So we recently invested in chickens and a chicken coop. We got one of the coops in Eglu’s Omlet line and we decided to also purchase the auto door to open and close the door on a schedule.
The door has a bit of smarts for scheduling options. It has a built-in light sensor and can be set up to know when sunrise and sunset so you can do something like open/close at a light level but only if its around sunset/sunrise. It’s handy but obviously that’s a far cry from what I could do in an HA automation.
I was hoping to integrate it into HA and wondering if anyone else has any experience doing so. I don’t have particularly high hopes of being able to do this since it doesn’t seem to do any networking. It also operates on batteries so using a smart plug to only give it power on a schedule is out too. But there’s a lot of creative minds on here with far more experience making dumb hardware smart then me so I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.
Monitoring would be useful by itself too. Initially I’d like monitoring so I can turn on their light sensor features and independently confirm they behave the way I would expect. Assuming it does work fine then then monitoring would basically just become a fail safe in case the battery died or it broke, I could set up an alert or something like “the door should definitely be open/closed by now, something is wrong”.
I did think about a door sensor for that although I was a bit worried the chickens would peck at it haha. Do you know of one that is durable enough for outdoor use and could possibly standup to some chicken pecks?
But yea if I could get remote control too that would be preferable. Most of the time I’m sure the schedule will be fine but there are some times a remote manual override option would be handy. Like for instance the chickens have a natural impulse to get back into the coop when it starts to get dark but its possible for one to get stuck outside sometimes, would be great to be able to open it then. We were already planning to set up a camera for this as well as generally watching out for predators and automating lights.
I’ve never actually done any ESPHome work before, is it easy to do? Also are they durable enough for outside use?
Yes. All you would need would be a binary sensor to sense when the door is closed (using a magnetic reed switch) and a switch to command the door to open/close (or maybe two switches depending on the Omlet circuit).
I broke out the door to take a look in light of that. You know I have to confess, I’m so used to companies making things where the internals are completely sealed from end user access I just kind of assumed this would be the same way. That is not the case at all however so I think this should be pretty straightforward, even compared to the doorbell. Although I am a 100% beginner at this so let me show what I’m seeing.
The controller and the door do not ship connected. Instead you have to open up the controller box and plug in the wire yourself like so:
So i’m pretty sure I could just stick an esp device in between these two right? Basically separate it into two separate circuits with the esp device in between like in the doorbell guide.
Assuming I am correct about that the one place this does differ from the doorbell guide is the fact that this will be outside. Obviously that adds a few more requirements since it has to be waterproof and battery powered. Searching around the forum I saw @tom_l you posted about esp sensors you use for outdoor gate and mailbox monitoring here. Although sadly the link you posted about which device you use is dead now. Any suggestions on devices/cases you’ve had success with for outdoor use?
That cabling looks like it could be sending 6V to the door (4 x 1.5V batteries) to drive a load like a motor. The ESP device i/o is 3.3v with limited current.
Yes. Just pressing the buttons controls the user interface (one scrolls up, one scrolls down and one is ‘OK’). However each button also controls something manually if you press & hold it (one toggles the light, one toggles the heater and one toggles the door).
I forgot about the other aspects until now tbh since I was worried about the door but for reference we also have the light, we don’t have the heater.
Then it may be a simple matter of working out which of the switch pads to short out with this sort of circuit:
To give you an idea of what is involved in doing this you would have to be proficient with the use of a multimeter and a soldering iron.
With the circuit off, work out which pins of each switch short together using the meter’s continuity checker and pressing the buttons. Then work out which one of those pins on each switch connects to the circuit ground using the continuity checker again. The circuit ground will likely be one of the battery negative terminals or some other point on the board we can identify later. Note: if none of the switch pins connect to ground we are not screwed, we can use a relay instead of a transistor. In fact it may be easier to use a relay as you would not have to build the transistor circuits or identify the circuit ground. You could just use 3 of these modules: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32899763894.html or similar.
You would then have to solder wires from the switch pins to the transistor or relay contacts.
To be honest, that sounds farther then I’m willing to go here. Or at the very least I’d want to do some experimenting with other devices first. I have no experience soldering anything so I don’t think I should start by experimenting with this one since its $200.
Still this is enlightening. I had thus far been shying away from the ESPHome stuff since I’m way more of a software person then a hardware person. But seeing that guide it looks way easier then I realized. So now I’m going to try and find other opportunities for automation and maybe come back to this if I feel more comfortable.
I just found this article and have already considered a similar solution. I have already installed a BME280 in the eglu via ESP. Now I would also like to control the door via NodeRed. The most obvious solution is to bypass the switches. But maybe somebody has a nicer solution?
wanted to share a tip to make the door compatible with Google home and alexa.
This allows you to reopen the door and the light remotely if one of you hens is not in the coop. Or simply manage the programming of the door via home automation.
In my case I have a webcam that allows me to see if the hens are in or not, and depending on that I can reopen the door if I see that a hen is stuck outside and I can open the door in the morning from my living room
Of course, for this you will have to be a little handyman and have a soldering iron but the manipulation is super simple and does not prevent from using the door as before.
all you need is an Alexa google home compatible dual relay like this one:
Amazon.fr Module de Relais Wifi Sonoff, 2 Canaux DC 5-32v Wifi
Configure the relay on the smartlife application on the “momentary time” mode, I put 5 seconds to simulate the long press on the buttons.
Then just connect the wires in parallel to the two buttons that control the light and the door (see attached image)
After reading it I just did nearly the same with a “Shelly Uni”. At least in Germany the Shelly device is a little bit cheaper and easier to get. I don’t know the dimensions of the Sonoff Relais, but the Shelly Uni is small enough to fit into the Omlet casing. In the Shelly settings you can configure the switch as a " Activation Switch". This kind of switch is always turning itself to “off” after a given time. If you choose 5 sec. you have the same effect as pressing the button of the Omlet device for 5 sec.
That is pretty cool! Unfortunately I do have to note we have had serious issues with the omlet door. A couple months ago we went away for the week and the door failed to open despite having battery. Our friend checked and the door said jammed despite their being no jam. I cleaned the whole thing (like took it apart and really scrubbed it) and that got it working until last week. We went away for a week again and sure enough - jammed, chickens locked in the coop again. I guess it requires another deep scrub but I don’t really trust it anymore. There’s no visible obstruction and the last scrub didn’t last that long.
It’s now sitting on my deck completely removed and we’re looking at other options. Not ideal since it’s winter but hopefully we can figure out something soon. It did work well for 2.5 years so maybe that’s just it’s lifetime but for the price I expected longer
You might want to try to power the device via the 12V connector inside of the box. In case the door gets jammed again you can just power cycle the device and everything might work again. Power cycling can be done by a Shelly plug integrated into home assistant.
Plug is a problem though. The coop is away from our house and there is no power out there. Part of why we wanted a door that used batteries. I can look into it but realistically if I have to build a permanent way to get power out there its probably easier to just build a custom door that does what I want.
EDIT: Oh also I should note, pulling out the batteries and putting them back in did not fix it. Had to be thoroughly cleaned. So not sure a way to remotely power cycle would help.
I also use my second door since they were introduced. However, if you have a chicken coop from Omlet your choices are narrow. Not many automatic coop doors open horizontal. A door that would open vertically wouldn’t have enough space in most Omlet coops.
