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Home Assistant waters my plants
- longtermemory 7mo agoNice! For the hardware, why didn't you considered using a Raspberry Pi?
- H8crilA 7mo agoI used to run HA on an RPi, but eventually migrated it to a similar NUC. The RPi eventually just wasn't powerful enough (peak compute needs), while the NUCs are still quite cheap. And you can run a surprising amount of Proxmox VMs and LXCs on barely a few cores and gigabytes of RAM.
- davemp 7mo agoI use an RPi 4 w/ 4GB of RAM and a 1TB usb 3.2 SSD and it flies through all my workloads. Though I don’t do any video encoding things.
- H8crilA 7mo agoThe cool thing is that it's very easy to migrate it to better hardware. HA backup and restore system is highly reliable. For this reason I can definitely recommend an RPi to start with, and who knows perhaps it will be enough forever, but if not then moving is a matter of ~one evening.
- xolox 7mo agoFunny that I should run into this now... Just this past weekend I tried the Home Assistant backup/restore mechanism for the first time, and it failed miserably for me :-(. First it took over an hour to create the backup, then I got a 4.42 GiB tar file, that of course failed to upload to the new Home Assistant install. I investigated and found that the tarball was just a compressed copy of the complete installation directory of my Home Assistant setup, and that included multi gigabyte `.cache/pip` and `.cache/uv` directories :-s (my old Home Assistant install operates from a Python virtual environment that I created, and Home Assistant keeps nagging me that this installation method is deprecated, so I decided to migrate to HAOS in a VM). When I deleted those directories the tarball was less than 200 MiB but the new HAOS VM still would not accept the upload. All I got was "500 Internal Server Error - Server got itself in trouble". And of course because HAOS is an "appliance" its kind of a black box so I couldn't find out how to get access to error logs with details :-(. In the end I decided that the path of least resistance was to simply start from scratch based on the HAOS virtual machine and take some days/weeks to build up the new Home Assistant setup before it's mature enough to take over from the old Home Assistant setup (which is running on hardware that is close to failure).
- randusername 7mo agoThanks for sharing, your comment helped me track down that my RPI HA was disk constrained. I didn't think to add a USB.
- mytailorisrich 7mo agoWow, not sure how to interpret your experience that a RPi wasn't powerful enough to manage watering a few plants. I can only suspect the overall software setup is massively bloated.
- briHass 7mo agoIf you want to run EspHome inside HA, and you recompile the devices (every release of EH), you want a decent processor/disk. The ESP stuff is a surprisingly heavy compile for a puny microcontroller.
- H8crilA 7mo agoA recent RPi is sufficient to handle a few plants - though, yes, recompilation will take time. The ESP is a beautiful piece of software, hence I highly recommend it. My native language has an expression that describes this situation perfectly: the appetite grows with eating. Next thing you know you have 2k or more entities, and your HA even handles some video feeds. The important thing is that it's pretty much always easy to make an upgrade thanks to the good design of the backup system. Don't forget to set up backups in either case, it's a sin to not use such a complete system :)
- mytailorisrich 7mo agoRecompilation has nothing, or should have nothing, to do with the requirements to run the system. If that is indeed a requirement then the system is indeed bonkers. For a system handling sensors and actuators you should be able to run a farm off a RPi in terms of compute power. Quad-core at 2.4 GHz and up to 16 GiB RAM on a RPi 5, that's a crazy amount of compute for the use-case.
- vablings 7mo agoThe way ESPHome works is that your device configuration is a yaml file that produces a compiled binary artifact and it can be updated OTA with wifi. The downside of this is that these updates are pushed via the device you are running HAOS and hence compiling can take a while. HAOS is quite bloated but it's also very versatile and FOSS
- belthesar 7mo agoCost-wise, there's a solid chance that the Pi would have been more expensive. Jeff Geerling ran some numbers (^1) on this last year, before the current chip crisis we're in, and it was bad enough already. Home Assistant does a surprising amount of Disk I/O, if for nothing than for logs. Sibling commenters are also advising not running it on the SD card to avoid wearing it out, so there's definitely some truth here. This means we're adding a Pi M.2 hat + SSD into the mix. The Pi5 SSD kit for 256 GB, when it was available, was around $60 USD. A Pi5 with 8 GB of RAM is $130 USD. Now we need a cooler, a case that will fit the Pi5 with said M.2 hat, and a power supply. We're already well north of $250 USD, encroaching on $300, and we're not even using the core benefits of the Pi's platform. No need for GPIO pins, tightly integrated cameras or other sensors, none of that. For all we know, the blog author did this assessment (or trusted the assessment of others, eg: Jeff) and came to the came conclusion - it wasn't worth the price of entry. ^1: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/intel-n100-better-value-raspberry-pi/ https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/intel-n100-better-val...
- PetitPrince 7mo ago> I think I need more Zigbee repeaters to get a reliable mesh network, but to date I haven’t found any consumer-grade devices certified for use in NZ. Since many devices are also Zigbee router (it's a mesh network after all), maybe some additional lightbulb for exterior would suffice ?
- theshrike79 7mo agoPretty much all mains powered Zigbee devices also act as routers in the mesh.
- calgoo 7mo agoExactly! I prefer the small power plugs that lets me control fans and other power systems as relays. Family has a habit if switching of light bulbs using light switches and i have not gotten the change approval to disable the physical switches in the house :)
- yoavm 7mo agoFor me the best solution was to use smart switches (mainly dimmers) and dumb lightbulbs. People can use the switches like any other if they want, but I can still have my automations and remote control.
- stavros 7mo agoAgreed, people get very frustrated if they have to remember to not use certain switches. Using smart switches fixes this.
- navigate8310 7mo agoI wouldn't recommend anyone to yank out physical controls for accessibility purposes.
- squigz 7mo agoIt seems like quite the hassle to have to pull out one's phone every time one enters or leaves a room just to turn on lights? Let's hope you don't have to get to the bathroom quickly late at night...
- zerof1l 7mo agoI wanted home assistant compatible plant watering solution that works on a solar panel and does not require being connected to the water line and is Zigbee compatible. Unfortunately, I could not find any. So I did a DIY solution: a big barrel which I manually fill with water, a 12V pump (usually sold for camper vans), some rechargeable batteries, 10W solar panel, a solar charging controller, and Tuya ZG-2002-RF switch.
- atoav 7mo agoAn art student of mine once needed a way to electrically control precise small amounts of water. We solved that using: 1. Water tank and gravity 2. Medical IV flow regulator¹ 3. Servo hooked up to that IV flow regulator via a 3D-printed part It worked very well. In medical applications off must be really off, so it was also quite safe in that regard as well. Her 3D-printed part had a little bit too much flex in it, but in principle this works quite well. If it is really, really safety critical I would still recommend a mechanical fallback that protects in case of power loss or when the servo fails open (e.g. bending the hose with the force of a spring if electricity is gone). ¹: see https://www.gvs.com/en/catalog/iv-flow-regulators https://www.gvs.com/en/catalog/iv-flow-regulators
- stinos 7mo ago> If it is really, really safety critical Your suggestions should be fine for hardware failure but I'd be more concerned about software failure: what if a bug in your software makes it unresponsive and stuck in the state with the flow open? Maybe a watchdog or some other system running in parallel checking for a heartbeat or a max amount of time water can be flowing?
- atoav 7mo agoGood point. In my case the program was so simple and the risk low enough that this wasn't needed. The worst thing thar could have bappened was some minor water damage to an exhibition space. Also my track record of writing stable, bug free embedded software has been pretty solid as of now. But if human life would be on the line (for example) special precautions like multiple independent failsafe mechanisms are non-negotiable.
- denkmoon 7mo agoCron waters my plants :)
- davemp 7mo agoFun project. Though it’s kind of unreal how complicated it is to set up HA and I literally do this for a living, both embedded sw and backend web dev. Docker compose with a zwave management server, reverse proxies for TLS, vlan isolation for the server, macvlan for HA container so it does see the host network, etc, etc. All to turn on and off a lightbulb with the sun. All the while AI is telling me to configure things insecurely. I think when I get some more spare time, I’d like to write a statically linked program that handles a zwave controller and basic automation scripting. No IP networking needed for my lightbulbs. Then it wouldn’t feel risky to just make a system user and udev rule to give it permissions to the controller, and run with systemd.
- briHass 7mo agoYou're making it complicated with all the VLANs. HAOS in a VM (proxmox helper scripts for one-line install), and HA has plugins for all the other things. Just deny WAN access to the IoT junk you don't trust at the router, or for things like cameras, a separate switch for those. That usually makes sense, since they're one of the few devices that must be powered with PoE and doesn't require gig+ bandwidth. A cheap 100mbit PoE switch will handle a good number of cameras.
- davemp 7mo agoI’m not giving untrusted devices unfettered access to my lan and an airgapped network sounds more complicated tbh. VLANs aren’t really that bad with good networking gear.
- vladvasiliu 7mo agoI have HASS running on a dedicated VLAN, IoT junk on its own, separate VLAN without internet access, through a managed switch. OPNsense sits in between and does the routing. Didn't have to mess around with anything, just ran the "vm appliance" or whatever it's called for hass and I was off to the races. Wireguard on the firewall gives me access from outside the house. Actually, both OPNsense and Hass are VMs on the same machine, with the latter's network not even connected to any physical port outside the box. I'm not even running Proxmox or anything fancy, just libvirt on Arch. The only "fancy" thing is a 2nd hand Mellanox NIC I got off eBay for 30 €, which presents virtualized interfaces to the VMs, but HASS doesn't actually use those. There's also no need to manually screw around with any reverse proxy for TLS; HASS does it with the Let's Encrypt add-on. The only missing piece when I set this up a while ago was something to regularly renew the cert (the add-on would only get started at boot-up).
- sloped 7mo agoI have been using HA to water my garden for 4 summers. I setup a Tempest weather station this fall, and will have some fun experimenting with using rain and temperature data collected in my back yard to make watering decisions.
- butz 7mo agoMore of this, please. Let's automate all tedious chores.
- tootie 7mo agoI'd think most people enjoy watering their plants. Growing a garden or even just some nice indoor plants is a hobby unto itself.
- barbazoo 7mo agoIt's nice to know the plants are getting the water at the right time when they need it, when the temp is right, etc. But agree obviously it does automate some of the fun.
- finniananderson 7mo agoIt also makes it easier to lock and leave the place without relying on neighbours :)
- allenu 7mo agoWatering plants is also super easy once you do it regularly. You get a sense of how much water a plant needs just by looking at it and testing the soil (via moisture meter or just by touch). It's quite rewarding realizing how each plant differs.
- marcogarces 7mo agoI love HomeAssistant, and my second time on a new home, i'm slowly getting what i want in terms of interface and devices; doing it slowly helps you plan better and execute it perfectly. I've also been watering my garden (sprinklers) and i even built my custom ESPHome device: https://github.com/mgarces/open-esp-sprinklers https://github.com/mgarces/open-esp-sprinklers
- julianozen 7mo agoSeems like a really cool thing to have hooked up to openclaw
- m3kw9 7mo agoDon’t try that indoors
- cityofdelusion 7mo agoAfter years of doing this, I determined that dumb controllers are superior for my uses. A once a week irrigation with a simple rain sensor results in the same quality lawn/beds and better can run with pretty much zero maintenance burden on the sw/hw side. The vegetable garden is even dumber, just drip lines, a hose bib, and a dumb timer that flips daily in the morning powered by AS batteries. In my apartment days I just used an elevated water container and the same dumb timer to gravity feed my garden. I find home lab stuff has far more return on investment for like automatic blinds, lights, etc. It’s not like you can just stay inside anyways and get amazing vegetables, you still need to be on top of thing like checking for pests and disease. The automatic garden is a myth.
- kjkjadksj 7mo agoYeah when I got to the point he was building a PC for this in the article it was a little shocking given the task at hand. I make do with a little $30 programmable dual zone unit that has lasted several seasons now. All I had to do was add a water hammer arrester.
- SwtCyber 7mo agoThere's a difference between automation for reliability and automation for tinkering
- ternus 7mo agoI have almost everything in my house HA-automated, but anything touching the water supply is all on dumb physical valves and electrical timers. If my light switches don't work, that's annoying. If a robot vacuum doesn't run, that's frustrating. If a water valve is stuck open, that's catastrophic.
- NoPicklez 7mo agoCatastrophic! Calm down you're not working in a chemical plant
- dudefeliciano 7mo ago
- tamimio 7mo agoI love HA, after setting it up I used an old tablet as the dashboard to control and monitor the house, plus the app. It’s very easy to setup and work with, maybe a bit convoluted in the initial setup but once done, you barely do anything until you add new sensor. You can setup a whole SCADA-like system with it, controlling your garden, power grid/solar and monitoring it, integrating CCTV and all, and it’s free. A similar industrial project I did before, SCADA and RTUs that monitored and controlled many actuators and solenoid valves and sensors, cost wise was ~$9M, and all the functionalities were implemented can be done with HA on principle.
- SwtCyber 7mo agoTen years ago a lot of this would have required expensive proprietary systems or a lot of custom engineering
- tamimio 7mo agoPretty much yeah, that SCADA system was in 2012 and the complexity was off the charts: electric panels, Allen Bradley expensive hardware and software, ladder/C#/MSSQL/historianDB/etc tech stack, modbus/profibus/hart protocols, it is a nightmare to maintain, even editing the HMI was a process by itself. If that project would be done now, probably won’t cost 25% of the original cost.
- SwtCyber 7mo ago"Find a problem for Home Assistant" is a dangerous starting point. Next thing you know you've built a small distributed system to water parsley.
- lolcw 7mo agoA glorious feature when you need an equivalent of sixteen cray-3 supercomputers to water plants is here.
- cynicalsecurity 7mo agoHow to spot a man without wife. My home assistant also waters my plants. She generally enjoys working in the garden.
- Peanuts99 7mo agoSeems pretty disrespectful to your wife and women in general to be honest.
- KaiserPro 7mo agoIf you want to do this yourself 1) install HAOS, running it any other way is a step towards madness 2) get a decent zigbee controller 3) https://sonoff.tech/en-uk/products/sonoff-zigbee-smart-water-valve https://sonoff.tech/en-uk/products/sonoff-zigbee-smart-water... Job done, the rest is all up to taste using either sensors or public data to infer water state.
- zarmin 7mo agohome assistant is designed by terrorists who love cortisol. i can't believe it's by far the best home automation solution available.
- russdill 7mo agoI use Irrigation-V5 in combination with a flow meter to manage my sprinklers. Irrigation-V5 basically tracks the amount of moisture in the soil based on humidity, the amount of sunshine, temperature, rainfall, and of course when the sprinklers turn on and add water. It feels like magic. They can go for months in the winter without running, all on their own and then pop back on when things warm up and dry out, slowly decreasing the intervals between watering as summer approaches. Really makes me want to integrate the whole thing into an ESP32 with a display so such a thing doesn't require HA.
- davebranton 7mo agoI made such a thing ten years ago with an ESP8226 and a basic iOS app built using HTML and javascript. It still works perfectly. The valves were 12v solenoids from ali express, and the plumbing was from the hardware store. I almost guarantee it was far, far cheaper than this project.
- PeteAyscough 7mo ago[dead]
- bsder 7mo agoAutomation to water the plants is okay. Automation to determine that the thing watering the plants has failed is crucial. This is especially true if the system is some form of setup in which there isn't a bunch of soil to buffer a couple of days of not watering correctly (like hydro- or aqua- ponics).
- Yanko_11 7mo ago[dead]
- driftnode 7mo ago[dead]
- iosifnicolae2 6mo agoIf you'd like to find more boards where you can flash your firmware, you can check out: https://openhardware.directory/devices/search/home-assistant-relay-humidity-water-sensor-boards https://openhardware.directory/devices/search/home-assistant...