Automating a vacation property from another country / Turn off AC automatically to save on electricity

Hello,

You can find it in stock in the UK warehouse for info:

What about PIR sensors. Any advise?
I’m using Sonoff PIR sensor form one and a half years (RF 433Mhz) and still works very well with the batteries I initially installed …
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20200205080307&SearchText=sonoff+pir

In addition I’m using the AM312 PIR sensor attached to my multisensor

Now for the door sensor - one life hack can help you achieve almost what you need!
I’m using this cheap Sonoff RF Door sensor from one and a half year too (still with the first battery):
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=200215434&initiative_id=AS_20200205080310&SearchText=sonoff+door+sensor

The problem, that you will find with this sensor is that it sends signal only when you open the door. And now the life hack (this was just a spontaneous idea, what came while I was reading your comment).
You can use 2 door sensors - one without any modification to detect door opening and one with tiny modification for door closing …
The modification is to put one very small piece rear earth magnet just behind the reed switch inside the door sensor, to maki it from normally closet to normally opened … This way it will send signal when the door is closed. :slight_smile:
These are the magnets what I’m talking about.
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=neodymium%20magnet

I recall reading on the forum (can’t seem to find the posting at the moment) that some of the RF door sensors that only send open code already have the header for sending the close code and just need a small soldering point on the pcb to activate it.

Really? How can we recognize if this is posible?

From what I recall the cheaper sensor got the same chipset as D026 but one of the pins was not connected to anything and OP managed to trace all connections (there were also pictures of the process).

Can you give a link?

Sorry, I’ve searched but can’t seem to find it.

It was ~ 2.5 years ago as I was searching for door sensors when I found the post. As I’m not too good with soldering iron I ended up buying D026 (which sends all needed codes, but unfortunately the battery is not a top selling point thus I recently replaced D026 with the new Digoo).

I ended up ordering the new Digoo door and PIR sensors from Bangood. I hope I get them on time before leaving to Brazil.

image

I’m also building the great multisensors with AM312 from @gh0s7 's post I mentioned earlier to have even more movement data to work with.

If everything goes well, I will end up using HA from a remote server connected over VPN and using Sonoff RF bride (flashed with tasmota or something else… I haven’t decided yet) with 433Mhz PIR and Door/Windows sensors combined with one tasmota-nodemcu-multisensor (movement/temp/humidity/pressure/IR blaster) on each room.

I will try to post all the details, costs and automatizations when I get there.

It seems to be possible to use single code sensors and achieve that via tasmota rules.
Check out this video (stating at minute 5): https://youtu.be/w_CchtI-oK0?t=295

Well I know how to simulate sending code after few seconds but that is not from real closing the door … It can be even easier if you define your door sensor as binary sensor and its value expires after few seconds …

I found that Sonoff door sensor actually have the electronics made to send RF signal, after door is closed but all the components for this signal are missing from the board … about 8 - 10 components … I had the idea to populate the board with them but … I don’t have that time to investigate all the values of all the components … So … I’m happy with what I actually have … :slight_smile: And there might be a good reason to leave them blank … Maybe an error in the cheme …

There might be cases when open door sensors that only send code for open are still applicable if not needing to know exactly the position of the door/window but only if it gets open (I can think of a fire escape door or the cookies jar :slight_smile: that need to trigger the alarm when open). This is similar to how most motion sensors work (there is no motion stopped signal sent).

As Tasmota gear can be used with different home automation software it is useful to have a way of getting the sensor reset (in Home Assistant off_delay and on_delay are both available for binary sensors so there might be no need to do it in the individual platform).

However, in most cases it is probably better to have the sensor sending both open and close codes corresponding to the actual physical state.

Hello.
For air conditioning, have you thought about using a universal IR/WiFi remote control?
I bought one myself, thinking I could put ESPHome there, but I’m limited in technique.
I published a topic here:

What do you think about this idea ?
Best regards.
Bruno depuis la France

You might want to look at Tasmota IR: with an ESP8266 flashed with Tasmota and with both IR blaster and receiver attached near the AC’s IR you’ll be able to both control the AC from HA and get HA status update case the physical IR remote is used (most AC IR systems are recognized by Tasmota IR, but if in possession of an unknown type, then you can still use raw format).

And there is no cloud component to worry about.

Although Broadlink RM works fine for controlling AC and can be used in local lan mode, you first need to enable listener mode.

I do not believe that the remote control can accept Tasmota or ESPHome or ESPeasy because it is not a WiFi microcontroller from Espressif but an LPT220-1 from Hi-Flying.
I hope someone can integrate it into HASS.
It would be great and it would have HASS and the remote control always in phase.

Currently, I control my air conditioning with a Broadlink RM03 mini and it works very well but is not synchronized with the original remote control of my air conditioners.
So what is displayed on the original IR remote control is often different from what HASS indicates!
It’s just not very good but can, perhaps be corrected if we manage to use the remote control K-390EW from Chunghop instead of the original remote control.
Is not it ?

Yes, my suggestion was to flash Tasmota IR to an ESP8266 board in order to have the IR remote in sync with HA (as there are only a few projects that allow this and there might be a long time before support for this microcontroller is added to mainstream projects mentioned above if there aren’t many commercial products using it or if there isn’t sufficient motivation for the developers to include it).

Currently, Tasmota IR can be used to both send IR codes to AC and publish the IR code sent by the IR remote back to HA (to be set as input for HVAC component in HA so that everything is in sync).

Good idea.
I think I can also tell HA to listen to the codes of the original remote control via Broadlink RM03 mini to synchronize everything but I still hope to integrate this IR/WiFi remote control … :wink:

AFAIK, Broadlink doesn’t work passively (I think it passes IR codes to HA only when in learning mode, I haven’t seen the component implemented as a sensor for the IR payloads).

Also, this thread might be of help:

Indeed, Broadlink does not listen in real time … Grrrrr …:rage::exploding_head:

Same thing happened to me. I ended up returning them and looking at building my own. Check this Tasmota MQTT IRHVAC Controler

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