Home Automation and Security Systems

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > Home Automation and Security Systems

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Keystoned posted:

I have the August and really like it. Its been discounted recently and i got it plus the connect for $180.

Install is super easy. It replaces the knob on your existing deadbolt but uses the same lock so youre not really changing anything. My door tends to be hard to lock so I was worried about it working but its fine.

I have two of the August Smart Lock Pro's and my only gripe is the auto-unlock feature doesn't unlock the door fast enough. Sometimes it takes 3-4 minutes before it detects that I am home. That and the interface is pretty clunky with two locks, having to use a dropdown menu to switch between them. Show me controls for multiple locks on the same screen!

# ¿ Jun 27, 2019 23:25

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 08:00

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

I've been using Amazon Cloud Cam's but since they were discontinued I've started thinking about what to eventually replace them with. The Cloud Cam's have been alright but the web interface is garbage and low light capabilities are not very good.

My home network is all Unifi so I've been looking at the Unifi Protect stuff. Plan would be to replace my Cloud Key Gen 2 & USG with a UDM Pro and use that as the DVR. Anybody else using the Unifi cameras? Is Ubiquiti still actively developing that stuff? Any major cons to be aware of?

# ¿ Mar 4, 2021 21:22

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Less Fat Luke posted:

Just don't rely on smart detection for the "people" category in a yard

This is a selling point for me :lol:

I didn't want to give Ubiquiti more money after the recent security debacle, but I succumbed and recently upgraded my USG+Cloud Key to a UDM Pro, so I was thinking about the cameras. I've got 8 Amazon Cloud Cams currently though that are still working, but they are lacking in many aspects (image quality, low light visibility, motion detection, user interface). I am tempted to try out a Unifi camera. Most of my current cameras are in a location that I could easily get PoE to.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2021 19:54

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

I did a bunch of ceiling fans last year, here's what I remember:

Fanimation has some "smart controls" and either via bluetooth or wifi (these two receivers sold separately, and use separate apps). They are garbage and I ended up using my Bond for these anyways. Fanimation wall controls suck too, I've had two die on me and I'm not even going to bother replacing it again. The handheld remote eats batteries for breakfast. It's a shame their controls & smart home stuff sucks so bad, because the fan itself is really nice and high quality. Not inclined to pay a premium for the rest of the sub-par experience though, the fanimation fans were expensive
Hunter Romulus Wifi fans worked well with the alexa integration. Hunter SimpleConnect app not great but much better than the fanimation one. I think these ended up being my favorite over the fanimation. However, 3/4 worked fine with the wifi setup, and 1 I was never able to get to pair correctly. At that point I had already done 6 fans so I'll be dammed if I'm going to take that loving thing down again, so I just decided to live with it not being on wifi control.

My goal was to have full wall control, handheld remote, and alexa control over all the ceiling fans. I use the Bond for my two Fanimation fans, and the rest are the Hunter Romulus with their Alexa integration. Bond isn't aware of the device state as mentioned already and can only toggle, so "turn off all the lights" when the ceiling fan light is off will turn it on. Both types of fans work with Home Assistant as well.

I don't think it's advised to use normal "dimmer" switches with ceiling fans. Maybe it depends on the fan, but I seem to remember steering away from that option.

In general it seems like the ceiling fan industry hasn't quite figured things out, it's pretty rough around the edges. I spent a long time looking at ceiling fans to find a style I like, I didn't think it was going to be so hard.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2021 18:00

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

My Spirit Otter posted:

Ya, thats the kind Ive been looking for, but all local stores seem to have are amazon/google internet required garbage. I would like one that will work on wifi, ideally, so that i can place one outside to watch my car.

Ive got an old desktop that im going to use as a dedicated system. The plan is to stick linux on it and use zone minder.

I've had good experience with my Amcrest camera. It doesn't require any cloud connectivity as far as I know, I think as long as you have wifi or ethernet you should be able to set it up.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2021 21:56

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Spaseman posted:

There are two bird baths in my parents yard that I want to set a camera up to watch. The baths are about 20 feet from the house and there is a window with a good view that has access to ethernet, wifi, and power. I would like the camera to have night-vision, and an auto record function when it spots movement. The real issue is that I want to build this for my dad and I need whatever software is used to view video to be SUPER simple to use.

Is what I'm looking for feasible? Or are little critters to small for that?

I've never looked into this kind of stuff before so I am completely out of my depth.

20 ft is a pretty good distance to pick up a good level of detail on small animals, I think you would need a pretty decent camera for that which could be expensive. It'd probably be better if you could mount an outdoor camera very close to it, then you'll get some great action shots and you can go with a cheaper camera, assuming the power/internet connectivity is feasible still.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2021 21:58

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

devmd01 posted:

Oh hell, it begins. Time to get my feet wet on getting home assistant set up and running. Main impetus is for Christmas lights; I installed four outlets up in the eaves to plug things in and I don�t want to deal with getting all the timers lined up and plugged in simultaneously, as well as the three interior outlets that also need timers. There are a few other things like water sensors I�d like to have but I�m not planning on going crazy.

Ohhh yes, this is how it begins. You'll have 30+ devices on your network before you even know what happend

# ¿ Aug 12, 2021 20:10

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

skipdogg posted:

I can also confirm. I'm at the point where I get irritated if something isn't smart home controlled.

I had to actually walk over to my oven and push a button to pre-heat it. Time for a new one!

# ¿ Aug 12, 2021 20:30

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

BigFactory posted:

I wish I had never started because my house is a Frankenstein mess that is barely functional or worthwhile. At least I have some pretty lights to play with.

It definitely takes some tinkering to get things running smoothly once you go off the deep end, depending on how sophisticated you want to get with the automation stuff and the various levels of support between the different devices and systems you're using.

devmd01 posted:

I can really, honestly say with a straight face and that I am trying to solve a specific problem here and I doubt that I will go much beyond the 4x outlets and 4x piggyback plugs needed, maybe water sensors in the obvious places to do some alerting.

About the only other possible integrations that won�t happen for a while are with the hvac system and getting a keypad lock for the garage exit door. Anywhere that truly needs motion sensing lights I can just put in a regular motion sensing switch; I don�t want my light switches on any kind of automation. Maybe I�m lacking in imagination but I spent some time looking through what zwave things are available and what scenarios people have created with them and I just don�t care or don�t find them useful to me.

I�m happy to report back in a year that I was wrong, but I doubt I will be.

HA is pretty slick though, I had a spare SFF pc to throw it on because my esxi host doesn�t support usb passthru and it took less than 30 mins to install and get the first device connected.

Some of the automations I setup in HA that I really like:
* Automatically turn on the garage & driveway lights when I open the garage door
* Automatically turn on my "garage open indicator light" when the garage door is open, in case I forget to close it and i don't see the alerts on my phone

* Turning on the appropriate set of exterior lights if I unlock the side door at night time
* Turning on the front porch light and entryway light if somebody rings the doorbell
* Controlling the heatpad for our big tortoise that lives outside depending on the outside temperature
* Anything that was on a dumb timer previously (lizard UV light, holiday lights, etc)

Being able to say "turn on the outside lights" or "turn on all the lights" when you hear a weird noise at night you have to go investigate is nice as well

Part of it is being just kind of a fun hobby but it's useful stuff too! Having voice control for so many things is pretty awesome

# ¿ Aug 12, 2021 23:57

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

movax posted:

I am interested in seeing pictures of this tortoise...

His name is Lumpy, he's a 15-20 year old African Sulcata. He's about 50 lbs right now, they can get to be 100+ lbs. Definitely going to need a bigger yard for him at some point...

He is pretty hard on the yard and I've had to make some repairs and reinforcements, he's just so drat strong and loves to walk around. One day he blasted through the fence and I had to go knock on the neighbors door to retrieve him. He's a good Lump though so I do what I can do accommodate him. The spikes on his shell are due to improper diet from the previous owner. He mainly eats grass pellets formulated for his species, occasionally he'll get a banana or something as a treat.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2021 01:19

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

I'm glad you guys like him

movax posted:

Yeah that is a pretty cool tortoise friend.

I�m curious about the neighbor�s reaction� �Hey, uh, Lumpy�s over again, just kinda wandered through the fence. Feeding him a banana.�

They thought it was hilarious and were super cool about it. Their daughter took a bunch of pictures and I answered their questions about Lumpy

# ¿ Aug 13, 2021 18:03

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

DaveSauce posted:

Well in that case, I'm open to recommendations! Would very much like to avoid another "locked" ecosystem like Hue. Don't get me wrong, I love my Hue stuff, but if I'm going to get in to some more generic things I definitely want to be able to use whatever I want.

I am very happy with my Leviton wifi switches. Works great with Home Assistant and no hub required. They just came out with a new generation of the switch as well.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2021 16:19

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

DaveSauce posted:

Do the devices fit well in multi-gang boxes? The shape looks... odd. Like it for some reason it looks like it wouldn't fit properly in a standard decora wall plate. I guess what's throwing me is the wall plate accessory they have that has to have a special adapter. Not sure if it's because it's a snap-on and hides screws, or because it's too deep, or what...

Yup I ordered lots of these switches and these wall plates and the widest I did was a 4 gang. They are definitely a little deeper than a dumb switch but I was able to cram them in without too much hassle

Motronic posted:

To further confuse things, I'm on team Honewell (zwave) with a zwave stick on HA.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B3HY74L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

There are also decora versions as well as "add on switches" (to replace 3 way switches).

I like there because they are both reliable and completely controllable after you pull the plug out of your home automation system. I think all the other suggested are as well, but that's a huge criteria for me. As well as "doesn't need to be on the internet to work with my not on the internet home automation system".

The Leviton wifi switches are also completely controllable if they are not connected to the internet, they operate just like a normal switch (they don't have an on/off position though, it's like a center rocker kinda switch)

I believe the new generation Leviton wifi switches also work on a local network without being connected to the internet, I have not actually tried that yet though

# ¿ Aug 26, 2021 02:19

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

DaveSauce posted:

Anyone used the Home Assistant Blue at all?

https://www.home-assistant.io/blue/

I just heard of this. I'm currently running HA on a Pi, and I've been thinking of swapping over to a NUC or some other mini PC so I can 1) repurpose the Pi for another project I have in mind, 2) get some slightly better performance, but mainly 3) stop worrying about the SD making GBS threads the bed. The plan was to one day add cameras and Blue Iris to the NUC, but that's a ways off.

So this seems like a pretty good intermediate step to get me a little closer to where I'm going, and a whole lot cheaper than a NUC.

Never heard of it until your post. I went the route of using a M.2 USB enclosure to avoid SD cards since I had a spare M.2 for it, seemed a bit overkill though

Looking at what I paid for my Home Assistant hardware I've got:
* Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 2019 $56
* Power Adapter $7
* Flirc Raspberry Pi 4 Case $16
* Micro HDMI to HDMI adapter $6
* M.2 USB enclosure $19
* Spare M.2 SSD $0

Comes out to $104, ignoring the cost of the SSD. My setup is admittedly ugly, with the big M.2 enclosure stuck to the tiny Pi case.

ameridroid shows the Blue costing $165. So definitely not the cheapest solution, but it certainly looks nicer. I'd probably be tempted to Blue myself if I had to do it all over again.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2021 02:45

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

spf3million posted:

This is the kind of thing I want to learn more about.

Unifi documentation & the Mactelecom Networks youtube channel was my crash course through this. Took me a few hours but eventually got there. Now I've got my NAS & Desktop on 1 VLAN, IoT poo poo on another, and Cameras on a third. Setup the firewall rules so that things can't communicate across the VLANs, except for specific hosts & ports (Fire Stick accessing the NAS for media, Desktop accessing a printer, etc).

# ¿ Oct 2, 2021 00:30

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

ScooterMcTiny posted:

Yea that�s what we have inside the garage. I�m looking for an option we can have in our house which is ~20 feet away from the garage itself. Right now we just keep a garage door remote on the countertop.

I think your solution of the garage door remote on the countertop is a good one actually. My garage door opener also has MyQ built in but I wanted an easy way to control it with Alexa (voice) & HomeAssistant (I have a red light that turns on in the kitchen when the garage is open in case I forget and don't see the alerts on my phone) so I bought a Garadget and use that instead of MyQ.

# ¿ Jan 28, 2022 18:32

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

SpeedFreek posted:

I need a solar powered wifi camera that can do about 150'/50m minimum range plus one wall, thats about as close as I can get a router to it. Almost everything I have found says nothing about the range and most reviews are people putting it right on their house.

Does anyone have any experience with a camera like that? I'm planning on keeping the camera and NVR computer on a separate network and have driveway sensors I'm working on integrating with Home Assistant, all I need the camera to do is get the plate from the Amazon truck driving across my lawn to the neighbors driveway.

edit: Using the list of compatible cameras on Zoneminder to check what I find against, if it works for that it should work for Shinobi I'm thinking.

I think you may need to consider a more elaborate setup for something like that, handling solar + battery as well as network connectivity separate from the camera itself rather than having an all in one solution. I would consider running a POE line instead if it's feasible

# ¿ Mar 3, 2022 19:37

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

VelociBacon posted:

I'm moving into my first owned condo in about a month. I've never really paid a lot of attention to smart home stuff because I was living in a 1960s built rented apartment and I didn't even have thermostat control in my own unit. I do heavily use 6-8 smart plugs (like the ones that sit between the device's power cord and the wall outlet) but that's about it.

Are smart home things worthwhile? My place was renovated in 2015 and is pretty modern as far as condos go in my area but nothing 'smart' was built in. I wouldn't need any security stuff or automation really but this is as far as I can tell also the smart home thread. I've heard of nest thermostats which I think aren't even around anymore, not sure if that world is worth hopping into.

I guess I'm not really sure what I'm asking besides to try to figure out if there are certain ecosystems of products in this space that are huge goon favorites that I would benefit by installing and getting used to from the beginning and not trying to shoehorn into my daily life in a few years.

Smart home devices are not must haves but it's one of those things that once you get used to having it's pretty drat convenient. Doors automatically unlocking when you come home, "Alexa open the garage door" while you are tying your shoes, voice control of every single light switch and ceiling fan and even the gas fireplace, and then adding automation with Home Assistant like turning on certain lights if the garage door opens after the sun goes down. Those are some of my most used ones at least. Next I want to do smart smoke alarms. Nest thermostats are very much a thing still as well. So I'd say it's worthwhile overall. I started out with a couple outlets like you have and things snowballed from there, now there's like 100 devices on my wifi network.

WhiteHowler posted:

But honestly, I think most of us do this because we like playing with the pretty lights. It's fun to be able to give Google a voice command to set all of my house's lights and security system to "bedtime mode", but is it appreciably improving my life? Not really. It's just... cool.

If you're looking for a cost-benefit analysis, then no, I don't think home automation is "worth it" for most people. If you want a fun, nerdy project that will very make certain specific things marginally easier, and impress your friends when they come over, then yeah,

These are definitely relevant aspects for me as well

fletcher fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Mar 20, 2022

# ¿ Mar 20, 2022 15:00

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Sir Sidney Poitier posted:

I'm soon to move house and had been planning on getting a full Ubiquiti setup with:

- Wifi APs
- G3 cameras
- Doorbell
- Dream Machine Pro

However it seems that literally nowhere has stock of the cameras any more - no models in stock at any retailers at all, with nobody able to say anything beyond "place an order and you'll get them when you get them".

I had been drawn to Ubiquiti by the software interface, the fact that storage is local but can be viewed on mobile or similar, and that the doorbell integrates with it. With this in mind, are there any other manufacturers that provide similar but whose products aren't purely the stuff of myth and legend?

I'm looking to get 3 cameras, 1 doorbell, 3 APs, I want them to be PoE, on all the time and local storage, ideally with no subscription fee. In the UK.

I'm in the US but yeah pretty much everything has been out of stock for 9+ months now, it seems to be getting better lately though. I see several hundred G3 Instants pop up per week but they go really quick. I sent you a PM to the Discord that has in stock notifications.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2022 18:14

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Which devices do you guys like for smart smoke detectors?

# ¿ Apr 25, 2022 20:04

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Motronic posted:

Why do you want them "smart"? If it's for actual fire protection/central station service your choices are very limited. Most certified/certifiable central station alarms I've seen either have their own or use First Alert ZCOMBO (which is a zwave smoke/co2 detector).

Hmm good question. I guess it's mainly just so I know if one of them is going off and I'm not at home. Depending on what is setting if off, that information may be of limited value. I've got sprinklers in my house, but it still seems like it might be useful to know when a smoke/co2 detector is going off though.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2022 20:47

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Amazon Cloud Cam's have an EOL date announced now, got this email yesterday:

quote:

An Important Message about your Cloud Cam

With your help over the last five years, Cloud Cam has served as a reliable indoor security camera and a hub for Amazon Key-compatible smart locks that work with Alexa. As the number of Alexa smart home devices continues to grow, we are focusing efforts on Ring, Blink, and other technologies that make your home smarter and simplify your everyday routines. Therefore, we have decided to no longer continue support for Amazon Cloud Cam and its companion apps.

What this means for you:
On December 2, 2022, you will no longer be able to use your Cloud Cam device or its companion apps. Until then, you will be able to download any video recordings if available. All video history will be deleted on December 2, 2022. Also, if you are using Cloud Cam � Key Edition as a Zigbee hub, you will no longer be able to use it to connect to compatible locks or manage pin codes in the Amazon Key app.

What�s next:
To thank you for your continuous support and feedback, we would like to offer you a complimentary Blink Mini and one-year Blink Subscription Plus Plan. Blink Mini offers customers an easy-to-use, indoor security camera experience with 1080p HD video, 2.4 GHz Wifi connectivity, night vision, motion detection, two-way audio, and works with Alexa. The Blink Subscription Plus Plan provides extra features and benefits for Blink devices � learn more https://support.blinkforhome.com/en_US/subscriptions/purchasing-a-blink-subscription-plan-through-amazon#plans.

Additionally, we would also like to offer you a free Echo (4th gen), which serves as a Zigbee hub so that you can remotely control your connected lock with Alexa.

Prior to December 2, 2022, you will receive detailed instructions on how to redeem your free Blink Mini and Blink Subscription Plus Plan along with a free Echo (4th gen) via email.

Downloading and deleting your video recordings:
To back up your videos from Cloud Cam app, go to Recorded Clips in the top right menu. Click on each individual video and click on the Download icon on the right side to save the video or click on the Trash icon next to it to delete the video. You could also delete all videos on Amazon Manage Your Content and Devices at any time.

If you have any questions about this, please reach out to customer service for additional information.

I finally got my last G4 Instant that I've been replacing my Cloud Cam's with and I was going to list my 10 Cloud Cam's for sale next week. There goes that plan!

# ¿ May 28, 2022 19:09

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

edit: whoops removed the 1st half of this, thought I was in the Networking megathread

priznat posted:

For home video stuff I was eyeballing ubiquiti as well, I like how the udm pro has a drive bay to slot a hdd into.

I have a homekit camera now (just watching the front yard) and it�s good but homekit video seems really slow and limited.

I put a 8TB SSD in the UDM Pro drive bay and the seek times are soooo fast on the cameras

fletcher fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Dec 3, 2022

# ¿ Dec 3, 2022 20:12

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

priznat posted:

That rocks. Is there good software for moving clips of interest (either manually or automatically flagged) to a NAS for longer term storage?

I've been using rclone & this unifi-protect-backup pypi package to upload event clips as they occur to backblaze

I had originally started going down the route of running something on the UDM itself to backup the protect videos at the filesystem level, but they way it stores the videos and preallocates files proved to be problematic, so I went with this instead. I also didn't really like the idea of running custom poo poo on the UDM itself, so I run unifi-protect-backup using docker on a separate machine.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2022 20:20

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

armorer posted:

How do those things do with hardwood to carpet transitions and also with navigating around a dining room table with 6 chairs tucked under it?

My Roborock S7+ does pretty navigating around the table and 6 chairs:

# ¿ Dec 6, 2022 09:17

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Why can't you have a device in multiple groups in Google Home? I want a light to be part of "family room" and "downstairs lights" for example.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2022 18:50

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Tricky Ed posted:

Turns out I'm in the market for a new garage door opener. I plan to eventually run my own controller for Smart Things but currently don't have anything set up, and I need whatever solution we get to be really easy to use. I'm reasonably willing to troubleshoot but other people in the house are not.

Option 1: Get whatever Chamberlain MyQ thing exists and worry about integrating it with the rest of my network when I have one.
Option 2: Get a dumb opener and connect it to a controller, and use that as the first step in home automation.

Whichever option I pick, it needs to be able to check if the door is open and close it remotely for someone who regularly yells at an iPhone for being stupid. Is there such a thing?

I had a MyQ for my garage door but it didn't work with Alexa so I ended up returning it and getting a Garadget. Works great with Alexa & Home Assistant.

# ¿ Jan 9, 2023 19:58

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Why are Amazon Cloud Cams still selling on ebay? Amazon shut it down a while ago, who is buying these and for what purpose??

# ¿ Jul 3, 2023 08:01

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

TraderStav posted:

This is a horror movie from the early 90s. Just can't place which one.

If it wasn't exactly this, it was a doll like Chucky or some other toy.

Don't buy this

*cat scratches the furniture*

YOU HAVE 10 SECONDS TO COMPLY

# ¿ Jul 4, 2023 04:19

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

I've been running Home Assistant on a Rasberry Pi for several years, and it's been great. I've got a proxmox machine now though, and it'd be nice to be able to repurpose the pi for something else.

I've got a debian VM on proxmox that I use to run a bunch of different apps via docker compose. There seem to be four flavors of Home Assistant for Linux: https://www.home-assistant.io/installation/linux

Container & Core seem a little bit gimped in not being able to import backups, so I was going to try Home Assistant Supervised. Maybe that's unnecessary though, since I can just do backups outside of Home Assistant through other means?

The installation instructions for Home Assistant Supervised seem straight forward enough. Can I just do docker-in-docker to run this?

# ¿ Jul 4, 2023 20:05

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Hmmm maybe Home Assistant Container is just fine for my needs

I copied off everything in the config & .storage folders from the pi, started up the container, logged in with my existing username and password, and everything seems to be there. For backups I can manage that myself since /config is just a bind mount to the host machine, and for updates I just pin it to a new version of the container and start it up. Is that all there is to it?? Doesn't seem like I'm missing out on anything by just using Home Assistant Container.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2023 20:30

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Looks like they have 3 flavors of VM images. It seems like you have to do some sort of conversion to import it into Proxmox, is that right?

Is there an advantage of going the VM route rather than a container running in my existing VM?

edit: I don't currently have any additional USB devices attached to my pi, if that matters!

fletcher fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jul 4, 2023

# ¿ Jul 4, 2023 21:15

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

bobfather posted:

Hass is one of the weirdest, most unintuitive pieces of software that I�ve ever used. And yeah, there�s a huge difference between the operating system and a containerized version of hass: The OS can use the addon store, and the containerized version cannot. Why? Who knows.

The only addon I've had installed for the last 3 years is File Editor. Looking through the addon store, I don't see any others I may want to use in the future. I already use a bunch of the apps in there, but I don't run them in Home Assistant. I like having Home Assistant just do smart home automation stuff, and nothing more.

ShoeFly posted:

I assume because HA addons are just Docker containers themselves? My Docker knowledge is fairly basic but running Docker within Docker seems like a bad idea.

It is very common to run docker in docker for CI/CD pipelines. They even offer a bunch of official images for dind (docker-in-docker): https://hub.docker.com/_/docker

# ¿ Jul 4, 2023 22:12

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

drhankmccoyphd posted:

Can anyone recommend a good article on smart lights? I am looking to put some smart lighting w colors in my kids rooms, bulbs and strips, as well as some dimmer bulbs in various rooms. I already have a google home device which I’m hoping to use for control. I don’t think I need a hub or smart switches but I could be wrong. Sounds like the original light switches need to remain on to use the smart bulbs? Not really sure what best practices are for a relatively simple setup. I’d prefer not to do any wiring.

I have been very happy with these:

Kasa Smart Light Bulbs, Full Color Changing Dimmable Smart WiFi Bulbs Compatible with Alexa and Google Home, A19, 9W 800 Lumens,2.4Ghz only, No Hub Required, 4 Count (Pack of 1), Multicolor (KL125P4) https://a.co/d/ief3UbM

And Kasa Smart LED Light Strip, 50 Color Zones RGBIC, 16.4ft Wi-Fi LED Strip Works w/ Alexa, Google Home & SmartThings, High Brightness, 16M Colors, PU Coating, Trimmable, 2 Yr Warranty (KL420L5) https://a.co/d/2ZyLCNQ

Yes that is correct, the original light switch essentially needs to be always flipped to on in order for the bulb to be online so you can turn it on with voice/app, it needs power for the tiny computer running inside the bulb. The good news is that if you do flip the switch to off, generally the bulbs will return to their last state when you flip the switch back on. So it generally works like a dumb bulb at that point.

Setup is a breeze, essentially just install the app on your phone, plug in the device, and follow the prompts to add the device. I use Alexa instead of Google Home, but I'd imagine it's similar where you just tell Google Homd you have a new "works with Google" device to add

# ¿ Jul 6, 2023 15:30

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

calandryll posted:

We're going to be replacing our decking and in the process, I'd like to add some low voltage lighting for railing and steps. Is there a transformer that works with HA, preferably using something like Tasmota or ESPhome? Or would I be better off doing an outdoor smart plug?

I have a transformer from Volt Lighting and I just use this Leviton smart plug since it fits inside the little door perfectly

Leviton DW15A-1BW Decora Smart Wi-Fi Plug-in Outlet, Works with Amazon Alexa, No Hub Required https://a.co/d/esAZqsL

Works great with Home Assistant

# ¿ Jul 9, 2023 07:22

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

TenementFunster posted:

i still can't believe logitech killed off the Harmony. all these years later, and it has gotta be my second-favorite smart home device, aside from being able to adjust the thermostat while in bed.

Agreed! It is such a shame they killed it. There is nothing that competes with it AFAIK. They had such a complete database of remote control mappings. I wish they'd at least open source it, sell it off to some other entity, something to keep it alive.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2023 07:09

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Anybody use one of the Kidde Smoke Alarm with Smart Features yet?

They have another variant that air quality monitoring as well.

My smoke detectors are almost 20 years old now, so they probably need to be replaced anyways. I can't think of any reason to integrate it with Home Assistant or Alexa. Looks like Kidde is not integrated with Home Assistant yet anyways, though it looks like it's only a matter of time before it is. I like the idea of being able to do my periodic detector tests without having to lug the ladder around the house though. Occasionally checking the air quality in the house when there are California wildfires sounds nice too.

Installation was easy, and the app seems simple enough. I was gonna give it a trial period and then order some more unless there's any glaring issues I run into.

One thing I wasn't clear on was whether the first variant I listed has carbon monoxide detection, or if it's just the more expensive one with AQM.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2023 18:38

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

The voice control stuff they added in Home Assistant is working great so far for me, controlling it from my Android phone. Now I want to replace all of my Amazon Echo devices with something that works with it - has anybody here attempted that yet?

Maybe even just some sort of cheap android tablet for the countertop would work

# ¿ Aug 10, 2023 23:20

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 08:00

fletcher: Jun 27, 2003; ken park is my favorite movie; Cybernetic Crumb

Three Olives posted:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BCR7M9KX/

Amazon is doing a smart home splinter of their Echo that looks really good.

I have been really happy with my Google setup, but Google seems to have completely lost interest as they are wont to do and are actually removing features from their smart displays after killing off their party ones entirely.

If it's anything like the Echo Show, they are probably just going to use this thing as a way to slip advertisements into your vision. The only reason I got an Echo Show is for voice assistant, and to see a slideshow of my cat pictures on my desk.

I can't wait to get rid of all my Amazon Echo devices and use Home Assistant for voice control. I think the dashboard things are cool but I don't really see myself using it if voice control is available. Maybe seeing video upon doorbell press would be nice, can't think of anything else though.

I just need a good standalone voice device now, some sort of open source but not totally DIY echo dot would be nice.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2023 16:18

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