Evok / Unipi

Third party integrations
1

I’m looking to build my home automation project based on HA. I’ve bought a Unipi Neuron some time ago, and realy like the hardware. Currently it’s running on node-red as a way to control the relays based on the digital inputs. It works, but gets messy real quick.

Unipi uses an API called Evok, which I use to interface with it in node-red. The path I was thinking to walk would involve node-red to send and recieve MQTT messages on a basic level…

  • digital input triggered > send MQTT
  • relay changed > send MQTT
  • MQTT message recieved to change relay state > change relay
  • …

this way I would be able to use HA as the brains of my automation process, and keep the hardware seperate and quite open to use other stuff (like an arduino, as it would be able to send an recieve MQTT packages too… and HA will process it the same way)

Or would it be better to use the Evok API directly in HA?

1 Like
2

I don’t see any advantages in doing this. I have used the MQTT approach with other hardware, and have been able to switch from OpenHAB to HA easily because of that.

3

Would you mind sharing some code examples? Did you use the Unipi/Evok <-> node-red <-> MQTT <-> HA approach?

4

I wasn’t using Unipi or node-red. I was using a 433MHz Radio, but I added a driver for that to send MQTT messages, rather than communicate with some proprietary controller interface.

433Mhz <-> MQTT <-> HA