Hi All
I am a middle aged uncle who is NOT a techie/engineer( cannot code but can copy paste if the tutorial is detailed). I am very much interested in tech and gadgets and have been reading a lot/buying wherever it made sense. Regarding home automation, I live in a 35 year old independent house and hence cannot do things normally feasible in new flats. Still I have been able to do little bit of automation. My house is ground plus first floor. Following is what I have:
(a) Echo dots and Google minis at Ground and First floor - 3 each - apart from voice commands to control sonoff and bulbs..also use it to broadcast messages between floor or drop in to talk live
(b) Sonoff basic to control individual devices - 3 - just on and off
(c) Sonoff 4 channel pro relays - at 4 different rooms/switch boards. - again on and off
(d) Various chinese smart bulbs including Yeelight - 4 - change colors, change brightness...etc
(e) Smart RGB LED strips - 15 metres..purely for timepass. to change color or dim
(f) PIR bulbs across multiple passages/rooms
(g) PIR sensor based LED strips under my bed
As of now my automation is very basic. I use mostly Alexa voice commands to switch on and switch off lights and fans. Smart bulbs used to automatically switch on and off mornings and evenings and I got garden lighting which again switches on and off at scheduled time - Done in Ewelink for Sonoff devices and Alexa app for smart bulbs.
Over the last few years I have seen tens of videos on Home automation across various technologies - but most are oriented towards western markets like automating blinds, garage doors...etc which dont make sense to us Indians.
So given my limited use does it make sense to use hass.io/Home Assistant and other such home automation setups? I mean when Alexa and Ewelink work perfectly well to control my devices. what is the use for going for these setups which require some amount of tech knowledge?
Also what other automation can I do in my house without spending a lot? Although Aliexpress app was banned many weeks ago, ordering on their website was still going through which has stopped in the past couple of weeks and I frankly dont like paying double or more to buy it from Indian websites.
(a) One of the projects I wanted to do along with my teenage sons is to use nodemcu/Alexa/Arduino to setup IR blaster voice control to turn on/off TV, Receiver, tata sky and gaming consoles and better still it will be fun to ask Alexa to change Tata Sky channels as well or change inputs on my receiver between desktop/tatasky/console. There are few youtube videos but they do not explain step by step as I am technically challenged.
(b) The other was to have a tablet fixed to a wall which can act as a smart touch digital display and also be used for switching on and off. But since voice commands over Alexa works well...this option seems like wasting a tablet
Please let me know if any of you have done this IR voice enabled helper without using Harmony or broadlink type of devices. Below are couple of examples of what I am talking about.
Also like mentioned above, let me know what else I can do for free and take better advantage of what I have or buy spending not more than few hundreds and low thousands in India.
And yeah - whenever I see tech videos and get a bit excited I just order things like Nodemcus, Arduinos - Uno and Nanos..mostly from Ali express..I got many of these lying unused
I saw this post. The interface looks better but not sure how else this is useful as Ewelink does offer LAN control in case internet is down
techenclave.com
Thanks in advance for all your help!!!
I am a middle aged uncle who is NOT a techie/engineer( cannot code but can copy paste if the tutorial is detailed). I am very much interested in tech and gadgets and have been reading a lot/buying wherever it made sense. Regarding home automation, I live in a 35 year old independent house and hence cannot do things normally feasible in new flats. Still I have been able to do little bit of automation. My house is ground plus first floor. Following is what I have:
(a) Echo dots and Google minis at Ground and First floor - 3 each - apart from voice commands to control sonoff and bulbs..also use it to broadcast messages between floor or drop in to talk live
(b) Sonoff basic to control individual devices - 3 - just on and off
(c) Sonoff 4 channel pro relays - at 4 different rooms/switch boards. - again on and off
(d) Various chinese smart bulbs including Yeelight - 4 - change colors, change brightness...etc
(e) Smart RGB LED strips - 15 metres..purely for timepass. to change color or dim
(f) PIR bulbs across multiple passages/rooms
(g) PIR sensor based LED strips under my bed
As of now my automation is very basic. I use mostly Alexa voice commands to switch on and switch off lights and fans. Smart bulbs used to automatically switch on and off mornings and evenings and I got garden lighting which again switches on and off at scheduled time - Done in Ewelink for Sonoff devices and Alexa app for smart bulbs.
Over the last few years I have seen tens of videos on Home automation across various technologies - but most are oriented towards western markets like automating blinds, garage doors...etc which dont make sense to us Indians.
So given my limited use does it make sense to use hass.io/Home Assistant and other such home automation setups? I mean when Alexa and Ewelink work perfectly well to control my devices. what is the use for going for these setups which require some amount of tech knowledge?
Also what other automation can I do in my house without spending a lot? Although Aliexpress app was banned many weeks ago, ordering on their website was still going through which has stopped in the past couple of weeks and I frankly dont like paying double or more to buy it from Indian websites.
(a) One of the projects I wanted to do along with my teenage sons is to use nodemcu/Alexa/Arduino to setup IR blaster voice control to turn on/off TV, Receiver, tata sky and gaming consoles and better still it will be fun to ask Alexa to change Tata Sky channels as well or change inputs on my receiver between desktop/tatasky/console. There are few youtube videos but they do not explain step by step as I am technically challenged.
(b) The other was to have a tablet fixed to a wall which can act as a smart touch digital display and also be used for switching on and off. But since voice commands over Alexa works well...this option seems like wasting a tablet
Please let me know if any of you have done this IR voice enabled helper without using Harmony or broadlink type of devices. Below are couple of examples of what I am talking about.
Also like mentioned above, let me know what else I can do for free and take better advantage of what I have or buy spending not more than few hundreds and low thousands in India.
And yeah - whenever I see tech videos and get a bit excited I just order things like Nodemcus, Arduinos - Uno and Nanos..mostly from Ali express..I got many of these lying unused
I saw this post. The interface looks better but not sure how else this is useful as Ewelink does offer LAN control in case internet is down
Home Automation - 75+ devices - From Domoticz to Home Assistant
So I finally migrated my Home automation core from Domoticz to Home assistant ! 1 week calendar time, 20+ hours of dedicated work and moving 80 odd devices later, I am feeling rather smug about it ! I decided to upload my config and other assorted details on github for my own records as well...
techenclave.com
Thanks in advance for all your help!!!
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