Home Assistant

Semple · 16 Jan 2021 at 15:00

no idea what said:
Yes put all usernames, passwords, API keys, co-ordinates etc into secrets.

Not too sure about the configs, I don't have any other configs for my TP link stuff as far as I know.

How do you get the Beta? My Kasa app shows no updates available.

Yeah got it all working in the end, i've got quite a few sensor components, so they all have to come under a single sensor entry in the config file. I was pulling my hair out the past week wondering why previous components had broke when i'd not touched them.

To get the beta firmware there was a link on the forums to send a message to Kasa support. If you're able to control it with HA though, i wouldn't bother looking to make a change.

Semple · 17 Jan 2021 at 17:37

Running into some problems with my setup now, I've got quite a few sensors logging and this is causing a lot of CPU time being spent in influxdb.

Also seeing large amounts of iowait, so it's pretty clear that it's struggling to keep up with writing to the sd card. Will need to look at what I need to do to boot from SSD.

Semple · 17 Jan 2021 at 20:34

Eddie2k said:
The type I'm looking for is like this https://loop.homes/ where it clamps around the live outgoing wire in the consumer unit so I can monitor my heat pump.

Loop looked like the best I could find but they too have stopped API access as of November

I came across this tonight which looks very impressive: https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/kyl3l9/my_12_circuit_energy_usage_grafana_dashboard/

Github link: https://github.com/CircuitSetup/Expandable-6-Channel-ESP32-Energy-Meter

The guy who put it together looks like he lives in the US, but states a lot of the components should work for the european market too. I'm not sure how much wiring i have exposed at my consumer unit to put clamps around the wiring. But having the ability to measure each circuit would beat any sort of plugs, or smart meter monitoring.

Semple · 18 Jan 2021 at 09:10

Lethal` said:
I saw that but it looked a bit too involved for me... and I'm not sure landlord would be incredibly keen

I think the luxury of it is that it's not a permanent install, you can always remove the clamps if asked / when moving. Although i agree, it might look a bit "wtf" if they saw a number of wires there.

PiKe said:
I'm getting some Xiaomi Bluetooth temperature/humidity sensors coming from aliexpress.

Assuming you bought the Aqara sensors (not sure i've seen a Xiaomi bluetooth temp sensor) they use zigbee rather than bluetooth. So you'll need a zigbee gateway (such as the conbee2) to communicate with them.

You might already know all this, but figured i'd save you a headache if you didn't and couldn't figure out how to set them up

.

PiKe said:
I use a honey well thing for my central heating currently which has a battery powered thermostat in the front room, what could I replace this with so I can just toggle the heating on and off from HA? I plan to use the data from the Xiaomi sensors to decide when the heating is required.

I don't yet have smart heating, so can't comment too much. But there looks to already be an existing integration for Honeywell, probably worth a read to see if it applies to your install and how you can configure/implement it into HA.

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/evohome/

Semple · 18 Jan 2021 at 12:59

PiKe said:
These things https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001112702869.html

They work by having the temp/humidity in the advertising data, which is why they run for 1 year off a cr2032, data resolution is only 10 minutes, but its good enough.

Ah okay, different to the ones I'd seen before. Any idea what the range will be like? Or are you planning to use it close to the HA hardware?

Semple · 18 Jan 2021 at 23:38

Lethal` said:
Productive evening. Got HA installed in Proxmox, Conbee II added with ZHA and 3 Lidl bulbs setup. I'll try have a go at integrating those Xiaomi sensors next.

Good going! Once you start to get the hang of stuff, it's not too bad. Then you get the itch to add more and more, and start looking at what else you can automate/make smart. It sure gets addictive.

Semple · 20 Jan 2021 at 21:35

Has anyone had a dabble at ESP Home?

I've just bought some wemos D1 minis from Aliexpress, i was planning on a project to attach one to a servo for tilt control for venetian blinds.

As we don't lift the blinds much (which would require a motor - maybe a future project) the servo shouldn't require too much power and i'm hoping i can run the wemos and servo from a rechargeable battery pack, rather than having to run a plug to the mains. Which is fine as long as i'm not having to stick the battery packs on charge every week

. If a decent capacity one could last 3-6 months, or even longer if topped up with a solar charger then that'll be perfect.

Semple · 25 Jan 2021 at 10:29

It's a very good front-end addon. So many different things you can do that stock history graphs / sensors don't do.

Need to have a tweak of some of my existing graphs.

Semple · 26 Jan 2021 at 13:36

@PiKe What version of InfluxDB are you running?

Having a nightmare with mine i think after some recent updates, i only this morning noticed the addon was no longer running. Then when i attempted to start it manually it was moaning that something else was running on port 8086. Had a look at all my other addons to confirm nothing was also running on 8086. I think because everything runs in a containerised environment, netstat/lsof wasn't reporting a great deal - even for other addons that were working.

Decided to do a full reboot, and i can at least get InfluxDB to start now, but it seems to crash not long after starting up kapacitor.

Need to see if there's a way i can backup the database, and then uninstall/reinstall, or restore from snapshot.

Semple · 17 Feb 2021 at 12:45

Lethal` said:
Looks like LIDL smart home stuff will be back in on Sunday.

Nice, do we know what sort of price? I could do with some cheap basic ones, as i've just bought some gosunds that i need to flash, they have energy monitoring and i'm going to steal @no idea what 's idea for putting a binary sensor on the dishwasher and washing machine to notify me once they have finished.

Semple · 17 Feb 2021 at 14:45

Nice, £8 is not a bad price for them, and especially as they're zigbee, most of the ones on the market are WiFi only.

Semple · 20 Feb 2021 at 22:09

no idea what said:
Using the latest firmware as far as I am aware.

Using a sensor template for the current usage (I found on the internet):

And a binary sensor for the status:

HTML:

- platform: template sensors: dishwasher: friendly_name: Dishwasher value_template: > {{ states("sensor.dishwasher_watts") | float(0) > 3 }} delay_off: "00:03:00" icon_template: > {% if is_state("binary_sensor.dishwasher", "on") %} mdi:dishwasher {% else %} mdi:dishwasher-off {% endif %}

That current power is right, it was in the middle of heating up for the drying process, it doesn't draw that much power the whole time

Does this still work for you?

I'm getting an error with the "delay_off" option - seemingly it's an invalid option for a sensor template?

Semple · 20 Feb 2021 at 22:50

no idea what said:
Just checked and yep working just fine. I'm on 2021.2.3 release.

Got passed the the delay_off error, seems the binary sensor was conflicting with a sensor, but now it's at the bottom of the config i'm getting this error:

Code:

Invalid config for [binary_sensor.template]: invalid template (TemplateSyntaxError:
 unexpected '}', expected ')') for dictionary value @ data['sensors']['dishwasher']['icon_template']. 
Got '{% if is_state("binary_sensor.dishwasher", "on" %}\n mdi:dishwasher\n{% else %}\n mdi:dishwasher-off\n{% endif %}\n'. (See ?, line ?).

Yet if i use the binary template example:

Code:

binary_sensor:
  - platform: template
    sensors:
      washing_machine:
        friendly_name: "Washing Machine"
        delay_off:
          minutes: 5
        value_template: >-
          {{ states('sensor.washing_machine_power')|float > 0 }}

Then it passes validation, so i'm thinking it's something to do with the icon template.

Semple · 20 Feb 2021 at 22:56

Got it to pass validation now, seems i missed a pesky bracket.

Need to learn to use the template editor more often, as it tends to point out these mistakes

Semple · 21 Feb 2021 at 20:49

Yeah they're pretty good now.

It looks like they've locked them down the plugs so they can't be flashed OTA. Some people look to have flashed them by soldering onto the board, but i haven't really seen any good guides for those of us who haven't flashed non-OTA before.

However, the gosund plugs can still be added to HA via the Tuya integration, or local Tuya if you want the energy monitoring. It does require a bit of tinkering to get the energy monitoring set up though.

For reference:
To obtain the device key - https://github.com/codetheweb/tuyapi/blob/master/docs/SETUP.md (you need to have a linux box with npm installed)
To add the attributes as a sensor: https://github.com/rospogrigio/localtuya

I had to do a further bit of tweaking as the Gosund plugs measure current in mA, whereas my Meross and Tplink ones measure in amps, so in order to keep them consistent i've converted mA to amps.

Semple · 26 Feb 2021 at 15:42

Lethal` said:
Looks like TP-Link don't actually care about supporting local control on HS110 etc.

https://twitter.com/troyhunt/status/1364667723322519553

It's a problem with a lot of vendors. They've gotta weigh up a small part of their user base who like to push the boundaries of their product, versus making sure it's secure for the majority of the user base who would fall foul of security vulnerabilities.

On another note, i've finally built a prototype for my smart blinds:

Excuse the wiring hanging down the side, once i'm satisfied that it's working as expected, then i can look at embedding the controller and routing the wires to somewhere much less visible.

Semple · 26 Feb 2021 at 16:45

no idea what said:
Very nice @Semple

Just ordered some vertical blinds so will be wanting to make them controlled by HA.

Incredibly cheap too! Excluding power supplies and cabling (as those were cannibalised from spares) the microcontroller and servo are about £3 per blind.

Cabling's not expensive anyway, and i've got plenty of usb plugs from previous phones etc. So we're talking well under a fiver per blind. As the servo only hooks on the tilting mechanism, it also means no damage to the blind, so if i need/want to revert it back, i just put the tilt mechanism back.

Should be just as do-able on vertical blinds. Although if you want to fully open/close them (similar to horizontal raise/drop) then you'd need a bigger motor - something like a stepper motor to manage that as blinds can be quite heavy.

We most of the time just tilt the blinds rather than raising/dropping, so will leave that part to be manually controlled for now.

Semple · 27 Feb 2021 at 14:51

Lethal` said:
That is a sped up GIF right? Or they're just rapid?

Yep it is that quick. Servo's move very fast.

Nazbit said:
Just reading through this thread. Installed HA yesterday on a Pi4B 2GB.

I've done a few of the out of the box integrations most of which were very easy.

I'm struggling with three in particular if anyone could offer any tips or confirm at least just they've got them working:

Hive - I've only got the basic package with the thermostat in the hall, the hub and the boiler control unit (combi so no hot water control) no lights or other devices on the hive ecosystem. I've added the following to the yaml file. No quotes or anything and my password contains no control characters but its not detected after a reboot. Nor do I spot any communication in the log suggesting any attempt to authenticate.

hive:
username: [email protected]
password: MyActualPassword

I don't have Hive so will be of limited help.

Just two things to check to start with
1) Is it showing up under integrations at all?
2) Check your YAML structure as YAML is very particular, when i've quoted your text, username and password has 3 blank spaces and it should have 2.

Semple · 27 Feb 2021 at 20:38

Nazbit said:
Thanks. Hive was not showing at all anywhere in home assistant. Nothing in the logs and nothing in auto detection for integrations. The yaml appeared to be correct and I verified the characters and ascii values as well.

I've managed to solve or bypass the hive issue by installing a custom Hive repo through HACS instead of using the built in integration.

For Unifi - It turns out that you can only have one UI account associated with a UDM or UDMP at any time. So I wanted to have my admin account with 2FA and then a read only user without 2FA for home assistant but that won't be possible. I removed 2FA from the admin account and the integration now works but I'm not sure I'm happy to go without 2FA to be honest.

Xiaomi - I was using the integration screen to add a Xiaomi device which wasn't working but doing it in the yaml file seems to work.

I'm not sure how to construct a repeating aggregate in yaml. If this is the format for creating one vacuum what would be the format if you've got two devices?

Code:

vacuum: - platform: xiaomi_miio host: 192.168.1.159 token: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I've currently got it like this which detects both devices in HA but only one is online and controllable the other shows disconnected. Should I perhaps not have repeated the platform line?

Code:

vacuum: - platform: xiaomi_miio host: 192.168.1.159 token: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx - platform: xiaomi_miio host: 192.168.1.160 token: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This validates ok but periodically is throwing an error in the log which I guess is a timeout:

Both vacuums work if they are the sole entry so the devices and config are good individually. I think I've just got the formatting wrong for having more than one entry.

Thanks

Yes you'll only need to put platform the once for each integration type.

Glad you got your hive integration sorted.

As for ubiquiti, I think some of the others on here have it set up, so they might be able to comment on the 2FA stuff.

Semple · 1 Mar 2021 at 16:27

no idea what said:
Got some binary sensors worked out last night which take data from my TP-Link plugs and monitor if the washing machine or dishwasher are on. Next step is to add notifications for when they're finished.

I've just got push notifications to my phone, and TTS to my google home devices working for my washing machine setup.

*well, i've tested it successfully when flipping the state between on and off, but haven't yet tested it with a washing machine cycle - one for tomorrow.