Lessons Learnt 6 months in....

Posted on
Tue Feb 21, 2017 10:56 am
Busta999 offline
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Joined: Mar 30, 2016
Location: Wales UK

Lessons Learnt 6 months in....

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Just jotting down some lessons learnt and observations as I move deeper into Home Automation.

I started off with remote controlled sockets around the house to allow 'zones' to be controlled.

Then picked up a 40 odd Siemens Lightwaverf devices dirt cheap in B&Q (big DIY Chain in UK).

With it was a controller, so you could setup scheduled events etc and manage through an iPhone.

All very basic stuff.

About this time I started adding Hue lights.

Both Lighwaverf and Hue served purpose but I had to manage them separately.

That put me on the path of Indigo to pull them together.

Once starting to get an understanding of Indigo I devised a HA strategy.

1. Lighting systems had to be rock solid - they should be on EVERY time when needed
2. Lighting should be automated wherever possible
3. Standardise on Hue where possible/cost effective
4. Use Z-Wave plug in controllers for plug in lighting (cabinet/ornament/displays/task and mood lighting
5. Use existing Lightwaverf plug in sockets only when power monitoring not required and not a critical system
6. All HA systems have to be useable by better half without training
7. Use Echos and Dots around the house for a voice interface for high level tasks - (switch Lounge to TV/AppleTV watching - adjust lighting, turn on satellite receiver/TV/sound system) Turning on Away/Back Mode, Goodnight Mode
8. It has to make the house more efficient/user friendly - It must be extremely user friendly - In fact if I do this right no one notices it happening.


This meant using Hue lightbulbs, mood lights, strip lights in every room as the main form of lighting.
Adding a £29 Hue Motion detector in every room, hall and landing - directly controlling the lights for that room.
Excepts are bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and lounge, most have hue lights in them but are not motion controlled.

I have found these light fittings really enhance the Hue Lights I have bought at least 8 of these
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They allow for use as Task lighting or mood lighting with a simple scene change.

Using Indigo and third party plugins is enabling me to connect in a very broad range of disparate products together to deliver a service that is much more than the sum of its parts.

Things I had not planned on integrating:-

A series of cheap Foscam Cameras around the house used with the excellent ICam Source Pro app for Security monitoring doubled up in Indigo as Motion Detectors.

The bog standard Byron door bell is picked up by Indigo using the RFXCOM device, allows me to flash one light pin every room of the house when pressed and notify me by email of the event.

The off the shelf £12 Oregon Temp sensors and some recycled TFA Temp/Humidity sensors are now providing comprehensive data allowing me to fine tune radiator valves in each room to hit optimum temperatures.

The great marplotlib coupled with 10 £15 Greenwave Power Relay Sockets to track devices using too much power in standby. Reducing my baseline energy usage by 200W per hour (without affecting convenience) saving me £300 a year

The Flower Power plugin allows me to monitor the temperature of anywhere we have plants in the house. The Flower Power devices enable me to see when plants are not getting enough water, fertiliser, light or temperature.My next step is to use Indigo to detect a house plant that is reporting too little light and getting it to turn on a hydroponics led and turning it off once enough light has hit the plant.

I have setup devices that need charging, window washer, battery power tools, battery chargers and with Indigo setup fixed charging periods, i.e. charge for three hours then shut off the power. Linked that to Hue/Alex and that enables you to say anywhere in the house 'Alexa charge up the window cleaner' know it won't sit trickle charging for ever. An add on project would be to track the reduction in power usage in the socket and detect when the device is fully charged, then power off, and checking the status weekly.

One I am expanding out is the detection of infrastructure failure and automating the remedy.
i.e., I have noticed that if the Hue Bridge goes off line I can detect it, as it is plugged into a smart socket force a reboot.
If that does not fix the problem reboot the Apple AirPort Express it is connected to.

That seems to fix most problems there.

I want to replicate that for the internet router too.

I like the idea of making this HA systems self healing. :-)

Any way ramble done.

Just really enjoying the journey.

Posted on
Tue Feb 21, 2017 5:45 pm
mat offline
Posts: 769
Joined: Nov 25, 2010
Location: Cambridgeshire - UK

Re: Lessons Learnt 6 months in....

:D nice write up

Late 2018 mini 10.14

Posted on
Tue Feb 21, 2017 8:49 pm
ckeyes888 offline
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Joined: Nov 26, 2009
Location: Kalispell, MT

Re: Lessons Learnt 6 months in....

Curious about the "Alexa charge up the window cleaner" command.
Didn't think that syntax was possible yet with the current Alexa plugin.

Thanks,

Carl

Posted on
Wed Feb 22, 2017 2:30 am
Busta999 offline
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Posts: 714
Joined: Mar 30, 2016
Location: Wales UK

Re: Lessons Learnt 6 months in....

ckeyes888 wrote:
Curious about the "Alexa charge up the window cleaner" command.
Didn't think that syntax was possible yet with the current Alexa plugin.

Thanks,

Carl

Yup the syntax is 'Alexa turn on the tool charger'

I have it set to auto turn off 3 hours later.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Posted on
Fri Feb 24, 2017 10:42 pm
macshield offline
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Joined: Jul 05, 2013

Re: Lessons Learnt 6 months in....

curious on how you set this up:
"A series of cheap Foscam Cameras around the house used with the excellent ICam Source Pro app for Security monitoring doubled up in Indigo as Motion Detectors."
Can you provide a little more detail. Looking to do something similar. Thanks

Posted on
Sat Feb 25, 2017 5:09 am
Busta999 offline
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Posts: 714
Joined: Mar 30, 2016
Location: Wales UK

Re: Lessons Learnt 6 months in....

I bought 4 Foscam HD c1 Lite cameras on Amazon.co.uk for £25 each.

I had an older external SD Foscam camera and added a new 1080 p external Foscam.

I run all six cameras on iCamPro, which has iOS app and Apple Watch app for remote access.

All motion detected is captured and saved to a folder which was s automatically backed up to cloud storage in case my Mac is stolen :-)

I have set ICamPro to record all activity on all cameras and recycle up 500Mb of storage each.
Only the cameras covering entry points alert myself and my wife.
If we receive an alert we have a specific timescaleto review through the ICamPro app to investigate

I use the Foscam HD Indigo plugin from Autolog to report motion into Indigo

At the moment I am using the cameras motion on a control page that allow an overview of movement and appliances/lights.

At some point I'll upgrade the cheap cameras so they have infrared

Mike

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