Hey all, first post here! I am new to home assistant and smart home stuff in general. I have this project I am trying to do revolving around a home media cabinet. Basically, I want to control fans coming on in a home theater cabinet when a receiver is turned on. I have a PS5 and a receiver in the cabinet and it’s getting pretty toasty in there. So, I’m looking to install some fans and have them come on whenever the receiver is turned on. The receiver automatically comes on with the TV using HDMI CEC.
I’m looking for ideas on how to trigger these fans. Again, I’m pretty new to all this so please bear with me.
Could I trigger this with a smart plug that monitors the power of the receiver. Or should I just buy a temperature sensor, allowing it to be more dynamic and energy efficient. I don’t currently have any zigbee or z wave accessories but am not against them if I can make them easily work with home assistant.
Are there any product recommendations anyone can give? Btw, my receiver is a Pioneer VSX521. It does NOT have any usb ports - if that helps.
You know ac infinity makes sensor controlled cooling gear for this specific purpose and it works great even without all the automation stuff. The fans only come on when required and use pwm to run at only speed required.
I have this set that started in the top of one closet and is now in the top of another to provide exhaust for my network gear. They’ve been running for 5 years without a hitch.
I do something similar with my setup. I use a salus zigbee plug that could monitor temp and power.
I originally used the temp from the salus for a trigger which would power a USB plug and then several USB fans.
The temp was okay, but I soon realised that just turning on the USB fans when the amp was on was the easiest thing and I used only one plug for fans and amp
I use an old laptop stand with fans built in for the amp to sit on, this gives really good flow underneath the amp and a usb fan for exhaust. They are very quiet, I cannot hear them inside the cabinet.
And mostly it was cheap, as I had a plug already for the amp and the fans were cheapish on Amazon.
The above setups look nic, mine is a bit more Jerry-rigged
I have a conventional surround sound receiver, a Tablo Quad DVR and various other AV equipment in an enclosed media cabinet. The Receiver and the Tablo can really crank out the heat, so the cabinet would get quite hot. I got four 120mm pc fans and cut holes to mount the fans, two blowing in, and two blowing out. The fans were on a smart plug triggered by the Google TV device being turned on.
This worked pretty well to cool down the cabinet when watching TV, but the Tablo DVR also generates a lot of heat when it records shows even when the TV/Receiver are off. So to protect the Tablo from getting too hot, I added a temperature sensor to trigger the fans when the Tablo gets hot, even if the TV is off.
I’m using two automations to control this (I assume it could be done with a single automation, but havent figured that out yet)
1st automation:
Turn on fans when Google TV device is turned on.
Turn off fans when Google TV device is turned off (Only if Temp reading is below low range).
2nd automation:
Turn on fans when temp reaches high range
Turn off fans when temp reaches low range.
This set up is still pretty new, but seems to be working well so far.
