Arming/Disarming X10 security console via Alexa with HG/HA Bridge

[petera]

It is now possible to Arm/Disarm your X10 security console via Alexa by creating a virtual device in HG and having Amazon discover it via your HG/HABridge setup for those too lazy to press a button on a keyfob. 

[Tuicemen]

Actually it has been possible for some time. However it has been made easier with your work on RF sending and the latest HA-Bridge with the HG helper. 
Now if my Cm15 could only learn & send IR

[petera]

Actually it has been possible for some time. However it has been made easier with your work on RF sending and the latest HA-Bridge with the HG helper. 
Now if my Cm15 could only learn & send IR

Unless your CM15 has sprouted an IR receiver that won't happen. Alternatively you could add a $5 IR receiver to the GPIO pins or a Pi Hat for $15 and problem solved.

[Tuicemen]

True, however I already have the IR thing handled well with a Broadlink RM and Broadlink program created for HG.
I could just use the Alexa skills designed for the Broadlink but what fun would that be? 

[petera]

True, however I already have the IR thing handled well with a Broadlink RM and Broadlink program created for HG.
I could just use the Alexa skills designed for the Broadlink but what fun would that be? 

Yes buy that was the whole point of the Raspberry Pi board in the first place. It does away with the need for all that additional hardware clogging up valuable power points on your supply ring. Of course it provides the integrated solution too. Everything under the one roof (or case) in this instance.

Just attach the IR receiver to the GPIO pins, install and configure LIRC and there you have a fully fledged IR receiver to do with what you will. No more nondescript black plastic blobs lying around winking at you and calling home at will.

[Tuicemen]

Of course it provides the integrated solution too. Everything under the one roof (or case) in this instance.

not sure everything would fit in my CM15 also I prefer my CM15 out of sight 

Just attach the IR receiver to the GPIO pins, install and configure LIRC and there you have a fully fledged IR receiver to do with what you will. No more nondescript black plastic blobs lying around winking at you and calling home at will.

Well I'd still have nondescript boxes laying around calling home, their home would just be my home 

[petera]

Hope you have plenty of ventilation in that CM15 casing with the Pi Zero tucked up in there and are running the Pi temperature monitor utility. A lot of heat building up in there which may produce strange results with the Pi Zero. Your wireless chip is being screened and possibly experiencing unwanted rf interference too.

Have you piggybacked off the CM15 power supply to supply power to the Pi. If so I hope you've measured all your voltages correctly and are using a stable regulator.

A little more research on the Broadlink RM might throw up some interesting results too.

[Tuicemen]

I've not piggy backed power from the Cm15 due to fear of spikes in voltage and such.
I actually created a HG program to monitor the Pi temperature and other stats and although this does show it runs a bit hotter then a none cased Zero W it is only by a couple of degrees even with out a passive heat sink.
I've contemplated adding a heatsink or fan for extra cooling but removing the battery compartment cover also drops the temperature.
A fan would be best, though the moded cm15 and Pi ZeroW has been running for over a year with no issues. 

[petera]

Mointing a heatsink on a Pi Zero W, is pointless. All of the single core Raspberry Pi models have the RAM chip mounted on top of the SoC, so adding a heatsink does not cool the CPU or GPU, which are the only chips that generate much heat. Possibly a fan mount could help but that comes with its own problems to.

I'd completely remod that CM15 housing and try isolate the Pi as far away from the inner workings of it to avoid residual rf interference too. Those temp monitoring programs are only a guide so I wouldn't place too much faith in them. The only true sign of problems is when your install starts freezing up or you find you need to reboot regularly. Now they are signs you have problems.

[Tuicemen]

As I stated I have no issues with my zeroW in the CM15a, It actualy works better then my 3B+ which is in an offical case.
The only way I could get the zero further away from the CM15A mother board would be to take it out of the case. It has never hung or had boot issues. This is an older CM15 with extra daughter boards mounted on the mother board for RF. The newer mother boards have thouse included on board but run hotter. However that provides more room in the case.

[petera]

Ok. I read a while back you were regularly restarting the server for some reason and were trying to work out a script to do this automatically. Glad to hear you have that issue resolved as there’s absolutely no need to be restarting/rebooting a server for reasons other than maintenance.

Be careful with that SD card too. Out of sight but never out of mind they end up biting you when you least expect them to. HG can throw out some amazing amount of logs when an issue occurs. That’s why I run with an SSD drive. Using HG on a Pi Zero I’d disable logging completely or pipe the log to a separate device on the LAN.

[Tuicemen]

Ya the issue with needing rebooting was the 3b+ to keep HG up it is now throwing a low voltage error which appears to be from a lose connecting USB. I thought I had that issue resolved but that one has kept up again I think as I can't access my off grid HG today.

Logging for HG has been disabled on my zero W boards.