After settling into our new home, I’ve been exploring the idea of implementing a home automation system
While delving into various possibilities, ranging from professional-grade solutions to more budget-friendly alternatives, I’ve found that while professional options offer quality, they limit flexibility by tying you to their specific ecosystem.
In my quest for more budget-friendly options, I came across Shelly devices, they appeared to be good and user-friendly solution. After some consideration, I decided to go with Shelly. I was confident that it would be a great solution to my smart home setup.
For start I wanted to control window blinds.
It turned out that Shelly was indeed user-friendly, but I encountered some challenges. I wanted the devices to be mounted on a DIN rail (which they are not meant to be), so I ended up 3D printing special DIN holders for the Shelly switches. Despite this effort, the wiring remained quite messy. While I could tolerate it, the major drawback was the inability to use third-party sensors with the Shelly app, and the switches proved to be unreliable. I had to reload and assign settings to all switches multiple times after updates, which became quite annoying. They also frequently lost connection, and after about two years, one by one, they stopped working entirely.
This was my electrical cabinet with 8 shelly switches for window blinds control.
I was back at stage one at this point.
I was thrilled to discover Home Assistant and its incredible capabilities as open platform for all different devices. And all running locally!
Exploring further, I came across Node-RED and its ability to communicate via Modbus over RS485.
So I pick up my hardware:
1.) for running Home Assistant
- RPi4
- Sd card
- 2-Channel Isolated RS485 Expansion HAT for Raspberry Pi (https://www.waveshare.com/2-ch-rs485-hat.htm)
This setup still working without problems, but I am planing some improvements for it.
2.) For controlling blinds and lights. I have estimated that I need about 32 channels. I still wanted that I can turn the lights and blinds ON/OFF with wall switches.
- Modbus relay module - Output
- Modbus input module
- Voltage detection board
I went on a shopping spree and found everything on AliExpress
This setup ended up very problematic. After testing and trying (with a friends help) we discovered very slow speed on relay modules and some other problems with protocol on boards and we simply just give up using them as main control boards for home automation
Continuing with my home project, I had managed to bring a friend on board, forming a dynamic duo .
Together, we successfully developed a custom relay board featuring RS-485 and Modbus communication. This versatile board has 16 channels, both inputs and outputs, and can be mounted on a DIN rail for added convenience. If there’s interest, I’d be more than happy to open a new topic and provide detailed specifications and information about this state of the art board .
Currently, I’ve integrated two of these custom relay boards into my system. One is dedicated to controlling window blinds, while the other manages the lights. With a few open channels still available.
I wanted to be able to use the lights old fashioned way via wall toggles also if all “fancy electronics” fails (that s mostly because of one particular family member )
So to be able to do that I ve added another “manual” din mounted relays for lights. Now the lights works the smart way via home assistant and manual old fashioned way seamlessly if the electronics fails.
.
.
