provide light levels and so on. Overall, I would definately recommend Home Assistant.

RickS 7y ago
This is really impressive. Are you using separate sensors for humidity/temp/air quality? If so, which ones? Do you assemble these yourself (eg connecting a sensor to a network enabled board) or are they connected out of the box? Would really appreciate anything you've got in terms of parts list.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deskamess 7y ago
  The cost of all those sensors has me curious. Like you I am wondering if there is a multi-sensor.
input_sh 7y ago
I'm curious, what kind of motion sensors are you using? I looked into hooking more of them in my home, but I could not figure out an affordable way of doing that. > Local voice control systems really suck compared to Google unfortunately. Have you checked the latest updates on this? Home Assistant is getting its own voice assistant: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2019/11/20/privacy-focused-voice-assistant/ https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2019/11/20/privacy-focuse...
- Negitivefrags 7y ago
  I don’t have the exact model to hand, but they are a super discrete little thing in the ceiling. I can get the exact model later if you want. It does motion in 3 directions using infra red, and gives you light levels and temperature as well. They can sense really damn far, and actually I had to turn most of them down in sensitivity to make them useful. I use the same sensors for triggering the alarm system. They look way more attractive than those ugly corner sensors most security systems use.
  - Ruthalas 7y ago
    I'd be interested in the model if you have the opportunity to check! Thank you.
    - davidu 7y ago
      same
    - Negitivefrags 7y ago
      This is the one. https://www.gira.com/en/gebaeudetechnik/systeme/knx-eib_system/knx-produkte/bediengeraete/praesenzmelder-mini.html https://www.gira.com/en/gebaeudetechnik/systeme/knx-eib_syst... You can see what one looks like in place here in the middle of this picture. I use black ones for my wood ceilings. https://i.imgur.com/pTCOKJx.png https://i.imgur.com/pTCOKJx.png On the left hand side is one of the air quality sensors.
azban 7y ago
> The main thing I can't do without the cloud is voice control. I'm using Google Homes for it which Home Assistant exposes all my devices to. Local voice control systems really suck compared to Google unfortunately. have you looked at picovoice? been pretty impressed by their wake word (Porcupine) and STT (Cheetah) on phones/pi's etc. seems like this could be integrated as a local STT provider with ada.
giarc 7y ago
What is Room Of Requirement, if I may ask?
- Negitivefrags 7y ago
  It's a bedroom that we are temporarily using as a storage room for junk that doesn't belong anywhere. My wife is a Harry Potter fan.
  - BrandoElFollito 7y ago
    I was hoping so much that it would be that HP room :)
niemyjski 7y ago
I have over 500 sensors integrated into my home and when all done will have over 1k. I find the biggest problem when you get big is that home assistant has no way to deal with back pressure of updating networked sensors. Once you have issues with say 5-6 sensors it starts cascading.. you hit 10 which could be just ecobee sensors or homekit it can bring down homeassistant.
- rubidium 7y ago
  That just seems excessive. Can you help me make sense of what for?
  - niemyjski 7y ago
    Please see my reply below.
- hokkos 7y ago
  Can you say a little about what the 500 sensors are?
  - niemyjski 7y ago
    Every room has a minimum of 7+ sensors (motion, occupancy, light sensor, nightlight, sound, mic, temp, humidity, smoke & carbon (and all related nest sensors like battery, last check, status..., path lighting (not included)). Then light switches are all smart + have occupancy + dimmer level etc... It adds up quick... I have some crazy node red sub flows where I use state machines to turn on based on conditions and I can do whole home announcements as well as level audio and use it for custom security solution. I have smart bulbs too in some rooms and everything is 100% local with no external dependencies (if voice assistant stops working it doesn't affect anything and I'm going to probably move everything to almond). I built everything around sub flows and I made it easier to debug by adding friendly toggles that actually let me do some crazy accessibility stuff like announce motion or lights turning on etc.. If you were blind you'd know exactly where you were at. I'm also doing local facial recognition (lots more todo) and I'm starting to integrate those into custom automations based on whose in the room (wife or me). It also greets us when we get home. It's been my dream since I was a little kid to have a smart home, and by smart I mean work for me and be quality of life improvement while being dumb for everyone (progressive enhancement). Home should alert you to dangerous weather or do the proper thing if a fire happens (open windows/ doors, turn on path lighting, announce what direction to go to the exit, etc).
gog 7y ago
I've been eyeballing this problem space for a while now and came to the exact same conclusions as you did, KNX for everything "important" + Home Assistant for nice to haves. Just waiting for the build a house/completely renovate an apartment to put it to practice. Can you give some more information about the sensors you use, especially for CO2/VOC measurements?
- Negitivefrags 7y ago
  For air quality I’m using the arcus neo which can do co2, Voc, humidity and temperature. But they are damn expensive. Unfortunately all the other KNX ones I looked at were super ugly/huge. The more ugly ones also had better features like particulate matter as well. These are a super discrete and small brushed aluminium circle on the ceiling. Other than that I have PIR sensors in every room that I mentioned in a sibling comment with presence, temp, light level. One sensor I’m super happy with is the infrasonic water level sensor for the water tank, so I always know how much water I have left. I also have a weather station connected in with a pile of measurements for outdoor stuff like light, humidity, temp, pressure.
  - gog 7y ago
    Did you do the KNX setup yourself or did you leave that part to a professional?
fyfy18 7y ago
I'm in the process of building a house and am thinking of going the KNX route. I'd prefer critical things to be hardwired rather than rely on wireless, just because it's more reliable. I'm interested to know if you installed everything yourself or had a contractor do it? My understanding is it is expensive to get someone to do the work (as usually it's hotels or offices having this done), but the actual hardware doesn't cost much more than the z-wave equivalent. Oh and your Room of Requirement definately needs more explanation :-)
- Negitivefrags 7y ago
  I had a contractor and he did all the electrics as well. This meant that the cost for labour wasn’t really much more than getting all the “dumb” electrics done. Ultimately wiring for KNX doesn’t take a lot more than just running a single extra wire through large sections of rooms since it’s a bus based system. We worked on an hourly rate + cost of materials, rather than a fixed contract. All the other home automation people I talked to didn’t really “get it”. This guy opened up to me about the importance of open standards from the first time I talked him and was happy at the concept of me programming the KNX devices myself, so I knew as soon as I met him that he was the right guy for the job. I worked really closely with him (a daily catchup every day) in order to make sure everything was perfect. I was really happy with the process, but it relied on getting a guy I could work really well with.
  - hhhc 7y ago
    In Germany, there are lots of people who plan and program the KNX system themselves. The actual wiring is carried out by a professional but the commissioning etc can be done by anybody. KNX requires a specific software (ETS). As KNX is a global standard this procedure becomes more and more implemented. We have published an ebook about how to get started with KNX, ETS 5 and ETS Inside (cheaper version of it) and share best practices. Check yourself: https://www.knxtutorial.com/ https://www.knxtutorial.com/
RHSeeger 7y ago
Can you tell us what sensors you are using?
qznc 7y ago
You took the screenshot while you were in the master bathroom?
alexktz 7y ago
The room of requirement!
Havoc 7y ago
What presence detection are you using? >The main thing I can't do without the cloud is voice control. Mozilla has been working on a google voice replacement btw
- judge2020 7y ago
  Kind of off-topic but has any work been done on possibly extracting and re-using the voice ML model Pixel phones download (for things like live caption[0] and audio recorder[1])? I imagine there would be some legal issues but personal use probably would be fine. 0: https://youtu.be/v8cLk2W3vY8 https://youtu.be/v8cLk2W3vY8 1: https://youtu.be/RVMqB4W_EH4 https://youtu.be/RVMqB4W_EH4
  - Havoc 7y ago
    Not that I'm aware of. I suspect the format would be quite proprietary
mackrevinack 7y ago
which local voice assistants have you tried? is Snips one of them? I'm thinking of setting that up for my next raspberry pi project but I havnt really done a whole lot of research on it either so maybe it's a waste of time
- SEJeff 7y ago
  Snips was just purchased by Sonos by the way.
neop1x 7y ago
The text in that image on Imgur is barely readable due high compression. Please consider hosting the image on your site next time or someplace where they don't compress that much.
- Dayshine 7y ago
  Are you browsing on mobile? It's a 1500 pixel wide image for me, perfect quality.
  - neop1x 7y ago
    Yes, on mobile. Now it's ok, it seems to be a direct link now. Previously it was terrible, really barely readable, in a thumbnail mode like this https://imgur.com/a/oKm3fP1 https://imgur.com/a/oKm3fP1 which presented this https://i.imgur.com/BOB10kkg.png https://i.imgur.com/BOB10kkg.png . Never mind...
ioanbsu 7y ago
Hi there, are you based in US? KNX is not fully certified in US, right? I spent fair amount of time trying to find good switch actuator that is US gang compatible. But did n't find anything good. Also this says nkx is not certified in us: https://www.cepro.com/news/will_european_knx_home_automation_standard_make_it_in_the_u-s1/ https://www.cepro.com/news/will_european_knx_home_automation...

RickS 7y ago

This is really impressive. Are you using separate sensors for humidity/temp/air quality? If so, which ones? Do you assemble these yourself (eg connecting a sensor to a network enabled board) or are they connected out of the box? Would really appreciate anything you've got in terms of parts list.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deskamess 7y ago
The cost of all those sensors has me curious. Like you I am wondering if there is a multi-sensor.

input_sh 7y ago

I'm curious, what kind of motion sensors are you using? I looked into hooking more of them in my home, but I could not figure out an affordable way of doing that. > Local voice control systems really suck compared to Google unfortunately. Have you checked the latest updates on this? Home Assistant is getting its own voice assistant: https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2019/11/20/privacy-focused-voice-assistant/ https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2019/11/20/privacy-focuse...

Negitivefrags 7y ago
I don’t have the exact model to hand, but they are a super discrete little thing in the ceiling. I can get the exact model later if you want. It does motion in 3 directions using infra red, and gives you light levels and temperature as well. They can sense really damn far, and actually I had to turn most of them down in sensitivity to make them useful. I use the same sensors for triggering the alarm system. They look way more attractive than those ugly corner sensors most security systems use.
- Ruthalas 7y ago
  I'd be interested in the model if you have the opportunity to check! Thank you.
  - davidu 7y ago
    same
  - Negitivefrags 7y ago
    This is the one. https://www.gira.com/en/gebaeudetechnik/systeme/knx-eib_system/knx-produkte/bediengeraete/praesenzmelder-mini.html https://www.gira.com/en/gebaeudetechnik/systeme/knx-eib_syst... You can see what one looks like in place here in the middle of this picture. I use black ones for my wood ceilings. https://i.imgur.com/pTCOKJx.png https://i.imgur.com/pTCOKJx.png On the left hand side is one of the air quality sensors.

azban 7y ago

> The main thing I can't do without the cloud is voice control. I'm using Google Homes for it which Home Assistant exposes all my devices to. Local voice control systems really suck compared to Google unfortunately. have you looked at picovoice? been pretty impressed by their wake word (Porcupine) and STT (Cheetah) on phones/pi's etc. seems like this could be integrated as a local STT provider with ada.

giarc 7y ago

What is Room Of Requirement, if I may ask?

Negitivefrags 7y ago
It's a bedroom that we are temporarily using as a storage room for junk that doesn't belong anywhere. My wife is a Harry Potter fan.
- BrandoElFollito 7y ago
  I was hoping so much that it would be that HP room :)

niemyjski 7y ago

I have over 500 sensors integrated into my home and when all done will have over 1k. I find the biggest problem when you get big is that home assistant has no way to deal with back pressure of updating networked sensors. Once you have issues with say 5-6 sensors it starts cascading.. you hit 10 which could be just ecobee sensors or homekit it can bring down homeassistant.

rubidium 7y ago
That just seems excessive. Can you help me make sense of what for?
- niemyjski 7y ago
  Please see my reply below.
hokkos 7y ago
Can you say a little about what the 500 sensors are?
- niemyjski 7y ago
  Every room has a minimum of 7+ sensors (motion, occupancy, light sensor, nightlight, sound, mic, temp, humidity, smoke & carbon (and all related nest sensors like battery, last check, status..., path lighting (not included)). Then light switches are all smart + have occupancy + dimmer level etc... It adds up quick... I have some crazy node red sub flows where I use state machines to turn on based on conditions and I can do whole home announcements as well as level audio and use it for custom security solution. I have smart bulbs too in some rooms and everything is 100% local with no external dependencies (if voice assistant stops working it doesn't affect anything and I'm going to probably move everything to almond). I built everything around sub flows and I made it easier to debug by adding friendly toggles that actually let me do some crazy accessibility stuff like announce motion or lights turning on etc.. If you were blind you'd know exactly where you were at. I'm also doing local facial recognition (lots more todo) and I'm starting to integrate those into custom automations based on whose in the room (wife or me). It also greets us when we get home. It's been my dream since I was a little kid to have a smart home, and by smart I mean work for me and be quality of life improvement while being dumb for everyone (progressive enhancement). Home should alert you to dangerous weather or do the proper thing if a fire happens (open windows/ doors, turn on path lighting, announce what direction to go to the exit, etc).

gog 7y ago

I've been eyeballing this problem space for a while now and came to the exact same conclusions as you did, KNX for everything "important" + Home Assistant for nice to haves. Just waiting for the build a house/completely renovate an apartment to put it to practice. Can you give some more information about the sensors you use, especially for CO2/VOC measurements?

Negitivefrags 7y ago
For air quality I’m using the arcus neo which can do co2, Voc, humidity and temperature. But they are damn expensive. Unfortunately all the other KNX ones I looked at were super ugly/huge. The more ugly ones also had better features like particulate matter as well. These are a super discrete and small brushed aluminium circle on the ceiling. Other than that I have PIR sensors in every room that I mentioned in a sibling comment with presence, temp, light level. One sensor I’m super happy with is the infrasonic water level sensor for the water tank, so I always know how much water I have left. I also have a weather station connected in with a pile of measurements for outdoor stuff like light, humidity, temp, pressure.
- gog 7y ago
  Did you do the KNX setup yourself or did you leave that part to a professional?

fyfy18 7y ago

I'm in the process of building a house and am thinking of going the KNX route. I'd prefer critical things to be hardwired rather than rely on wireless, just because it's more reliable. I'm interested to know if you installed everything yourself or had a contractor do it? My understanding is it is expensive to get someone to do the work (as usually it's hotels or offices having this done), but the actual hardware doesn't cost much more than the z-wave equivalent. Oh and your Room of Requirement definately needs more explanation :-)

Negitivefrags 7y ago
I had a contractor and he did all the electrics as well. This meant that the cost for labour wasn’t really much more than getting all the “dumb” electrics done. Ultimately wiring for KNX doesn’t take a lot more than just running a single extra wire through large sections of rooms since it’s a bus based system. We worked on an hourly rate + cost of materials, rather than a fixed contract. All the other home automation people I talked to didn’t really “get it”. This guy opened up to me about the importance of open standards from the first time I talked him and was happy at the concept of me programming the KNX devices myself, so I knew as soon as I met him that he was the right guy for the job. I worked really closely with him (a daily catchup every day) in order to make sure everything was perfect. I was really happy with the process, but it relied on getting a guy I could work really well with.
- hhhc 7y ago
  In Germany, there are lots of people who plan and program the KNX system themselves. The actual wiring is carried out by a professional but the commissioning etc can be done by anybody. KNX requires a specific software (ETS). As KNX is a global standard this procedure becomes more and more implemented. We have published an ebook about how to get started with KNX, ETS 5 and ETS Inside (cheaper version of it) and share best practices. Check yourself: https://www.knxtutorial.com/ https://www.knxtutorial.com/

RHSeeger 7y ago

Can you tell us what sensors you are using?

qznc 7y ago

You took the screenshot while you were in the master bathroom?

alexktz 7y ago

The room of requirement!

Havoc 7y ago

What presence detection are you using? >The main thing I can't do without the cloud is voice control. Mozilla has been working on a google voice replacement btw

judge2020 7y ago
Kind of off-topic but has any work been done on possibly extracting and re-using the voice ML model Pixel phones download (for things like live caption[0] and audio recorder[1])? I imagine there would be some legal issues but personal use probably would be fine. 0: https://youtu.be/v8cLk2W3vY8 https://youtu.be/v8cLk2W3vY8 1: https://youtu.be/RVMqB4W_EH4 https://youtu.be/RVMqB4W_EH4
- Havoc 7y ago
  Not that I'm aware of. I suspect the format would be quite proprietary

mackrevinack 7y ago

which local voice assistants have you tried? is Snips one of them? I'm thinking of setting that up for my next raspberry pi project but I havnt really done a whole lot of research on it either so maybe it's a waste of time

SEJeff 7y ago
Snips was just purchased by Sonos by the way.

neop1x 7y ago

The text in that image on Imgur is barely readable due high compression. Please consider hosting the image on your site next time or someplace where they don't compress that much.

Dayshine 7y ago
Are you browsing on mobile? It's a 1500 pixel wide image for me, perfect quality.
- neop1x 7y ago
  Yes, on mobile. Now it's ok, it seems to be a direct link now. Previously it was terrible, really barely readable, in a thumbnail mode like this https://imgur.com/a/oKm3fP1 https://imgur.com/a/oKm3fP1 which presented this https://i.imgur.com/BOB10kkg.png https://i.imgur.com/BOB10kkg.png . Never mind...

ioanbsu 7y ago

Hi there, are you based in US? KNX is not fully certified in US, right? I spent fair amount of time trying to find good switch actuator that is US gang compatible. But did n't find anything good. Also this says nkx is not certified in us: https://www.cepro.com/news/will_european_knx_home_automation_standard_make_it_in_the_u-s1/ https://www.cepro.com/news/will_european_knx_home_automation...