My daughter (12) has spent the last 8 months or so saving up for a Green Tree frog (well, 2 of them now!). While she did manage to save enough for the frog and the basic necessary supplies, she didn’t have the budget for all the fancy auto-misters and light controllers. So I used Home Assistant, various controlled switches (one which is run by calling an Alexa routine), an outdoor BTLE temp/humidity sensor, and a cool-mist humidifier to bring everything to life! (I had everything but the temp/humidity sensor sitting around the house. I did eventually replace the random wemo and alexa switches with a Zigbee power strip).
Main dashboard (tablet view) showing the current information. There is an alert that comes up when the temp and/or humidity is out of range (in addition to phone alerts).
“View Guide” button shows all the layers available for the enclosure display. This was fun since it actually mimics what the tank looks like. The normal layer acts as the base and then I overlay images for the Enclosure, Heat Lamp, and Humidifier as needed. That’s why the screenshot above can show both the Enclosure Light and Heat Lamp on at the same time.
Clicking on the history items shows relevant information from the past 48 hours. I also added a quick blurb describing what the system does and why.
This is the Graph History button view. I can use this for evaluating the effectiveness of my evaluations. You can see things like how the coldness of the house, my daughter watering the plants, and other events effects the temperature overnight and how running the humidifier drops the temperature while increasing the humidity.
What you don’t see is the runtime automations and safety automations I’ve added. I wanted to cover things like:
- If the heat lamp is on and the temp sensor goes offline, alert me and turn off the heat lamp! (don’t need cooked frog in summer!)
- If the humidifier runs but the humidity doesn’t increase, send alert that the water reservoir may be empty.
- When was the heat lamp bulb last replaced?
- Alert me when the BTLE battery drops below 20%
I also added an ESPHome-controlled device with LCD and Motion sensor that will light up when someone is by the tank to show the Climate rating with Temp and Humidity (will note which ones are out of range if needed).