[abhi182]

So I finally migrated my Home automation core from Domoticz to Home assistant !
1 week calendar time, 20+ hours of dedicated work and moving 80 odd devices later, I am feeling rather smug about it !

I decided to upload my config and other assorted details on github for my own records as well as in the hope it will help someone on this hobby!

Summary on Home App


Background

I started setting up my first home automation back in 2013 after I spotted a deal on a pair of wemo plug/ sensor in a B&M store while on a holiday in London. Coincidentally, we also brought our first house a few months later so that’s what triggered this hobby.

Back then, IoT and home automation was not really a thing in India and Amazon India hasn’t even launched (which I guess is my primary source for all equipment now.) Nonetheless, there was eBay and I was able to (very slowly) add equipment through super snail mail parcels from aliexpress/ ebay and / or items picked on overseas trips.
The current situation now is of course very different.

I started off with Domoticz, a platform that I still dig! It has served me extremely well for close to 7 years. I dabbled with HA and openhab once or twice in the interim but was turned off by yaml and its super finicky indentation.
Unfortunately the third party dev scene for domoticz is nearly non-existent now and native integration for devices is quite limited. I am not a software guy/ coder but had somehow managed to patch together several working scripts and plugins to make the whole thing work somehow. I guess the last straw for me was when an accidental update earlier this month broke my working system and restoration took a day and more because of all the a-la-carte scripts and binaries I had on my system.

I installed HA as a guest on a KVM (proxmox) about 2 weeks ago and the initial issues of getting familiarized with yaml, it’s been pretty smooth going. I still feel that there is room for optimization, especially for some simple/basic things like adding virtual switches (easily) or maintaining downsampled longer term records (both of which domoticz does exceptionally well) but all said, I am glad I switched.

Here is my configuration details and files in case it helps someone get started.

Equipment

1) Servers



List
• Proxmox hypervisor running 4 VMs (i5-4130 , 12GB RAM, 120GB SSD, 4TB HDD)
o Home-Assistant
o HAbridge running on an existing openmediavault VM
• Domoticz running on a RPi2

2) Network
The network setup is slightly convoluted as my primary ISP uses CGNAT. The primary is a 100mbps fiber connection while the secondary is a Point-to-point wifi link with my housing community wireless distribution system (50mbps fiber)
While my primary ISP is fairly reliable , they unfortunately use CGNAT. For external access, I have setup an Amazon Lightsail VPN that I openvpn to. Details here.

a) Router
Edgerouter X (ER-X) in load balancing mode

b) Access Points
Orbi RBR50, Orbi RBK 50, Orbi RBS20. The former 2 cover 1 floor each and the RBS20 covers the frontyard.
My house gets frequent short brownouts and the Orbi system does not take handle power outage very well. They are all powered by 12V 7AH batteries charging with a constant float of 12.4V

c) Switches
A mix of multiple partially daisy-chained switches. The loadbalanced WAN from ER-X goes to the switch br0 on the RBR50 that then goes to 4 switches in different parts of the house (switch 3 and 4 are daisychained)
Someday I will clean this up, for now, the re-cabling does not seem to be worth the effort

3) Voice Control/ Smart Speaker
a) Echo – 6 devices, 2 X Echo Original, 2X Echo Dot, 1 X Echo Show, 1 X Echo Spot – Linked via habridge
b) Homepod – 2 devices – Linked via HA native homekit integration
c) Google Nest hub – I had picked this on whim but turns out I don’t like the cloud only model used by Google . It’s unreliable and slow. Not integrated and left stand-alone

4) Lights

a) LIFX : 5 entities that use the HA native LIFX integration
b) Hue : 10 entities that use the HA native LIFX integration
c) ESP8266 – 1 ESP8266 based light bulb that was flashed to Tasmota and uses the mqtt integration. Plan to get 6 more of these
d) Yeelight: 1 bulb that uses the yeelight LAN control integration

Notes:
i. The LIFX bulbs are very bright and color control is very accurate. Unfortunately their wi-fi connection is flakey and requires a restart every now & then. Cannot recommend them anymore
ii. The Hue bulbs are amazingly stable. They have been running stable for years with no flakiness whatsoever. Maybe it’s because they use zigbee. Unfortunately they are not bright enough (at most comparable to a 60W incandescent) and I would have hoped for brighter output given the price
iii. ESP8266 Tasmota : My current favorite. The only issue is that finding the right one is a bit of a hit& miss. Most lights available on Amazon India (or elsewhere) are based on generic Tuya/ Smartlife firmware .
o Now one can use the Tuya/smartlife integration directly on HA but using the MQTT integration is a lot more reliable
o Unfortunately the internal hardware on these bulbs could be anything. Since you can’t really open these lightbulbs to get access to the serial ports, you need to make sure that you are getting one which is based on the ESP8266
o Amazon India sells ESP8266 bulbs under their housebrand Solimo. They are easily flashed to Tasmota with tuya-convert
o The 12W variant is plenty bright – equivalent to a 100W incandescent
iv. Yeelight: Good & reliable with LAN control. Slightly pricier than the Tuya

5) Switches
a) Wemo: The device that got this hobby started. I had picked a Wemo gen1 motion sensor/ switch combo sometime back in 2013 on a trip to the UK. I don’t think IoT or smart devices were available back home at that point in time  . The plug still works and is setup with my garden floodlight using the HA native Wemo integration
b) Sonoff/ Smartlife devices flashed to ESP8266 TASMOTA: 7 devices. 5 work as normal switches while 2 need a special mention
o 1 X 2 wired to cooling fans for my 2 AV Receiver. They are linked to automation to switch them on if the respective AV receiver changes state to On and vice-versa


6) Hubs
a) Smartthings: Was used extensively at one point in time. Currently in use for 5X Z-wave smoke alarms . Not integrated into HA as no real need for integration
b) Hue Hub
c) Yale wifi bridge: Used for the main door lock (YDM7116) . Unfortunately no documentation on API available. Wireshark capture didn’t yield anything of value in the first pass. Currently in use as a standalone bridge with its own phone app. Need to get down to solving for this integration at some point in time.

7) Media Players and multi-room audio
a) Denon X3500 – Shows up in HA with no fuss. Also used for driving the exhaust automation .

b) Marantz SR6010 - Shows up in HA with no fuss. Also used for driving the exhaust automation . On a side note, the cooling automation is quite important for me as both the AVRs are housed in closets and the closet temperatures shoot up drastically if the exhaust fan is not activated (more details in sensors)

c) DTS Play-fi – Not integrated into HA , need to figure this out
a. 2 X Klipsch Gate – Frontyard and Guest room speakers
b. 1 X Paradigm PW Link – Kitchen Speakers
c. 1X Paradigm PW Amp – Bedroom Speakers
d. Homepods

8) Sensors

Snapshot View


Temperature and Humidity
a) DS18B20 – 3 units with a One wire link to Domoticz RPi GPIO. Integrated to HA with Rest calls to domoticz
b) BMP085 – 1 unit connected to Domoticz GPIO. Integrated to HA with Rest calls to domoticz
c) ESP8266 Tasmota – 2 unit with a DHT sensor sending MQTT data to domoticz – This is used to monitor AV Receiver closets

Smoke / Fire/ Carbon Monoxide
a) 5X Z-wave First Alert CO/ Smoke Sensors – Linked to Smartthings and not integrated with HA or domoticz. May do it someday but not a priority


Power Monitoring
a) Mysensors SCT013, Arduino and nrf – Retired last week. While it worked for almost 5 years, the wireless connection was unreliable and the SCT-013 is not very precise
b) PZEM004T and ESP8266 – Uses arendst/tasmota

Notes : I have a 3 phase supply and the older SCT013 used a CT sensor on the neutral phase at the distribution box to return a consolidated reading for all phases.
My plan was to wire the PZEM004T in the same way but realized that the readings were off because the PZEM004T power factor calculation would be off due to the phase difference .
Now I have ordered 2 more pairs to have 3 separate sensor reading for each phase that can be combined later on in Grafana




9) Remote Control
a) 2X Harmony hub – 1 for living room TV, audio and HVAC, 1 for Home Theater projector, Audio and HVAC, integrated via native HA harmony integration
b) 1 X ESP8266 Tasmota IR – Based on a Oakter remote flashed to run Tasmota IR. The HVAC control required a custom integration called tasmota_ihvac

10) Cameras & Security
Lock
a) Rear Door: Kwikset Z-wave lever lock – Integrated with Smartthings but not with HA. Should be easy but I cannot think of a use-case
b) Main Door: Yale YDM7116 – This one is an oddball. The lock uses a BT module that is used for phones in proximity. Additionally, it uses a wifi-BT bridge called the yale link bridge that enables remote connectivity.

Notes: The Kwikset Z_wave is very flakey. It intermittently Lost connection with the ST hub – and worse, each time that happens, it results In its battery getting drained – presumably because it keeps searching for the hub. In addition, the lock hardware is quite flimsy. Cannot recommend this at all – Also the reason I purchased the Yale and moved this to the rear door.
In contrast, the yale build quality is massively better and the connection is super reliable. Unfortunately there is no documentation available on the Yale link bridge, nor can I find much info on the interwebs either

Camera
I use a mix of 7 cameras from Foscam and Hikvision all wired to a Hikvision NVR. I initially enabled rtsp streaming but later switched to static images instead for faster renders on lovelace. The rationale being I can always use the Hikvision app if I need to view the actual stream.

Doorbell
Ring Video Doorbell (the basic variant) – Integrated via HA Ring native. Automation to flash a couple of lights when someone rings the bell.

Camera view as part of area/room


11) Logging and Graphing
Now I really wish HA had native logging support for long term data, esp for sensors as I am sure this would be a very common use case.
As things stand, I have configured an influxdb installation on another VM coupled with the Grafana plugin. It was a somewhat steep learning curve and I guess I am using these two tools to only 5% of their capability but for now, this will do.
As it’s been only a few days of using influx, I have not yet got down to setting up downsampling sensor data but I guess I will want to get it done with before a month or so.
Here is a sample grab from domoticz that shows how downsampling is handled on it.

12) Other bridges on the network
A) HABRIDGE
Used for Alexa integration. I really cannot say enough good things about habridge.
Setup and installation is trivial on any linux box. Configuring it for domoticz or HA is extremely user friendly and intuituive. Once configured, it is also very reliable. This has historically been the primary method of interacting with devices in my household by everyone .

If you have not used habridge, I really recommend you do try it once.

B) Homebridge
Was used extensively for homekit integration over the last few years. I have for now disabled this as I play around with the native homekit integration on HA

Other Screenshots by Area

Kitchen



Study




HVAC Control




Living Room

[ElonSkum]

So, finally we do have someone here who has Hassio'ed his home ! And, one neat job you have done. 75+ devices, that's superb. I spent a month, two years back, installing Hassio here on an RPi and configuring a few IOT that I had back then, a couple of Sonoffs ( those of course flashed with Tasmota ), Amazon Echos, 2 plain vanila ESP8266,and 2 nodeMCU ESP8266. Then, due to other business engagements, it all took a backseat. Amazon India's Solimo has such devices? Cool! My smart home knowledge, I feel is so rusty right now.

Back, in US also helped my brother move his entire smart home platform from builder provided Vera and Savant platforms to Hassio , and integrate the home analog home security system, into Hassio, not to mention move his "dumb " 16 zone antiquated Rainbird sprinkler to Rachio, which was further neatly integrated into Hassio.

Back then, it was a little difficult getting that sweet homescreen that you have in your set up right now. I wanted to put such a homescreen on a few cheap Kindle Fires that I had and hang them around the house. The homescreen customisation was where my engagement with Hassio took a break. I guess Hassio has evolved much more these days, and naturally it would.

I am yet to go through, in detail, your Github page. Just had a quick glance. Would read it all up and keep getting back to this thread for further queries.

On a side note : I wonder if DrZzs, on Youtube, is still active in the Hassio/Sonoff game. He was the one who gave me the confidence and the exact know-how of flashing Tasmota on a Sonoff. Without Tasmota or such firmware, Sonoff or any such IOT device of is just a toy.

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Tech Section. Thanks for sharing!

[extreme_torque]

I have also started by home automation journey with most lights and plugs and couple of smart camera's in the house being voice controlled. Next up are the roller blinds which I want to connect to Apple homekit and since the roller itself does not support homekit, I will have to run a homekit bridge on a raspberry pi. Still in the process of learning stuff. This thread would be exciting.

P.S. Some links in your post are not working.

[adi_sun]

That is serious equipment and effort to put it all together!

Can you please elaborate the UPS powering the router?

They are all powered by 12V 7AH batteries charging with a constant float of 12.4V

Also how are the sensors controlling the cooling / heating not sure how this works. Thanks

[reihem]

wow ! very impressive. My struggle as always been getting everything in one place; I exist largely in the apple ecosystem and HomeKit just doesn't cover everything. For example my Sonos speaker system, Hue lights, Hue accessories and obviously apple product themselves are represented here in Home.



What is left out are my Dyson air purifiers, Sensibo air conditioner controllers, oater switches etc.

I had to switch to echo/Alexa to have a single assistant that could deal with everything. Had to buy an echo device for each room !

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by adi_sun

That is serious equipment and effort to put it all together!

Can you please elaborate the UPS powering the router?



Also how are the sensors controlling the cooling / heating not sure how this works. Thanks

FOr a 12V router, you can very easily get away with hooking a 12V lead acid or Li-ion (with a battery management module) wired directly in parallel with the 12V adapter

Having said that, the former (lead-acid) ideally requires a 13.5-13.8V floating charge to work optimally.
a 12V regulated supply would only keep it charged to around 50%- which would reduce the service life somewhat
They will still last a few years though so not worth the hassle of putting a dedicated regulator given the low cost of the batteries.

with a 5V router, you should use a 7805 based regulator if powering with 12V batteries...

Regarding your question on heating / cooling, not sure if I understood it completely..

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

I have also started by home automation journey with most lights and plugs and couple of smart camera's in the house being voice controlled. Next up are the roller blinds which I want to connect to Apple homekit and since the roller itself does not support homekit, I will have to run a homekit bridge on a raspberry pi. Still in the process of learning stuff. This thread would be exciting.

P.S. Some links in your post are not working.

Oh, k.. can you let me know which one?
If you are talking about the code base, I think iis because external links get filtered out on T-BHP but you can lookup superczar on github if you need the full code or specific snippets

[Rehaan]

Cross-linking to our Home Automation thread in case anyone is interested in further reading.

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by reihem

wow ! very impressive. My struggle as always been getting everything in one place; I exist largely in the apple ecosystem and HomeKit just doesn't cover everything. For example my Sonos speaker system, Hue lights, Hue accessories and obviously apple product themselves are represented here in Home.

Attachment 2024414

What is left out are my Dyson air purifiers, Sensibo air conditioner controllers, oater switches etc.

I had to switch to echo/Alexa to have a single assistant that could deal with everything. Had to buy an echo device for each room !

Attachment 2024422

Attachment 2024423

That's the whole rationale for having a separate automation core like HA or domoticz and adding bridges if needed.

My setup also has very disparate end points of which only 10% would show up under homekit
But with an independent core, I can get all the required end-points into whichever front end I want

So e.g. I too use Alexa + Siri
But for Alexa, rather than relying on the high latency cloud servers from the manufacturer (which causes a delay between a voice command and and actual action), all devices get bridged directly on the LAN leading to much faster response

As for homepod/ homekit, I can add any of my devices into it and segregate them by room

e.g.
Summary


Room 1


Room 2


Area 1


Room 3


Area 2


Room 4


Room 5


Area 3


Area 4



Area 5

[reihem]

I entirely lack the competence to implement anything along the lines of what you’ve managed. For now I ensure whatever home automation I invest in is at least Alexa friendly, and ideally Alexa AND home kit friendly.

[jothishX]

Nice setup you got there. I've been running HassIO for 3 years now. Was on a RasPi first, moved to netbook and now running on a dedicated laptop. Got secondary backup power on a 80Ah tubular battery with solar and 12v smps systems.. I've got a bucketload of sonoff devices, wemos d1s, sensors, ipcams that I bought initially when I got high on this. Now kinda lost interest.

Got quite a number of automations like turning on all outside lights when I reach home after dark, turning off lights after sunrise, activating alarm systems when I leave home, starting garden watering at afternoon, auto turn off pump when full, Getting phone notifications etc..
My system now

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by reihem

I entirely lack the competence to implement anything along the lines of what you’ve managed. For now I ensure whatever home automation I invest in is at least Alexa friendly, and ideally Alexa AND home kit friendly.

Actually, the bridging part is the simplest one of them all.
All you need is a PC or a raspberry Pi running any flavor of linux and the rest is a walk in the park (almost literally) - all you need is to copy-paste a few commands and then use a rather friendly GUI to configure devices

Lookup homebridge for linking unsupported devices to homekit (Apple)
Lookup habridge for linking unsupported devices (or faster LAN control for supported devices) to Alexa

[lancia_fanboy]

This reminded me of this post

[SreeT]

I bet Google and Amazon now know you better than you know yourself.

If I ever undertake a 'Smarthome' project, it would be with mycroft.ai and RPi/Arduino.

[abhi182]

Originally Posted by SreeT

I bet Google and Amazon now know you better than you know yourself.

If I ever undertake a 'Smarthome' project, it would be with mycroft.ai and RPi/Arduino.

Haha, possibly
But I think different folks have a different take on it..
e.g. I am ok with google having plenty of meta-data on me so that I can get tailored information easily

In any case, the metadata something like this would generate would be order of magnitude lower than what our smartphones generate and share - so shutting this down while continuing to use my phone would be like leaving my frontdoor open while bolting down the windows

PS: The core of this setup is designed to process data locally i.e. if I switch on a light from my app/ something switches on based on another - the entire back to front data flow is on my LAN

In the case of voice triggers, If I use Alexa or homepod to trigger an event, the voice interpretation happens in the cloud (as expected) but the subsequent trigger happens on the LAN - instead of the regular flow