Hardware architecture for economic automation

Hardware
1

Hi everyone,
Sorry in advance for asking trivial questions but I didn’t find specific information about the subject.
My purpose is to develop a simple scalable hardware architecture for energy saving.

HA is based on a raspberry pi 3 (4 in the future), I have some sensors (temperature, power meter) and some actuators (relays) connected to the HA.
HA installed : 10.5 through “Raspberry Pi Imager v1.7.5”.
Nowadays (first architecture), all is connected through the wifi network and HA is connected through Ethernet.
What is wrong : internet box is consuming a lot for nothing (my point of view) so we turn off before going to sleep and work.
Problem : when you do that with the first architecture, you lose every measures during that time. That’s an issue in the case where you want to monitor everything everytime.

What I want : make a “internet less” architecture by providing 2 wifi at home (one for computers etc “house box”) and one only for (sensors).
Sensors are configured to connect to the HA.
HA connects to the box if it’s powered. If not, no problem because it will continue to save data.
Mobile might connect to HA through builtin bluetooth in order to keep an eye where box is off.

What I know :

  1. BOX : Wifi is configurable on HA through the interface but it didn’t really work. However there is the SSH way to do it (advanced SSH doesn’t work but I read there are other add on). So I think I can manage to connect to the box ;
  2. Sensors : Same, wifi is configurable so I can manage to put in access point and sensors will be configured to connect to it ;
  3. Mobile : RPi 3 has builtin bluetooth, I saw there is a bluetooth integration in HA but it doesn’t fit my need (connect to smartphone for data). After mobile can be connected to the “sensors wifi”.

Questions :

  1. Does HA take multiple wifi access ?
  2. If so, is it possible to configure them as I said before (1 AP, 1 connect directly to the box) ?
  3. If a new sensor is detected on the AP, will it be directly added as with a classic wifi ?
  4. For bluetooth, does HA can be accessed through bluetooth or it is a just a gateway for sensors… ?

Future architecture schematic :

hardware_architecture
hardware_architecture942×495 124 KB

Thank you,
Simon

2

No

No

No

Just a gateway for sensors

What is a lot? Might be a old power hungry device which sucks 10 or 20W? If replaced with a newer device which can be completely owned (like running openwrt) it is not only to be expected to draw less power out of the box but it should also be possible to de-active the (internet) modem but leaving the wifi on for lan function. Depending on your type of uplink you might just end up with ~3W for a wifi/lan consumption while your internet access/modem is disabled :raised_hands:

Don’t forget they all draw power all the time (if your wifi is on or off) :zap:

1 Like
3

Hi,
Thanks you for all answers haha.
A lot means 20W which corresponds to only loss, so we have this habit to shut down everything : TV, box.
Of course adding equipment like this one is not smart because it has its own consumption.
The system I want to design is added to the electrical system in order to get datas about the electrical consumption temporarily.
Thanks to you, I know HA might not be the best solution.
Simon

4

Maybe you be able to switch this for a more efficient device? :sunflower:

Alternatively you could get yourself a low power “travel” router style device which spawns your “IOT” wifi and is connected upstream to your 20W machine to reach the world wide web. :cloud:

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Correctly configured you can shut down your “house box” and HA will continue to work (no internet access) but with the devices locally connected. :raised_hands:

The $8 device in the picture shouldn’t be bought anymore as it lacks ram/rom to run a recent openwrt :signal_strength: .