November 24, 2023 Automating “should be the bins be out… and are they?” Use of ESPresence, BLE iBeacons, Node Red and Home Assistant to tell if it is rubbish day, which bins need to go out (and only if the bins haven’t been put out yet) Categories Home Automation Comments: 3
August 7, 2023 Home EV Wallcharger Setup & Installation Tips Having had electric vehicles for a few years now, I thought I’d share a few tips and photos regarding our current EV charging setup. We currently have 2 EVs (both that live outside) and 2 charging points, one beside the other. Categories CCTV/Electric Vehicles/Home Automation/Security Comments: 0
August 6, 2023 Appliance Completion Notification with Node Red Use of Node Red and Javascript to monitor power to an appliance and notify when complete. It also can log to a csv file and do calculations based on total power used and the cost of that power, with peak/offpeak rates taken into account. Categories Home Automation Comments: 0
August 4, 2023 Tasmota Rule Examples Below are some rules for Tasmota that I’ve used over the years, including doing basic standalone automations (no Home Assistant, no Node Red, or other additional tools). Standalone automation can be handy, and in simple cases you don’t need any working wireless for basic functions. If you install smart devices, you can safely disconnect your networking (eg if you sell your house) and still have some basic smart functions. Categories Home Automation Comments: 0
December 24, 2022 Oven Reminders with Node Red & ESPHome Use of Node Red and Javascript to monitor power to my oven and give regular announcements that is is still running. It also can log to a csv file and do calculations based on total power used and the cost of that power, with peak/offpeak rates taken into account. Categories Home Automation Comments: 0
October 19, 2022 Small CCTV Monitor for RTSP Display This project allows the use of an old raspberry pi (V1), plus a basic automotive 7″ analogue LCD screen to display streamed CCTV images. Categories CCTV/Home Automation Comments: 0
September 29, 2022 Zemismart KS-811 with OpenBK7231N/OpenBeken Recently a friend bought some Zemismart wall switches and they have a BK7231N chip rather than an ESP8266. This outines the OpenBeken project and how it can be used in the switch in a similar way to Tasmota/ESPHome. Categories Home Automation Comments: 4
August 31, 2022 Vehicle 12V Battery Monitoring with ESP8266 and ESPHome Using the Analogue input on an ESP8266 and voltage divider to monitor the status of a 12V battery in a car. Categories Electric Vehicles/Electronics/Home Automation/Vehicles Comments: 5
July 8, 2022 WB3S replacement for Home Automation devices More and more home automation devices from China are coming with no ESP8266 module, especially the TUYA based ones. Some are coming with a WB3S (which is different to the TYWB3S), but this can easily be removed and replaced with a cheap ESP12F (or similar) module. Categories Electronics/Home Automation Comments: 4
June 27, 2022 Used EV Payback (Part 2, Was it worth it?) How much to you save buying a used EV, and is it worth it? How long is the payback? This is my actual calculations about four years later and close to 100kkms on the odometer of the 2014 Nissan Leaf I purchased. Cutting to the chase, it was a LOT better than my estimates, and I wish we’d bought two of them. Categories Electric Vehicles/Home Automation/Opinion Comment: 1
May 27, 2022 Xiaomi BLE LCD Thermometers in Home Assistant Using esphome in an ESP32 dev board to pull the values of some cheap Xiaomi LCD temp sensors (with BLE) and integrate them into home assistant. Categories Home Automation Comments: 0
May 27, 2022 Jaycar Duinotech ESP32 Wearable Board Fix I couldn’t wait for some cheap ESP32 Dev boards from China, and Jaycar happened to have some half price ESP32 boards (Duinotech wearable ESP32 Development Board) so I grabbed a couple to play with. Unfortunately I had a couple of issues flashing them and keeping them stable so had to find a solution. Categories Electronics/Home Automation Comments: 0
May 3, 2022 ESP8266 with PWM to control a computer fan Use of an ESP8266 to PWM control a 12Vdc, 2-wire computer fan, with a MOSFET (first with Tasmota, then a change to using ESPHome) Categories Home Automation/IT & Networking Comments: 0
January 27, 2022 WH1080 Fine Offset Weather Station Reset I have a low cost WH1080 USB Weather station, connected by USB to an intel NUC running docker (x86). These weather stations have a bug in that they occasionally lock up and stop sending data. I implemented an automated way to reset it. Categories Home Automation/Weather Comments: 0
November 18, 2021 Tasmota Run on Timer Rules: Triple bathroom light button Use of a triple pushbutton, running Tasmota to do simple run-on functions in a bathroom. Categories Home Automation Comments: 0
October 14, 2021 Kogan Smart Glass Kettle 1.7L and Tasmota Notes on how to flash Tasmota to a $50 Kogan Smart Glass Kettle 1.7L Tasmota (Also available from the online retailer Dick Smith), and control it with Home Assistant. Categories Home Automation Comments: 0
October 10, 2021 Notes for Moes Zigbee Scene Switch Notes for setting up “Moes” brand 1,2,3 or 4 button zigbee Scene switches with a Sonoff Zigbee Bridge Categories Home Automation Comments: 0
August 30, 2021 Tracking Pet Feeding with Home Automation A method to track whether the cat and dog have been fed in a busy household. Categories Home Automation Comments: 0
May 27, 2021 Kogan Smart Plug: No Esp8266? (Tuya WB2S) It is getting more and more common to get smart devices that have chips other than ESP8266 in them, and these chips are usually not flashable with the likes of Tasmota, espHome etc. This Kogan power monitor had an Tuya WB3S Categories Electronics/Home Automation Comments: 0
April 17, 2021 LED Strip Ambient Up-lighting Some notes re how I have used LEDs for decorative up-lighting in between ceiling beams, and controlled with Tasmota and Node Red. Categories Home Automation/Lighting Comments: 0
April 12, 2021 Internet Speed test to InfluxDB & MQTT with Docker Use of the Ookla speedtest cli to test the internet connection regularly, and push the results to influx db & MQTT. Categories Home Automation/IT & Networking Comments: 0
March 20, 2021 Controlling a Computer Remotely with MQTT I was looking for various ways to control my computers via home automation, and my method of choice MQTT. I found mqcontrol by albertnis to be the best option and simplest for my use case. Categories Home Automation/IT & Networking Comments: 0
November 3, 2020 Using an SDR and RTL_433 in docker with MQTT Mainly to grab weather station data, but also useful for other 433MHz data, this is the setup I use in Docker. It uses a cheap Realtek USB SDR, and pushes data received straight to an MQTT server. Categories Home Automation/Weather Comments: 0
October 31, 2020 Tasmota Flash of GLD110HA Smart Globe Flashing a cheap Wifi connected smart light bulb with Tasmota (attempting to use Tuya Convertmethod, but reverting to a hardware flash) Categories Home Automation Comments: 0
September 21, 2020 Using nsupdate to update a DNS server using docker Summary This sets up a continual check (using cron) to obtain the current external IP, and if it has changed from the last check, update the remote dns server (that you need full access to). Notes do not as yet show how to set up the dns server and certs. Suggestions for simplifying welcome, maybe holding the current IP address… Categories Home Automation/IT & Networking Comments: 0
July 29, 2020 Tasmota Energy Meter Pulse Output Counting Summary This monitoring was built as part of my whole house 3 phase monitoring project. I had a couple of kWh counters (often called Check Meters) on my main and a sub board. Not as accurate, and can’t monitor V or power factor etc, but useful to look at targeted areas of power use as well as having their own… Categories Home Automation
July 26, 2020 Whole House Surge Suppression for 3 Phase Summary Common in Europe and other locations around the world, but not really in NZ is the use of surge suppression modules in a main DB. I have a few servers and sensitive equipment so thought it might be a good idea as I was building a small power monitoring switchboard anyway. Standard install practice is to use an MCB… Categories Home Automation
July 21, 2020 Whole House 3 Phase Power with PZEM-004T A robust, accurate, low cost and safe whole house electricity monitoring setup, using PZEM-004T modules. These use current transformers (CTs), and send data as TTL Modbus-RTU. Recently Tasmota has added support for up to 3 of these directly (on the same data channel) so there are fewer hoops to jump though to get them working (previously my testing involved sending serial commands) Categories Home Automation
June 11, 2020 Secure the Chocolate: Simple Cupboard Security We have created a self contained area of our house that we still use a lot ourselves, and part of the need is to be able to store and use spaces for our own stuff… without guests having access. One of the bedrooms and a full sized cupboard can be locked with a key when needed, but what do you… Categories Home Automation/Home Renovations/Security Comments: 0
June 2, 2020 USB Weather Station & Weewx using Docker Use of a Low cost WH1080 USB Weather station, connected by USB to an intel NUC running docker. Weewx pushes data to a local MQTT server (on the same NUC) and also uses SFTP to push graphs and displays to my commercial webserver. Categories Home Automation/Weather Comments: 0