Great idea, I use Shelly 1’s all over my house and hadn’t considered them as a good 12V contoller! One reason I am favoring the ESP’s is that I can put in a low voltage shutoff so that all the switches don’t drain the batteries, I can set them to shut off at, say, 11.8V.
My problem is I have a Dometic and they don’t use standard 24V control wires, they send pulse codes to the command unit on the roof - a totally stupid system that I hate. I’ve read that you can replace the command unit with a Coleman board with not too much effort, in which case I can finally put a Honeywell T6 in the RV. I thought of building my own as I do have the hacked Dometic pulse codes but it’s an undertaking so I’m leaning towards the Coleman hack instead.
There’s an alternative to the silly Dometic command code system that I may end up doing as well as it’s pretty easy to do (and I have easy access to 110V if needed):
I had a Dometic as well and the EasyTouch units can replace the Dometic, just need to make sure that you order the right model. The WiFi app works well and I am making some progress on a local BLE integration into HA.
I’m working on two things for this years “refit”. I’ve been testing using Shelly UNI’s plus a full sized switch made for low voltage lights - it’s a momentary switch and with the UNI that gives me 100% automated switches without too much trouble (except fabricating something to mount the full size switch without adding more holes which I’ll either 3D print in ABS or cut some sheet metal for).
On the Dometic I’ve decided to just do my own thermostat and use the code the guy in the video I posted has to just send the control signals to the Dometic A/C - no need for relays and all that because I still get what I want with minimal expense and effort and can replace the original Dometic thermostat in a pinch when I resell the RV. The resell part is important because, like a house, the new owner might not want all the automation and we generally get a new RV every 5-6 years.
I’ve looked at those many times and have read that they can be a bit persnickety, plus they are a bit bulky and pretty expensive for not having an open API. If you do get it working, i would be interested to know how it works with HA.
How much BT stuff do you have working on that thermostat? Any sensors or controls yet? For me I got a BT external temp/humidity sensor that I could read in HA to know those values as sensors, I’m wondering if you have been able to even get that far yet.
Any luck on the LevelMate Pro? I added the propane sensors over this past weekend and wanted to do more. I am thinking of hard-wiring in the LevelMate Pro and then can leave it on to monitor the camper positioning - just in case I need to adjust or just to have more things on my floorplan lol.
I love your floor plan! I always have the plan to do that in my HA but never get around to it. What are you using for it?
No, I haven’t done anything with the levelmate yet, I’m going to sniff out the BT packets on that on my next refit in a couple of weeks.
On a side note, my initial proof of concepts on fully automating the 12V lighting is a success, now on to the prototypes. I wanted something that sort of “straps on” to the existing switches rather than having to cut new holes or use other switch types (both of which make things easier but mean you have to cut holes or have different button types).
P.S., our floor plans are almost identical. Funny. I don’t have the fireplace but otherwise nearly the same - kitchen layout, living room layout, bath…
Thanks! I started using @pkozul’s floorplan years ago for our home. I never got as fancy as some but literally use it daily. Floorplan for Home Assistant
Glad you are having luck with the 12v lighting. I had made some ESP32 controls with dimming that I could retrofit but ran into a major issue when I could only find a 12+ wire running to the lights: RV 12V Lighting Control - with Dimmer Switch control - #12 by yousaf465
Hope you share any success you have. I did try using a common ground but did not work for me either.
And GOOD LUCK with the BT sniffing. I tried on a Renogy unit a year or so ago and learned that I was not meant to do that stuff lol (aka unsuccessful).
That was my path at first as well, I instead went with Shelly Plus Uni’s and they are fantastic for this use, smaller than an ESP32 (even though they are one) and solid stay relays built in. Most RV switches are SPST with only ground or only 12V, you have to hunt behind the wall to find it’s mate. Fortunately almost all my switches are right in front of the entry and above the fuse box, so getting 12V + GND there isn’t too bad, a little more challenging with remote switches but possible. I’ll let you know as I go to prototype mode.
It worked great on my workbench when I assumed I had access to both the + and - lines to the LED lights. Our camper is <1 year old and my wife was not too keen on my pulling out wall or ceiling panels to track down the negative wire.
I’m sure I will circle back to it eventually as I would really like to have both HA control and the rotary control.
Nor would my wife, lol. Nor me! I won’t be pulling luan down, more of just going to the destination, i.e., the fixture, and seeing if I can either trace it’s second wire to near the switch or find an alternate easily. I’m not going to start cutting wires inside the tiny 1 1/2" hole either, if I don’t find it easily then the lights don’t get automated.
For those following, some updates that I’ll write up soon for our 2024 season:
Smart Thermostat (that works with the bizarre Dometic command codes) that works in HA
Controllable 12v Switches (Lights coming soon, still some things to figure out)
Dynamic Weather (this was a big one and I finally have a system in place)
Extra Cooling without another A/C (tied into the smart thermostat to know when to turn on and off as needed when the A/C isn’t bringing the temperature down quickly enough)
Every year we bring the RV home for what we call our “re-fit” and then out for the “shake-down trip” which is just 5 miles away at a lake where we can run through all RV and boat systems to make sure our stuff is still OK and anything new from the re-fit is working properly - this gives us close proximity to local stores and the house to make adjustments before our first real trip.
Based on the fact that you’re using wifi devices to control switches, it doesn’t sound like you’re too concerned about power usage. Do you have a generator or plug into shore power usually?
Always one or the other. I have a genny big enough for everything that rig can suck up. 75% of the time I’m on shore power, 25% I’m boon-docking with the generator.
I’ve been monitoring the App queries and to be honest it looks pretty complicated with likely MQTT being used to send updates to the application itself. It goes via cognito-idp(auth), cognito-identity (session token generation), then dynamodb (actual query).
Im about to start looking at this from the Bluetooth point of view as it doesn’t look like a system they designed for others developing on.
