Hassio with Rasbpimatic, conbee zigbee, Pi-somfy/RTS or RFXCom and WLAN Power sockets... on how much RasbPi`s?

mattes · January 28, 2021, 10:10am

Hello,

I would like to build a smarthome in my house from homematic, zigbee and WLAN elements.
In addition, I still have radio Somfy shutters, which are controlled via RTS remote controls.

How much Raspberry Pi do I need for this?

RasbPi 1: Raspimatic (homematic/homematic IP with HM-MOD-RPI-PCB)
RaspPi 2: Homeassistant

Can I connect the Conbee 2 Zigbee USB directly to the RaspPi 2 or do I need a third RaspPi?

For Somfy shutter I found on Github Pi-Somfy:
https://github.com/Nickduino/Pi-Somfy
For this I need the plugin “Mosquitto Broker” at Homeassistant.
Can I run Pi-Somfy on the same RaspPi as HomeAssistant?

Alternatively I could use RFXCom/RFLink for Somfy control. RFXCom is connected via USB.
Do I need a separate RaspPi for this or can it also be connected to the HomeAssistant RaspPi?

Are there other ways to control Somfy RTS roller shutters?

I would like to keep the number of RasbPis as small as possible.

Unfortunately I did not find any info about this anywhere

Thank you very much for our help…

m0wlheld · January 28, 2021, 10:35am

If you use an alternative configuration of

a CC1101 add-on module from cod.m for Homematic and
a CC238+CC2592 add-on module from cod.m for Zigbee
Homegear instead of Raspimatic
Zigbee2MQTT instead of deCONZ/Phoscon
Home Assistance Container among with Eclipse Mosquitto container being member of a docker-compose stack

then a single Raspberry Pi4B 2-4 GB could be sufficient.

Pinging @pmayer of cod.m to please confirm, that both add-on cards are RPI4 compatible and fit next to each other on GPIO.

mattes · January 28, 2021, 10:54am

Thank you for your quick answer.

I already have a RasbPi 3b with HM-MOD-RPI-PCB… but without system.

What is the advantage of this module? It costs the same as the Conbee Stick.

What advantage does homegear offer over Raspimatic? As I saw it, homegear does not offer a gui and Raspimatic does.

I have no idea how to create/run a container. Are there any sources where I can read up on this?

What about the control of RTS/Somfy roller shutters?

m0wlheld · January 28, 2021, 11:19am

You are correct, the difference is that it is an add-on card for GPIO, so USB ports stay clean and everything fits neatly into the standard RPI case.

RaspberryMatic ist ein alternatives Betriebssystem für eine freie, OpenSource-basierte “HomeMatic CCU-Zentrale” aus deiner Hand.

So, Raspimatic turns your Raspberry Pi into a Homematic appliance, keeping the operating system covered. It’s the same for Home Assistant OS, it’s convenient, but it limits the “native” usage of your Raspberry device. Homegear is just a process, you can install and run it using Raspbian package manager (apt) or Docker.

(Docker-) containers are for process virtualization, like virtual machines for hardware virtualization. Home Assistant OS, Home Assistant Supervised and Home Assistant Container make use of it. Without containers, you can only use Home Assistant Core in a Pythen vEnv

I posted various Docker / Home Assistant related articles on my (German) blog.

Don’t know, don’t have them.

mattes · January 28, 2021, 12:52pm

Thanks, I’ll take a look. I am German.

Can the Zigbee module be operated in parallel with the Homematic module … or do I need USB Zigbee stick now ;-)?

Just for understanding…
I install Rasbian, Docker and Hassio in a Docker.
Then I install homegear in a Docker and can then control from homeassistant from homematic devices and zigbee devices with a RasbPi and an interface (Homeassisstant).

You write in your article the RasbPi 3 would reach its limits with HomeAssistant. So should I use RasbPi 3 for Homegear, Zigbee and possibly RFXCom etc. and get a RasbPi4 4GB for Homeassistant?

m0wlheld · January 28, 2021, 1:53pm

Yes

No, you install Raspian AKA “Raspberry Pi Operating System” first. You also need to configure it by editing /boot/cmdline.txt and /boot/config.txt with respect to GPIO usage. Details are documented for each module.

Next, you install Docker and Docker Compose (or Portainer if you feel the need for a GUI).

Then you create a “stack” via docker-compose or Portainer, containing

You need to dig into this, as it is required to “inject” some of the host’s hardware into the containers.

It was basically a memory limit, as the RPI3B only has 1GB. RPi4 has not only more power, but up to 8GB of memory. I currently run Home Assistant, Eclipse, Zigbee2MQTT (no Homegear) on another RPI4 4GB and 5min load average is 0,05 and memory usage ist ~ 13%.

danielperna84 · January 28, 2021, 9:23pm

Maybe one important detail: Homegear, at least the last time I have checked, does not support HomeMatic IP devices, only the old ones. Ignore this comment if this has changed. But if not, this might be a dealbreaker.

m0wlheld · January 28, 2021, 9:25pm

Snap! Missed that.

mattes · January 29, 2021, 7:47am

I have actually bought homematic ip devices already.

I think I’ll take two RasbPi… the RasbPi 3B+ with Raspimatic and a RasbPi 4 (4GB) for HomeAssistant with Zigbee… and Pi-Somfy or RFXCom.

Does it work then that I run the ZigBee module with the Pi-Somfy module in parallel?

Have a quick look at the link:
https://github.com/Nickduino/Pi-Somfy

If I understood correctly, you do not recommend Hassbian OS but Hassio install in a Docker.
Docker is a virtual machine on Linux. Right?

If you take a look at pi-somfy… can I also use this in parallel with Homeassistant? Again in docker?

m0wlheld · January 29, 2021, 8:26am

Naming scheme is an absoute mess. Hassbian has been retired and has been replaced by Home Assistant OS, which was previously named HASS.IO. Home Assistant Core is referring to running Home Assistant using a Python vEnv.

Home Assistant OS is among the recommended installation methods, next to Home Assistant Container (just Home Assistant Core in container).

Also on container steroids is Home Assistant Supervised which is basically the “convenience” of Home Assistant OS without the isolation from the underlying OS. But it is only supported on Debian 10.

Personally, I run Home Assistant Container on Raspbian and Ubuntu Linux. Don’t need no supervisor, don’t need add-ons. Do like control over my hosts.

Kind of, but not on hardware level, but for process isolation. Also available for Windows and MacOS. Container images (“Docker” is just a brand) contain everything to run single process, but use the host’s kernel. For this, you can run Home Assistant Core using a Python version, that would otherwise hard to install or “polute” your host’s filesystem.

Container instances are created from container images, using a copy-on-write filesystem: Changes done during container runtime will be discarded once the container is deleted.

That’s why you need external persistency. Most simple is a “bind-mounted” host directory, let’s say you define that /tmp/myfolder on your host becomes accessible as /myfolder inside the container. Files created or changed in /myfolder are also accessible at the host (at /tmp/myfolder) and persist even if the container is removed.

Running Home Assistant Container on an OS that is supported by Docker is as easy as:

docker run --detach --name=homeassistant \
  --network=host --restart=always \
  -v $(pwd)/homeassistant:/config \
  -v /etc/locatime:/etc/localtime:ro \
  homeassistant/home-assistant:stable

This will also create a directory named homeassistant in the current directory, where the configuration and runtime data of Home Assistant will be stored. Seconds after that command returns, Home Assistant’s UI will be availabe on port 8123.

To update HA, run:

docker rm -f homeassistant

and re-run the docker run command above.