One of the things I always wanted to add to Home Assistant was a door. Just how cool would it be to control a door through Home Assistant. I did some googling but there didn’t seem to be anything like this. So I did it myself
The door automatically opens
and automatically closes
In short, this is a 5V motor with wheels being controlled by an L298N motor controller being controlled by an ESP8266 NodeMCU using ESPHome. It is almost the same thing as @DrZzsautomatic shades, but instead the motor has wheels and is attached to a door. A Xiaomi contact sensor on the door and a button I’ve attached to the wall acts as stop points for the motor. It works quite well but I needed to add some weight ( I added a rock ) to the motor since our carpet is a bit uneven.
I’ve put a tape over the door bolt so the door doesn’t latch upon closing.
The motor doesn’t have enough power to close the door all the way so it latches (if you don’t use the tape). That means the system will continue to work unless you manually close the door fully which could be some sort of manually override
I also kinda wanted something like this, not really sure what for
And my idea for the mechanism was to mount one of those powerful servos above the door, near the hinge side, with a 10cm long or so arm. The door would be attached at a point also around 10cm from the hinge, with a rubber band to the end of the servo arm.
That way the servo sets the target angle for the door but a person can override it, possibly without even noticing the door is “automated”. The servo can open and close the door when there are no obstacles or locks engaged.
Aliexpress has some very powerful digital servos for very cheap.
Thanks @nickrout.
Linear actuator is indeed the first thing I evaluated for this solution, but an actuator kind of require a perpendicular wall next to the door, need one quite a powerful which is rather expensive and the door might not be manually opened anymore easily.
Which is probably why the commercial solution that I saw ( Hörmann, opensesamedoor, olide, …) seem to use a rotation mechanism that can push/pull the door from the top of the frame. Solutions look to be powered by a clutch motor, windshield type of motor or even nema 23 step motor.
Here is what I found so far:
Based on a recycled windshield motor:
Based on Nema 23 but is a theoretical paper:
This commercial solution looks to be based on a clutch motor:
Still wondering what cheap motor alternative to take. The automation side of it should be fairly easy with an ESP32 and ESPHome. Case could be 3D printed. Then for the arm not sure what is most appropriate to still look good. Ideally could go with something cheap like that: Burg-Wächter TS 501 SB Door Closer : Amazon.de: DIY & Tools
empty what is inside and try to fit a motor and the electronics.
Anyone has ever done that ?
My thought was to have a vacuum in a closet out of the way. Door opens to…UNLEASH THE VACUUM! Then it docks when finished and closes the door behind itself.