Soldato
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Home Assistant beginners
- Thread starter katie279
- Start date
For anyone running a dashboard on a wall mounted tablet. Is there any way to use a tablet pen to input items?
Just thinking something like a shopping list but without activating the tablet keyboard would be awesome
EDIT - Google suggests it should work, but has anyone used it?
Just thinking something like a shopping list but without activating the tablet keyboard would be awesome
EDIT - Google suggests it should work, but has anyone used it?
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Same here, Promox on N100.
I run HA in it's own VM, then Z2M and Pi-Hole in LXC's.
Used ZHA in my previous house, switched over to Z2M when I moved, it's been rock solid.
I swaped out all the dumb light switches to Aqara Zigbee ones, I'd previously used smart bulbs but found people (including myself!) using the light switch instead of asking Alexa, the Aqara ones allow you to control them directly or through HA.
Got contact sensors on all the downstairs windows doors, then wrote a HA script that checks they're all closed at night or when we go out, run it using Alexa and get her to say if they're all closed, or say which ones are still open.
We've got shutters and blinds, so it's easy to forgot if a window is open.
Also use some presence sensors to stop lights being turned off when rooms are occupied.
@1pudding1
I got the switches from AliExpress
www.aliexpress.com
You can get them from a UK supplier, but they're nearly twice the price.
www.aqara-shop.co.uk
I went for the D1's you can get E1's that have a different look, I ordered one to try, but the switch felt "mushy".
www.aliexpress.com
Aqara also do other styles and colours, AliExpress has loads of them, including touch screen ones.
www.aliexpress.com
Do you have a neutral wire at the switch?
Aqara do different versions depending if you do/don't.
The switches need a deep back box, 45mm if you can.
I managed to change some of mine where I had space, but for others I had to do a bit of a hack and bring the socket away from the wall using these.
It does look a bit naff, but I've got used to it.
I got the switches from AliExpress
Aqara Wall Smart Switch D1 ZigBee Wireless Switch Key Light Remote Control Fire Wire With /NO Neutral Work With Mi Home HomeKit - AliExpress 44
Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com
www.aliexpress.com
You can get them from a UK supplier, but they're nearly twice the price.
Aqara Smart Wall Switch H1 (With Neutral, Double Rocker) - Aqara UK Shop
Based on the Zigbee 3.0 wireless communication protocol, the Aqara Smart Wall Switch H1 (With Neutral) is a smart switch that turns on and off the power of lights and other connected devices. After binding with an Aqara hub, it can implement remote control via the Aqara Home app, timed control...
www.aqara-shop.co.uk
I went for the D1's you can get E1's that have a different look, I ordered one to try, but the switch felt "mushy".
Aqara Smart Wall Switch E1 ZigBee 3.0 Smart Home Wireless Key Light Switch Fire Wire With NO Neutral For Mijia MiHome homekit - AliExpress 44
Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com
www.aliexpress.com
Aqara also do other styles and colours, AliExpress has loads of them, including touch screen ones.
Aqara Smart Switch S1E Touch Control 4
Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com
www.aliexpress.com
Do you have a neutral wire at the switch?
Aqara do different versions depending if you do/don't.
The switches need a deep back box, 45mm if you can.
I managed to change some of mine where I had space, but for others I had to do a bit of a hack and bring the socket away from the wall using these.
It does look a bit naff, but I've got used to it.
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I use presence sensors from Everything Smart Home
shop.everythingsmart.io
and
shop.everythingsmart.io
They're are definitely cheaper presence sensors available, but Lewis (the guy who designed these) was the one who got me in to HA on Youtube, and he's really helpful for queries on his Discord channel.
Just seen that he sells Aqara as well.
Everything Presence Lite
Introducing Everything Presence Lite, our most affordable Smart Home presence sensor yet - designed with speed, privacy and local control in mind. Seamlessly integrates with Home Assistant. Everything Presence Lite is based on the huge success of the Everything Presence One, offering excellent...
shop.everythingsmart.io
and
Everything Presence One
Introducing Everything Presence One, the ultimate smart home sensor to easily add deeper intelligence to your home. This ultimate smart home sensor supports a 24GHz mmWave Sensor for precise motion tracking as well as a powerful PIR for lightning fast responses. With a Temperature and Humidity...
shop.everythingsmart.io
They're are definitely cheaper presence sensors available, but Lewis (the guy who designed these) was the one who got me in to HA on Youtube, and he's really helpful for queries on his Discord channel.
Just seen that he sells Aqara as well.
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This is my Zigbee hub
I'm lucky enough to have an ethernet connection in the middle of the house and never had a problem with devices dropping out, and also use Innr smart plugs to control devices, which also act as Zigbee repeaters, pretty sure the Aqara light switches do as well.
I'm lucky enough to have an ethernet connection in the middle of the house and never had a problem with devices dropping out, and also use Innr smart plugs to control devices, which also act as Zigbee repeaters, pretty sure the Aqara light switches do as well.
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I generally go with Aqara or Sonoff from Aliexpress. Ikea also have good Zigbee products.
Sonoff Zigbee stuff is fine. Their WiFi things not so much.
I personally stick with Aqara Zigbee products as they’ve been pretty solid for me. When I initially started out with home automation, I had a few WiFi items but they always gave me some grief. Just about all my home automated widgets and gadgets are now Zigbee running with Zigbee2MQTT.
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That is true, I should have been specific. Always get zigbee Sonoff devices.
Can someone advise on the following please...
We are having a big kitchen extension done and I want to use a lot of smart lighting in the new space.
I'm happy how most of it will work - we'll basically have the following:
1) Smart bulbs in spotlights allowing us to light zones flexibly. Controlled by zigbee switches.
2) LED strip lights controlled by zigbee LED drivers
3) Standard "dumb" pendant lights over the island controlled by a smart switch.
Questions - I want to avoid having two switches for each. Obviously a smart bulb has to be "on" to be able to work so I don't want it to get turned off at the wall with a normal switch. But equaly I need to be able to kill the power to the bulbs for safety/regulatory reasons.
Any suggestions? Do I just wire in a normal switch and put tape on it? There must be a better solution!
A ELI5 would be fab.
We are having a big kitchen extension done and I want to use a lot of smart lighting in the new space.
I'm happy how most of it will work - we'll basically have the following:
1) Smart bulbs in spotlights allowing us to light zones flexibly. Controlled by zigbee switches.
2) LED strip lights controlled by zigbee LED drivers
3) Standard "dumb" pendant lights over the island controlled by a smart switch.
Questions - I want to avoid having two switches for each. Obviously a smart bulb has to be "on" to be able to work so I don't want it to get turned off at the wall with a normal switch. But equaly I need to be able to kill the power to the bulbs for safety/regulatory reasons.
Any suggestions? Do I just wire in a normal switch and put tape on it? There must be a better solution!
A ELI5 would be fab.
Last edited:
Soldato
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Sonoff ZBMINIR2. It lets you configure it so that flipping the attached switch doesn't toggle the power.
This means you can leave the bulb powered all the time, but have the switch flip send a ZigBee event which tells the bulb to toggle on/off.
You can still cut power to the bulb from your Home Assistant or similar software environment.
I have done the research and waited for something to come along. Ordered these, tested them... Just not bothered to put them in the ceilings yet
This means you can leave the bulb powered all the time, but have the switch flip send a ZigBee event which tells the bulb to toggle on/off.
You can still cut power to the bulb from your Home Assistant or similar software environment.
I have done the research and waited for something to come along. Ordered these, tested them... Just not bothered to put them in the ceilings yet
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For a noob, would you guys recommend the HA Yellow or some other type of setup?
So using the ZBMINIR2 the "dumb" switch is used by the ZBMINIR2 to send the relevant zigbee command and does NOT switch the relay so the power stays on.
How do you then use the switch to actually turn the power off? Do you have to use the eWeLink App? Does that stop the ZBMINIR2 from working on a seperate zigbee network?
The internet seems to suggest that the detach mode is only available on the ZBMINIR2 not the ZBMINIL2 (the one without the neutral connection). Is this true?
How do you then use the switch to actually turn the power off? Do you have to use the eWeLink App? Does that stop the ZBMINIR2 from working on a seperate zigbee network?
The internet seems to suggest that the detach mode is only available on the ZBMINIR2 not the ZBMINIL2 (the one without the neutral connection). Is this true?
To be honest I might get some of these: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1827261676/ and just mount the basic zigbee switch on top.
Using mostly Ikea Tradfri and I'm not sure the hue switches play that nicely with the Ikea hub. I'm thinking of getting a USB zigbee dongle for a spare Raspberry PI I have and running home assistant.
Ah. I thought you were already running HA. The advantage of running HA with a Zigbee dongle is that you’ll be able to use a much wider variety of Zigbee devices from any brand. If you go down that route then I suggest that rather getting a USB dongle that you get an SMlight network dongle (Example) as they’re very good and the zigbee network won’t go down if your HA server does. I have the one in the example link and it’s a rock solid piece of hardware. There are now various versions of it so do some research to check if they’re more suited to your needs.
Soldato
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You can use whatever software setup you are using to control ZigBee devices - I use Home Assistant. The ZBMINIR2 exposes the various events/states to wherever you pair it.
So far using Lidl's Livarno range, Philips Hue, Sonoff and some other brands of smart bulb, I've only ever used HA and a USB ZigBee coordinator to control my home.
That's correct at present. I think it's actually a limitation because the one without a neutral relies on the load to get power. I could be wrong about this.
Really enjoying learning about this!
Are there any downsides to having 12 spots on one supply (all left on) and relying on smart bulbs to setup zones?