Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[dhouston]

The ESP32 chip has VR built-in if you want to go for five.

[Tuicemen]

 
Nope, I'll most likely have it down to three before the end of the year.
Sadly that may mean the end of my PCC animated speaking Face set I enjoy now in my office.

[Tuicemen]

I'm starting to enjoy using Cortana in my office.
Although she is much slower at turning things on and off.
I seem to like the fact  that the light stays on till I get to the door of the office.
Although PCC is still running I've not used the Speech recognition with it in some time now.
In fact I'm not sure it even works with Cortana enabled now.

(nope I guess not)

[Tuicemen]

I have reminders set up in my Alexa app which showup on my Phone and yesterday I got one on my PC
I think this is due to the fact I also have Cortana setup on my android phone.

This morning I caught my wife looking at her phone with the X10WIFI app open
She was trying to turn off a lamp without her glasses
A X10 icon remote was sitting right next to her but she was trying to use the phone.
The WM100 continues to handle my timers flawlessly and I rarely open the app any more. In fact I think my wife may use the app more then me.
 I've moved the Google mini from the office to the kitchen this is really much better for recipes then Alexa. At least from my initial tests.
I've now got most of my HA devices setup to work with Alexa, Google Home and Cortana. Google seldom gets used for HA however now the mini is in the kitchen.

[HA Dave]

I have reminders set up in my Alexa app which showup on my Phone and yesterday I got one on my PC
I think this is due to the fact I also have Cortana setup on my android phone.........
................I've now got most of my HA devices setup to work with Alexa, Google Home and Cortana. Google seldom gets used for HA however now the mini is in the kitchen.

Everything.... (thanks to the cloud) will soon share with everything else.

Thanks to streaming devices connected to my TV's... all my pictures (or at least 5 gigs of them) can be shared on the TV. I can also share those pics with others by sharing limited cloud permissions (daughter can see granddaughter pics on her TV.. or save and share... so husbands mother can see pics on her smart TV.

Sharing calendars between spouses can make scheduling much easier. And reminders shared with Alex and/or Google can remind spouses why someone is not home.... or that dinner with be eaten-out. Or geofencing can alert one spouse when to push a "visitor" out the back door (that could save a marriage...  ).

The cloud offers more true automation than most traditional automation stores ever thought of. And... there is a lot more to come.

[Tuicemen]

I updated my OP to reflect my current setup which now uses a Raspberry Pi.
Usualy my winter projects dealing with HA are for my city residents this time arround I was interested in playing with a Pi for my off grid place.
So I picked up a 3B+ and started playing with it.
I wasn't interested in using one for my city place. Once the WM100 was released and users started posting about a WM100 companion module using a PI and getting RF I pitched this to Authinx. I noticed the Pi Zero W appeared as though it would fit inside a CM15. I had a few older CM15As with the RF daughter boards so I figured the space would be tight.

I knew the CM15A circuit board had been updated incorporating these daughter boards into the main board so I figured if the Zero W would fit into a older CM15A maybe the newer CM15As would provide more space for a larger pi or a better location for the Zero W.
 I asked the Authinx Owner about a returned CM15A they may have laying around just so I could see the insides I told him the unit didn't need to be in working condition.
I explained I was interested in creating a Pi X10 controller meshing the CM15A and Pi as a proof that a WM Pro could easily be created.
 To my amazement I was sent a free brand new working CM15A to use in my proof of concept Pi Controller.
The owner was worried about drivers but I explained many were already using Pis for HA which use the Linux OS and there were drivers for the CM15A freely available.
I began looking for a Pi type board that would fit in a newer CM15 Sadly it looked like a custom board would be needed to provide what the 3B+ offered.
I knew the Zero W board would fit inside as it would fit in the older versions so I mounted it in the newer CM15.

Rather then attempt to create software utilizing free drivers I looked at several readily available and decided on Home Genie.
I had some experience using this with a TV stick as well as Windows so I knew the setup would be simple.
The newer Cm15As run a little warmer then the older units so I was a bit concerned with the Pi being inside. However this has been running well now for several months with no side affects. HomeGenie (HG) is capable of doing every thing AHP can Plus so much more. Users can share there addons which easily install directly into HG.
 Although HG has an Alexa plugin I created an addon to use HA-Bridge as the support for more devices was in the bridge.
for any one wishing to do the PI CM15A mod you can find my walk though here: http://forums.tuicemen.net/index.php?topic=1291.0
I highly recommend using a Pi with the CM15 even if you don't do the mod.
The Zero W cost me less then $10. The power supply actually cost me more.
Total cost for the mod was under $50 as I got shorter cables and mini USB adaptors to clean up the look.
 

[Tuicemen]

My CM15A/Zero W combo has been working well other then a power blip which caused a SD card corruption.
Luckily I had every thing backed up so it was just a mater of sliding in my backup SD card. The old card was reimaged and replaced into the Zero W. I plan to add a UPS which will prevent this from happening again (hopefully).

 Since I'm home for a few days I decided to expand on my HomeGenie X10 setup adding IP cameras as I did with my off grid place and integrating them into my security setup. I love the fact I can turn my Cameras and email pictures on a security alarm based on which door/window sensor is tripped. My indoor Camera here can also cover all doors however I need two outdoor cameras to cover the doors from the out side simular to my offgrid place.

My Zero was setup in the Raspbian stretch full desktop version. Mainly due to me being new to the Pi world and my limited understanding of the Linux terminal. I've now disabled the Desktop GUI freeing up some CPU power which should make network connections a bit faster loading. When I place in my backup SD card in I also added a small heat sink to the CPU this Isn't required but I highly recommend it or a fan as the newer CM15As do run a little warmer then the older (RF daughter board) versions, this causes the Pi to also run a little warmer being in the same case. However you could also run with the CM15 Battery cover removed to allow more air movement.

 I still run my WM100 wi-fi module but the software for it still isn't reliable enough to depend on it. HomeGenie has timers in it as well as macros so My WM100 is still only used to control lights while away from home or as a remote with the phone.

[bkenobi]

I just realized that you run your RPi off the power from the CM15A.  Because of that, you can't really power the RPi from a UPS directly since that would put your CM15A behind the UPS as well (not good idea).  My setup has the RPi external to the CM15A so it's a non-issue.  In your case, an onboard battery/UPS would be an excellent approach!

[Tuicemen]

I just realized that you run your RPi off the power from the CM15A.  Because of that, you can't really power the RPi from a UPS directly since that would put your CM15A behind the UPS as well (not good idea).  My setup has the RPi external to the CM15A so it's a non-issue.  In your case, an onboard battery/UPS would be an excellent approach!

Actually I never got that part of the mod done for the CM15 the PI is still powered separately with a wall wart.
The experience of the power blip and SD card corruption has led me to rethink powering it from the CM15.
However another SBC I'm playing with has the option of a simple plugin battery option which gets recharged when power is again available. This may be possible to do with a Pi ZeroW as well but may be over my head to setup.

[petera]

My CM15A/Zero W combo have been working well other then a power blip which caused a SD card corruption.
Luckily I had every thing backed up so it was just a mater of sliding in my backup SD card. The old card was reimaged and replaced into the Zero W. I plan to add a UPS which will prevent this from happening again (hopefully).

 Since I'm home for a few days I decided to expand on my HomeGenie X10 setup adding IP cameras as I did with my off grid place and integrating them into my security setup. I love the fact I can turn my Cameras and email pictures on a security alarm based on which door/window sensor is tripped. My indoor Camera here can also cover all doors however I need two outdoor cameras to cover the doors from the out side simular to my offgrid place.

My Zero was setup in the Raspbian stretch full desktop version. Mainly due to me being new to the Pi world and my limited understanding of the Linux terminal. I've now disabled the Desktop GUI freeing up some CPU power which should make network connections a bit faster loading. When I place in my backup SD card in I also added a small heat sink to the CPU this Isn't required but I highly recommend it or a fan as the newer CM15As do run a little warmer then the older (RF daughter board) versions, this causes the Pi to also run a little warmer being in the same case. However you could also run with the CM15 Battery cover removed to allow more air movement.

 I still run my WM100 wi-fi module but the software for it still isn't reliable enough to depend on it. HomeGenie has timers it it as well as macros so My WM100 is still only used to control lights while away from home or as a remote with the phone.

As you say no need for a heatsink on a Raspberry Pi as long as you don't attempt to over clock it. Just make sure you have enough overhead on the power supply.

For discreet cameras I'd try a couple of Pi Zeros with Pi camera modules running MotionEye OS. Much safer than those questionable Chinese ip cameras, very compact and very capable when you have fully exploited the MotionEye software.

Fits in nicely with most Pi setups including HomeGenie. Images in jpeg mjpeg are as crisp as any high end model out there and the MotionEye OS is highly configurable.

[Tuicemen]

I had though of adding a camera module but with the zero in the CM15 it would be to low to be useful here as all outlets are only 6 to 8 inches off the floor. (however there is spare space for it.) As well the cm15 is mounted in a small room I use as an office.
I may look ino adding that to my Off grid place although I do have an old PS2 camera which Raspbian has included drivers for.

[Tuicemen]

 My pi/cm15 HA controler (x10Hub) has been working flawless, the WM100 is still plugged in but I never access it. ( I fear its days are numbered here) My wife uses the Wi-Fi app more then I ever imagined. But I'll soon get her moved over to using HomeGenie with either the app or the browser as she can view all cameras from it without having to switch to another app.
 
The HA season has started early here as I've started work on a Pi X10Hub image which is geared to a Pi ZeroW but others are experimenting with it on other Pi models.
The image is based off what I'm using here but it should support the cm11 or cm19 as well as the cm15 before it is released.

I started to add voice announcements back into my setup using the BT capabilities of the PI and Amazon and or Google voice assistant devices, however it looks like I'll focus just on Alexa voice anouncements.
Setting up BT anouncements is to personalized to include in the Pi X10Hub but I have included a sample sound file and a ReadMe.txt for end users that wish to try setting it up.

[Tuicemen]

With me moving my setup away from the PC and onto the Pi Zero W I stopped using some of my other protocols.
However I've started to re add them into my setup. We picked up a Zwave keypad door lock and added that and my Zwave outlet module back in.
I loaned out my WeMo smart outlet prior to Christmas as it wasn't in use it cam back broken but with a WeMo mini as a replacement. The Smart outlet just needed the manual over ride fixed so I ended up with two working WeMos
Both these protocols are handled with Homegenie

[Tuicemen]

I've had two Zero W boards now running and talking to each other for a while now.
One is used just for remote access and mounted in a CM15 the other has a add on board to allow for three full sized USB ports.
The zero with the add on board is doing most of the work, it has a CM19 currently connected to it as well as a Zwave dongle. This also handles my Alexa integration and WeMo outlets. This one is also paired to a Alexa dot for voice anouncements.
I don't use my recorded Alexa voice anouncements as much as I thought I would so I expect these will slowly disappear from my setup.
 I have Alexa routines announcing some things now anyways.

[racerfern]

Are you managing the z-wave devices with HG? I've been able to add a couple of devices, but they're not recognized as they should be. For instance, just outlet 1 of 5 outlets on a Zooz power strip is recognized.

Your z-wave lock is controlled through HG?