Hi, maybe someone can chime in on how this can be done.
I’m looking to experiment in my small multi-unit building. The idea is to be able to give a tenant control of their own stuff + the main front door and outside cameras.
How can this be done?
One idea is to install a separate Hass+RPi into each unit… and give that tentant access.
would there be a way I could do a remote reset or re-deploy when there is a new tenant?
since HA doesnt have multiple logins/permissions (right?) there would be no way to have one HA deployment serve multiple units right?
I would be interested in how this goes. I’m kind of doing the same thing, but not on the scale you are doing. I am putting smart switches in my kids rooms and the guest room. I’m also giving each of them an Amazon Dot for Christmas. Because my kids (boys) like to mess with each other, I’m only going to give them access through their Dot to the devices in their rooms and in the hallway. That way they can turn out the hallway light and the lights in their room without being able to turn on and off the lights in each other’s rooms. I don’t want to give them access to HA because, 1 - it gives them access to the whole house, 2 - the configuration is over their heads and would be one more thing I have to support for them.
Do you envision your tenants adding devices, or setting up automation events of their own? You might also want to consider the HA dashboard, it might give you the ability to give them a kiosk where they can control their devices without getting into each others.
@kirichkov - thanks, i briefly had looked at that page. Are you thinking that master/slave would be used for tenant HA’s to send commands the
“public” HA which controls the main door?
@turboc - i would doubt many tenants would add devices, but i suppose they could.
A unit would come pre-installed with a light, thermostat, and door lock.
I hadn’t seen the HA dashboard… I will definitely check into that.
And a little more info…
We had initially planned on using SmartThings hub… There problem there is also … no multiple logins. The upside is, I can run apps on each ST hub that can receive HTTP calls… so in theory I could build my own frontend or use MQTT system to control remotely… so i was trying to see how HA could be my fronted for multiple ST hubs… but separating out authority seems like the same challenge im going to have with HA.
Check out using a wink hub in each apartment and HA to control them on the backend. That would give the tenants automation control over each of their wink boxes, and with HA you should be able to see all of the devices and schedule specific global level automation’s.
Two different things.
It’s kind of like having a pickup truck and a prius. They both offer you transportation. But you might not want to drive the pickup to work every day when you have a prius that gets 3 times better gas mileage. By the same token, you might not want to take your prius to Lowes to get 12 ft 2x4’s (I’ve done it), but your truck would be great for it.
Wink is a commercially available hub that multiple different types of devices can hook up to. It offers limited programming and scheduling of rules and automations. Where HA really shines to me, is it’s ability to let you setup some really complex automations. I have most of the devices in my house hooked up to my wink hub.
HA is a user developed hub on steroids. For me where HA really excels is with the complex automations. I do all of my automations in HA. With HA I can tell wink to turn on my indoor and outdoor Christmas lights at sunset unless it’s been raining and then I only turn on the Christmas tree inside. With HA I can tell wink to turn on my bedroom lights 5 minutes after my alarm goes off, unless my google calendar says I have the day off and then I don’t set off the alarm or the lights.
I run HA in Docker on synology NAS and have seperate instance on RPi.
The Synology instance can see and control RPi events/triggers. RPi cannot see Synology. With this in mind:
1.Create an instance for each unit. how this is done would be based on requirments. If taking in wired sensor inputs a RPi per unit may be best. If this is control of web based items and web cameras, you may utilize a single server with multiple instance (like multiple docker instances) and provide per unit access to an instance.
2.each per instance Config file would containg unique login/pass for tenant. You can have shared Database with separated instances.
3.you may choose to have each individual instance report to a single HA “admin” instance that may monitor and control all. I use the Eventstream component to accomplish this currently.
When new tenants come you should only need to wipe DB, remove any Device Tracker details and change password. If these were accessed via WAN you may have some method to obfuscate the specific units URL
Once I get a dot in my bedroom ( Christmas present for my wife ), I’ll be able to do more with the alarm in the bedroom. Right now, it just turns on the lights when the alarm goes off.
Remember complexity is the enemy of security when it comes to software. Trying to support a multi unit setup sounds like a maintenance nightmare, although of course it would be very cool. I’d suggest sticking with something with at least personal if not commerical support. Think about software updates and needing to keep doing updates; tenants might not be happy if something breaks etc.
Crestron do some nice control stuff but not sure if it is possible to do yourself or if you have to use a partner
Remember also that complexity and points of failure are not necessarily the same thing. Sometimes having more points of failure actually results in a less complex system. In this case, having one control system for all the units in my opinion is more complex that having a separate hub for each unit. When you make changes for one tenant in the single hub model, you have to consider how the change will impact the other tenants as well and the individual tenants can’t be allowed to make their own changes because they might mess someone else’s world up. With multiple hubs, each tenant can control their own world, and make whatever changes they need (timers, schedules, devices, etc) without impacting the other tenants. Using HA as a master hub, then gives you the landlord the ability to control the devices in each unit, as well as any devices in common areas. It’s more hubs, but logically and functionally less complex and more robust. Again in my opinion. But give it a try and let us know how it goes. That’s part of what these forums are for is for us to learn from each others successes and mistakes.
I think that one hub per unit is def required to keep them separated.
@turboc - I think yes - one hub per unit, but regarding your suggestion of HA as a master layer for the landlord… do you also mean that each individual unit will have its own HA deployment also just for the tenant?
@tmjpugh - very interesting ideas here… I want to explore and clarify this:
All devices are wireless (zwave)
Are you suggesting that each unit have an RPi, but HA lives on a docker (1 docker per unit)?
This sounds like a good idea because then if I need to update or do maintenance, I can access remotely without having to go into each unit.
It DOES sound like a possible maint nightmare as @jnimmo suggested, but assuming there is financial incentive to figure this out, it seems like ansible scripts or something could be setup to update each unit HA deployment if needed.
Crestron is Huge cost above HA deployment. Control4 is more cost effective but honestly after years of supporting standard controI systems I don’t see the benefit. Your talking $1000/unit for crestron vs $30 for Pi I’d guess. This is not comparable. Those are not DIY solutions really.
After 8 months using HA as a security system I feel very confident in its stability. (If properly planned and installed) The only issue I ran into was the huge log files which I solved by moving this to server DB. I don’t use much zwave and hardwire to GPIO or use Ethernet/wifi.
Yes. Main HA doesn’t require docker and may live on pi as well
mosquito MQTT server on main server
Main server running HA master
utilize a base image and config for each pi.
Limit customizations between units and document any customizations(I simply would make them the same/except device tracker if used )
main server can be setup to monitor pi function and devices.
If there are no changes maintenance should be non issue.
Support is the problem you may have. User errors. I assume you’ll depend on their device (phone,etc)to connect via Web. Unstable network could cause issues for this connection.
Zwave network stability could be issue as well. Are these light switches or other?
