Hi Home Assistant community! 
Let me introduce my newest project for our favorite smart home platform:
MimeSys - The digital 3D twin of your home
Available as App & HACS Integration via GitHub external repository
- 3D home editor
- 3D Viewer (for dashboards or wall tablet screensaver)
- Automated entity synchronizing
Before we continue, let me explain where I came from
I liked those dashboards where users created their home in 3D and then had it synced in Home Assistant with pre-rendered conditional pictures etc. to dynamically show the lights in their 3D model.
For me it looked looked like this:
Had to remove the picture as I’m only allowed as new user to put 2 pictures in here, sorry!
I definitely like it and it’s a nice addition, though it comes with some downsides:
- It’s quite exhausting to understand all the different tools that are required
- It’s a LOT of work to make your 3D house at least kinda look like your real home
- If you add a light somewhere afterwards, you basically have to render everything again, exchange the conditional objects in HA and so on, so it’s a lot of effort to adjust it
That’s why I came up with the idea of creating a system that is easier to setup and above all: easier to maintain.
How does it work?
MimeSys comes in two packages:
- The App (previously Addon)
- The HACS Integration
The MimeSys App
Had to remove the picture as I’m only allowed as new user to put 2 pictures in here, sorry!
Install it via Github Repository link added in your Apps Settings. (or, if preferred you can also host it on an external server of course). It will also expose the interface used to dynamically turn on / off lights.
The app is basically the sever that hosts two endpoints:
- <your_home_assistant_address>:8000 [Edit View]
- <your_home_assistant_address>:8000/showcase [Showcase View]
Edit View
Accessing <your_hom_assistant_adress>:8000 [Edit View], will show you the 3D edit mode to create your home with multiple floors, create light sources (these have to have the exact name as your HA entities that should control it afterwards) and (for now) cube objects to show some interior.
Don’t forget to save and backup (Download) your save file!
Saving asdefault.jsonis required, as /showcase view will pick updefault.jsonto display everything!
Showcase View
Accessing <your_hom_assistant_adress>:8000/showcase [Showcase View] will be the view you might for example want to add to your dashboard, or add as screensaver to your wall display (that’s how I currently use it).
Accessing it without further parameters, will make it cycle through your floors, revolving around the house and having the so called smart wall feature enabled, means the walls and objects on the highest visible floor will try to avoid blocking the users view.
Further parameter to show your showcase view:
Synchronize it with your Home Assistant entities
So, not that you created your home, added lights (with names similar to your HS entities e.g: switch.living_room_plug_1 and have your /showcase URL ready to be used, you can add via HACS the MimeSys Integration.
The integration will ask you about your App server URL (if you hosted it as described, it should be http://homeassistant.local:8000 (the default) and then will ask you about which entities it should synchronize with the showcase view.
It’s important that the MimeSys lights you want to synchronize, exactly have the name of the entities you select in this step.
Final Words
Guys, I know the system is far from perfect, but if you like to check it out and have feedback please provide it here, I would be very happy to hear / see it
This is just the starting point and we can improve UX / UI and make it even easier to setup etc.
For further details, check out the GitHub Repository oliverruoff/MimeSys.
I’m doing this entirely in my free time, so please have mercy on me if you encounter (definitely existing) bugs. Please add your findings as a GitHub Issue as it helps a lot in keeping the overview.
Also, if you have an idea / feature request, please also just raise a GitHub Issue.
I would love to continue this project together with you, so either provide bug findings / feature requests, or even directly some Pull Requests in case you would like to jump in development
Let us together create a nice tool for our homes
I’m excited to hear your feedback!
Thank you and have a delightful day,
Oli
