New house between Austin & Houston, TX. Looking for advice, please.
I know a house is not always a homogeneous environment but looking for controls I can get set up with and then tweak as time allows later.
For room wall switches (~30) I think I want momentary switches that actually turn on the specific ceiling lights or wall plug, or ceiling fan, but at the same time has some communication channel to detect and change state remotely.
What is everybody going for from manufacturers who have reliable devices at reasonable prices?
I’ll settle for the above, but what I dream about is a room sensor board built into each room’s wall mount. It would include:
temp/humidity sensor
presence sensor
IR LED device to control devices in a given room, like remote controlled mini-splits
light/lux sensor
wifi or zigbee plugin module, maybe zwave? Wouldn’t it be cool if you could have a set of room sensors on a pcb, and then just plug in the communications module of your current liking; xbee, zigbee, d1-mini/wifi, etc.
cost < $30
In general, for pretty much everything I want to do, I want to get each device converted into an MQTT messaging topic asap and have that as a solid base for intercommunications.
Thanks. Inovelli looks cool. Maybe a little too cool for me.
I guess what I’m looking for is a direction to take. What’s the trend and why certain modeles, hubs, would be chosen over others.
I think where we’re going, for reliability, is that a wall switch is momentary, but reliably turns on/off the ceiling light, or the ceiling fan, or a specific wall socket.
Once I move in and get HA connected and running, I can set up automations and efficiencies. But it is critical that the house automation design has a given principle that if the automation system is down, the house can still function like a good old mid-century house. No breakdown because wifi is off, or some proprietary hub is dead should keep me from going to a switch and turning the light on or off.
Of course if there is no power, that’s a different issue, because most light bulbs require power to glow. And we’re designing to be off-grid so there’s that, also.
This is more philosophical that technical.
Once I can get that design figured out, I can then start trying to understand generally, zigbee, wifi, zwave, or matter/whatever, I should be using; the current trend. I’ve used xbee modules, made my own room sensor pcbs, used openwrt on wifi routers with python as an xbee hub, and used node-red/mqtt as my central controller. Lots of fun. Now, I’m looking to step up and use my experience to make a real house work. I’m just out of touch with all the new-fangled things so looking for advice.
For light switches, I can’t recommend TP-Link Kasa switches highly enough. I have 117 in my house and they are nearly flawless. Plus they are local control, no need for an internet connection.
That’s my smart home build link posted above by MaxK. You should be able to get some ideas from that. The best thing I think I did was hard wire as many sensors as I could. I’m rarely changing batteries.
Just make sure the devices run on firmware with local control, like tasmota for example
All the switches i mentioned earlier are momentary, unless you’re sticking to existing switches at home. You might need to install relay like Shelly and convert those to momentary
First question is about hard wiring. Was this for power only, or are you sending signals on these “hard wires”? … then using wifi or whatever other protocols you might be using for signals?
Are you completely on wifi or do you integrate any other protocols; zwave, zigbee?
Also, for the various systems, are you using vlans/subnets to partition different segments of your home network?
What are all those relays for? So many.
I’m planning to have a wifi access point in every room of the house (6 rooms, not in the 2 baths, but maybe). In my current home, just closing a door can constrict signals enough to disrupt performance.
BTW, I also still have really old school x-10 devices for my room wall switches which just work as momentary switches and are secondarily controlled from node-red to a usb to x10 hub that as you may know, ends signals over the house wiring. Rock solid for years.
I’m a big fan of tasmota on the d1-mini for room sensors and relay driven devices.
This is a new house build, hence re-evaluation of what what I could use and what everyone else is using. There will be no retrofitting as I’ve done in our current home. I haven’t used the shelly devices yet, but I suspect I will in this house.
The new house is a modest design, but not tiny; 2400sq ft. It has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, kitchen, utility, living room, office/project room, and a full length hallway, front to back, gives it a solid symmetry and affords running cables as needed.
I’m almost done designing the off-grid solar system. A lot of the automation will be for minimizing/optimizing power consumption.
Most of the wires are carrying the signal from the sensor back to the mechanical room. I’m using ESP32 boards with ESPhome hooked to optosensor boards (the boards with all the red lights) to monitor the sensors. One ESP board is monitoring something like 16 sensors.
Mostly on wifi, but I do have a handful of Zigbee devices
All my Kasa light switches are on their own vlan. Other than that, I just have a separate SSID for all my IoT devices.
Assuming you are referring to the 3 8-channel relays in a row. That’s for my yard irrigation. I have 17 zones plus a master valve and a valve to control the compressed air for the winter blow out. So, 19 of the 24 relays are being used.
No. You don’t. If your WiFi (or whatever protocol you are using) is down, the momentary switches (we call them “buttons”) won’t work.
I have been pretty happy with Zooz Z-Wave switches, but most of my house switches are WiFi.
Unless you absolutely need color, DO NOT use “smart bulbs”. Smart bulbs are a waste of money and only rarely required. Use smart switches and dumb (cheap) LED bulbs.
You can. But, why? Everything on your wish list probably already has an integration in Home Assistant using the Home Assistant API.
If the house is under construction, you cannot have too much Ethernet.
One other SSID for the IOT devices? Or SSID for each “zone/room”?
wires are carrying the signal from the sensor back to the mechanical room
So the 12V power, opto-coupler, esp32 are somewhat close together in the mechanical room. Your diagram shows a door sensor ON/OFF. So the open/closed signal goes the length of the 2x, what looked like shielded wire. And the esp32 translates to HA, or mqtt?
How about temp/humidity, light/lux, or actuators like curtains half down, or dampers; things that aren’t binary? I’m also looking to put an IR LED (actuator id you will) in every room to facilitate the turning on/off devices that have remotes; like mini-splits.
Sorry if I’m petering you, just wanting to learn… Thank you.
Whatever.
I simple mean that smart switches like Shelly continue working normally even if wifi and home assistant is down, as long as they have electricity. Even schedules continue working.
I have several smart switches around the house that work without Home Assistant. But the OP wanted a momentary switch (button). That cannot work without some kind of controller to respond to the button press.
If you mean without controller=without smart switch, I agree. If you want a switch that is working even if your smart switch MCU is broken, toggle switch is your way to go.
