Today with my home automation I......

chrisfraser05

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Guys,

I haven't been posting on this forum long (but have lurked for years lol) and have noticed more and more questions or posts about home automation.

A thread I've been reading on an Automation forum has provided good interest to me so I thought I'd start a similar one here.

Basically if you've been meddling/tweaking/planning with your home automation system today, post a little about it.
That way we can get ideas, give suggestions and maybe start spin off threads if we hit a topic that interests anyone.

I'll start...

Overview. I run a Vera controller and an android tablet in my hall with various devices enabling automation and control of lighting in all rooms, an alarm system, control over harmony, heating and a few other functions....

Today I setup "say the weather" with imperihome app. This speaks a weather forecast pulled from weather underground and played over the tablets TTS.
It plays over my Bluetooth speaker in my front porch which is used for my alarm.

Then I got back to my head scratching about how the hell I can choose whether to play sound on the tablet in my hall or the Bluetooth speaker in the porch.
It's been driving me mad.
I'd be happy if it was possible to just set the tablet to do both....
Not so simple!

In the end I found a workaround.

I need to hear tts in the porch for alarm armed, warning for motion detected pre alarm sounding, and disarmed.
Also a warning when attempting to set the alarm if a window is left open.

I need to hear it in the hall when putting the alarm in night mode (door/window sensors only), weather forecast or spoken warnings like humidity in bathroom high etc.

What I've ended up doing is using tasker to disconnect the Bluetooth on a trigger from autovera, play what it needs to then reconnect again.
Works like a charm!

I learned a few new swear words in the process mind lol

Next i improved my alarm PLEG (logic code) where the system checks if the bathroom window is already open when setting away/night.

If it is open the system returns to home mode and a tts plays either in my porch or hall depending which mode to tell you "the alarm failed to arm as the bathroom window is open"

I then also decided to use a combination of tasker/auto vera to silence the tablet alarm clock.
As the tablet is in the main hall just outside our room.
It goes off at 07:30 for us to get the kids up for school.
If one of us is already up we will set the "wake" mode on the tablet (imperihome & a Vera virtual switch) which puts the house into home mode, disables the alarm system, turns on a few lamps, off a few night lights and turns the tv on with harmony.
I've used tasker to check between 00:00 and 12:00, if wake mode is enabled between these times it automatically turns the tablets alarm volume to zero.
At 12:00 the volume returns to 5.

Next I'm going to setup an alarm acknowledge on both our phones using tasker and auto remote so we can both turn the alarm on the tablet off from bed lol

Now I'd better do something other than play with the HA or the wife will go daft!



Please share your experiences guys, Chris
 
I added the Harmony app to my Vera at the weekend, did not even know they had an app for it (purchased remote last year) and it works great!

I used to have my Heatmiser wi-fi room stat connected via an app but it kept reporting it was lost every day so I have removed it for now.

I have not touched the surface of what this can do yet but keep adding bits to it over time.

Since my changeover from X10 to Z-Wave i'm still amazed what it can do for very little outlay....
 
I added the Harmony app to my Vera at the weekend, did not even know they had an app for it (purchased remote last year) and it works great!

It's great fun playing with it all lol

I reduced the harmony polling time down to 5 seconds last night and check Vera for coy/memory usage. No effect.
Then I created a couple of new harmony scenes, to change from watch sky to watch sky lights off is handy.


Today I added all our lights and a couple of other devices into tasker/autovera profiles.
Although I have the tablet in the hall for all the functions it's just easier saying this light on, this light off, ollie is sleeping etc into your phone to have the house do your bidding.

Another thing I did was created a notification and audible warning on the hall tablet that repeats every 20 minutes of the bathroom humidity is over 55%, the window is closed and it's between 8:00 and 20:00.

"Bathroom humidity high, please open the window"
 
Hey all

Automation is Indigo running on a MacMini
Security is dedicated but linked into Indigo via IP

Voice Recognition is via Win7 NUC PC running VoxCommando. Boundary Mics are linked into sound card via Shure Intelligent Gated mixer.

Music and Speech is via Sonos and OSX voice

Presence detection is via Bluetooth as this doesn't rely on GeoLocation or WiFi

Plan is to run tablets with GUI for HA. This will replace alarm keypad function also

Tablets could also be used as localised Mics for voice recognition

Some internal doors have central locking with biometric override.

Lastly I have a fogger system linked to the alarm - also play music track full volume through Sonos on alarm activation just to scare the mother-in-law ;)

Fabien
 
Hey all

Automation is Indigo running on a MacMini
Security is dedicated but linked into Indigo via IP

Voice Recognition is via Win7 NUC PC running VoxCommando. Boundary Mics are linked into sound card via Shure Intelligent Gated mixer.

Music and Speech is via Sonos and OSX voice

Presence detection is via Bluetooth as this doesn't rely on GeoLocation or WiFi

Plan is to run tablets with GUI for HA. This will replace alarm keypad function also

Tablets could also be used as localised Mics for voice recognition

Some internal doors have central locking with biometric override.

Lastly I have a fogger system linked to the alarm - also play music track full volume through Sonos on alarm activation just to scare the mother-in-law ;)

Fabien

Ha ha ha, that's brilliant. I'm thinking of what I could use to wind the mother inlaw up.
Think maybe a custom welcome message by giving her a unique pin for the alarm.

With indigo do you have to use ipads for the wall tablets or are there Windows/android apps that will work with it?
 
Indigo has a native Apple based app, however a user/developer has written an Android version.

The GUI (Control Pages) are web based. There is an editor or you can write your own depending on how good you are.

Fabien...
 
Cool.

So you could just setup a host server on a NAS or the MAC and run the pages from there.

I suppose you could go that with any system really and use wget commands and the like.
 
As I understand it, Indigo runs the web server also. You then link the graphics to actions / devices.

It supports AppleScript and Python for customisation, plus there is a vibrant plugin community that links in Sonos / weather / RFXcom / DAC cards

Product support (as seen in the forums) is really responsive. This was a determining factor when choosing the software

Fabien
 
I was thinking about making a similar thread to this the other day but never got around to it. Would be interesting to see what others are up to :)

I'll add some info about my setup tomorrow.
 
Today my oak frame arrived for my wall tablet, well chuffed with the effect. Hides it nicely.

Photobucket is down otherwise I'd post a couple of shots.

Also I was in homebase again and found the 3 pack of energenie plugs is still being sold at £11.33

I bought another pack (would have bought more but that's all they had). Took them home and taught them all 1 channel on Vera/Rfxtrx.

I then had a rummage and found 3x 13 sockets and plugs in my box of bits, wired a socket and plug before my LED drivers on top of the kitchen cabinets. As all 3 are in different areas of the kitchen I needed the 3 sockets.

I then wrote conditions/timers for motion in the kitchen, so these lights come on and stay on until 20 mins after the last time the sensor detects motion.
If I find myself having to wave my arms during dinner I'll extend it a little bit these coming on/off should stop the wife using these or the main lights and leaving them on for hours on end lol

Lastly I did a really quick vid of part of the system and posted it here;

Very quick vid of my home automation system
 
Today I figured out what settings to use on the Mercury 350 outlets I bought from Amazon (£13 for 3) and got then working with Vera.

I then stripped one down so I was left with only the board and it's fairly compact.
I then used this in the back of the pattress box for my external light at the front door.
I then setup some rules so the light comes on for 20 mins when either the front door opens or there is motion in the porch.
I've also created a trigger on mine and the wife's phone apps so the light comes on for an hour when triggered from the app and also with the comfort heat mode, this means of we're out and coming home not only are we able to turn the heat back up before we get home but have the light on too ready.

I'd like to get the motion detection from the cctv camera working so I can use it, as the building is listed I don't want to go banging a PIR sensor on the front wall.

Anyway, not a bad little upgrade for £4.66 lol
 
Finally got around to listing my setup :)

I only really do this for a bit of fun. I like tinkering with things and whilst some of the things I do are quite handy, none of them are really necessary.

Controller
Fibaro HC2. When I first got started I had a good look around and this seemed to be quite a slick option but also had the advantage of LUA programming so I knew I'd never really run out of options. I managed to grab one on ebay for about £260 so was pretty pleased with that.

Hall
Fibaro Sensor - This keeps track of temperature, movement and light levels. I don't use this to activate any particular triggers at the moment although it is handy to see when the last movement occurred in the house for when we've had people in working or checking if my mum has popped in to feed the cats when we're away :D
Nodon Octan Remote - This is a 4 button remote (and each button also has 4 commands using push once, push twice, hold, release so 16 commands in total). I use this to turn on/off our lounge lamps with one button. I also use one button that turns off the lounge lamps and turns on the bedroom RGB for when we go to bed. As I add more control to the lights around the house I can add these in to the script.

We also have Nest and Sonos units but they aren't linked in to the system at the moment.

Lounge
Just two lamps being controlled at the moment. I do this directly using Domitech dimmable LED bulbs. They're a great bit of kit and just a simple swap for a normal bulb so very versatile.

Bedroom
I wanted to play around with the Fibaro RGBW module so ended up buying one along with some LED strip lights. After a bit of playing around I ended up with them linked around the base of our bed. When on, you get a nice subtle glow in the room, we don't use our bedside lamps at all any more. We also have these LED's set on a script as a sunrise lamp to slowly wake us in these dark mornings. It slowly comes on over the course of an hour and makes a huge difference in the mornings.

Garage
We have an electric garage door which I would like to add some zwave control to at some stage via a relay. In the meantime I use a window sensor to let me know when the door is open/closed. This gives me notification when I close the door and walk in to the house. I also have on occasion left the garage door open, forgetting to close it, so I wrote a script that upon opening the door, it checks after 3 minutes to see if it is closed. If not, I get notification. I have also just ordered more Domitech bulbs to use in the garage and will link them to the garage door opening/closing and also the rear entrance door.

Garden
We're rubbish at watering our plants :D I decided that if they weren't all going to die I'd need to get some irrigation sorted so looked at buying a pump that would run out of our water butt. I set up all the irrigation tubing and it powers fine from the water butt, now I just needed to automate it. It's a simple "turn on the plug" job so with a TKB plug controller it turns itself on for 2 minutes every morning but also keeps and eye on the weather forcast and if there is rain predicted it is delayed for 24 hours. The garage sensor will also measure light and outside temperature. It has motion detectors built in but they don't work in the HC2 at the moment.

Spare Units
I still have a few spare TKB sockets/dimmers laying around which I use at different times. Christmas was good for these using them to turn on our outside Christmas lights along with the Christmas tree lights at set times.

I've been experimenting with iBeacons and iPhone apps to use for home presence detection. They work to a certain extent but they often lose connection at home and then almost immediately reconnect. I'm working with scripts to see if I can get these working reliably.

So, that's my setup off the top of my head. It's something I slowly add to and tinker with.
 
Here is my home setup.

Fibaro Home Center 2
2x Fibaro Smoke Sensors
8x Fibaro Dimmers
2x Aeon MultiSensor v4
1x Aeon MultiSensor v6
2x Fibaro Dimmer Bypass
2x Fibaro Door/Window Sensor (White)
4x Fibaro Motion Sensors
4x Fibaro 2x1.5Kw relay
2x Fibaro RGBW
1x Fibaro 1x3Kw relay
1x TKP TZ88E

Simplistic view of what my system does?

It has various scenes that set the Day and Night variables based on which lights are activated etc at night. Also have the hall way lights switch on when it's night and the front door is opened. The landing light switches on when is 5 mins before sunset and switch off at 10:30PM. The drive lights switch on at the same time and are switched off at 4AM. I have a Aeon v4 MultiSensor installed at the front of the house powered by a DC supply split from the CCTV camera. This provides the outside temperature, and motion movement info.

Heating is controlled using a Fibaro dual 1.5kw relay and the heating panel. Hot water is controlled with the second connection on the relay. I have a Fibaro PIR sensor which reads the temperature in hallway and this is what drives the heating being on or not.

I have 4 dimmer relays controlling the outside garden sprinkler system too. I have a scene that will check if there is rain forecast in my area to delay the system for 24 hours. It will keep checking every 12 hours and then apply the delay for 12 hours.

I have various Popp and TKB mains dimmable plugs which control uplights in multiple rooms.
Have a holiday scene which will activate these lights randomly within a given period when we are away from home.

In the kitchen, we have all the lights controlled with 2 dimmer modules. I also have 2 RGBW modules which control LED strip lights under the cabinets. This works very well. I have a scene that when the main kitchen Lights are switched on, the LED strip lights are also switch on and the reverse when switched off. As there are 2 RGBW modules, I have setup a scene to replicate the RGBW values from one to the other when the lights are switched on or if one has its value changed.

My desire is to replace the outside Security lights which are 500w with PIR sensor to be replaced with LED lights and an externally mains powered PIR sensor which is linked to a Fibaro binary module which will give the control of those lights to Fibaro too. But I need to work out how I will program this.

This is my current setup.
 
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Glad to see more of you onboard the thread ☺

Sounds like a good quality build RajP.


My update....

Yesterday I received a little package from DPD, while the wife was out thankfully so that made things easier lol

So I fitted a motion sensor in my daughter's bedroom, I had not bothered as the room is only used 6/8 weeks a year but we've decided to dual purpose the room for the boys to use as a play room when she's not here.

Added the Fibaro sensor, all setup, added a bit of code to add it into my alarm, and for fault checking if the sensor stick's on etc.
Then added code to have the lamp in the room come on when motion is detected if the room is in unoccupied mode. In occupied mode the lamp is on a schedule morning to night but off when the room lux value is high enough.

Next I added a new ever spring lighting module to control my outside light. All setup, code done for control.....

Then my thermostat bombed out.
I've seen this once before. It's to do with the routing, and suddenly seeing a new neighbor it wasn't expecting.
After reconfiguring the node it seemed ok... Then after 1 hour the device disappeared off vera completely.

Last time this happened I tried readding it but then vera had a melt down and needed a hard reset.

This time I restored the day before backup.

I hadn't backed up after all the code changes, but thankfully I pretty much remembered what I'd done so was back to where I should be in an hour, and backed up this time.

Overnight things seem to be ok so I'm confident it's all ok.

I'm not sure if this is a secure/horstmann thermostat problem or a vera problem but either way I know now after experiencing it twice that it can happen, and that I just need to be careful to take plenty backups when making the changes.

No biggie lol

Today I'm stuck.... I've got a second light module sat here (along with another couple of bits I'm not ready to fit) but my house wiring is not going to make things easy on me.

Not only do I not have neutrals in the switches, but in the wall lights and ceiling roses I only have a live and neutral, no load wires.

This means there must be junctions under the floor (I'm in a flat in an early 1900's hotel).
I know the wiring isn't that old so I've no concerns of having to do a full rewire.
Just I'm going to have to start lifting floors to find neutrals to bring them up to the switches.

This is going to have to go hand in hand with sorting the odd creaky floorboard etc so it's going to be one of those jobs that takes 50 times longer that you want it to lol

FML
 
I have a scene that when the main kitchen love guys are switched on, the LED strip lights are also switch on
I'm slightly concerned about this zwave appliance :laugh:
 
I'm slightly concerned about this zwave appliance :laugh:
Ha ha.. thats for pointing that out.. the joys of typing out a response on a iphone and its auto correct ability astounds me...
 
My new bulbs have arrived :)

ImageUploadedByAVForums1454510878.151924.jpg


Also got a new garage door detector so going to move my current door detector to the garage back door and use the new one on the main garage door. The new one is a proper tilt detector so will detect when the door is up.

Both of these will then control the new bulbs.
 
Just remembered something else I use...

Home Remote on my phone allows me to set automated tasks based on location, iBeacon or a button push and I can send a URL to the HC2 to activate a device or run a scene. It's very handy on the phone as you can just swipe down to get to the buttons...

ImageUploadedByAVForums1454514697.840661.jpg
 
Well dress me up and call me Sally, I had a eurika moment!

Reviewing all my confused notes from earlier I realised how the system in my porch/hallway etc is wired.
It's 3 x 2 way systems and then the outside light, so a single switch at the back hall, double in the middle hall, double in the main hall and lastly double in the porch ( for porch light and outside).
The one for the outside light is my saving grace as it has a neutral in it.

Looking at it the way they are wired is on each of the switches as the end of the 2 way there were only 3 wires. Live onto common, l1 and l2 travel to the next then common on it is the load live.

By sacrificing a switch from each 2 way system I'm able to only use common and l1 for each. The loss of functionality by only having 1 switch for each section is more than made up for by the fact I'm using motion sensors to turn the lights on and timers for turning off, so you would be unlikely ever to touch a switch anyway.

I then am going to use the L2 to run the neutral to each pattress.
Further to this I've then got the livingroom and 2 of the bedrooms where their switches back onto the hallway ones meaning the neutral can run to them no problem either.

Tonight I disconnected the switch in the porch and ran the neutral back to the hall, and tapped it through the back into the living room box.
I've been able to fit and setup my spare module in there and am now in the middle of setting up some scenes to turn the living room lights off via harmony

Really chuffed with my nights progress.

Just need to stop off and get a single switch for the front porch tomorrow. I like the brushed aluminium "colours" range in b&q
 
Chris it's worrying how often you mention b&q. Have a look at schnieders switches, or LAP for cheap but good.

Good job on routing a neutral. Have you thought about using momentary switches?
 
Chess buddy.

Yes I had a look at a few different ranges of switch sockets when we moved in and the colours range that you get in that place I keep mentioning and screwfix was the only one within a reasonable price range that had all the things we needed (double sockets with usb's etc).
We've replaced a large part of the house in the range so need to continue or my semi ocd will go into overdrive lol.

I considered using momentary switches but I'd already replaced some rooms before automating and the ever spring light modules I use are a dry contact so it doesn't matter what position the switch is in for on/off.
To all intent's and purposes if you go in my living room and turned the light on you wouldn't know it was automated till I turn it back off with the tv remote.
To keep all uniform through the slow upgrade to all being automated I though it best to just buy once if you get me.

If I'd started with the budget and time to do the whole build in one I think I'd have made every switch momentary though.
 
Oh and I've got electrifix for screwfix discount and have mates in both stores for staff discount lol
 
Yeah, uniformity is important. I have an electrifix account but I'm pretty sure I don't get a discount :s ... maybe I need screwfix friends.
 

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