This is going to be the place I’m going to catalog my journey to making my 1985 Toyota Coachment camper to be a “Smart Camper”. I’m not always in it and can’t always be there to check battery levels, if a water leak happened or if the RV has coat fire. Also when I do travel I travel with my dog. I would like the option to monitor conditions within the trailer while I’m away.
now there are off the shelf options out there for this. but nothing that implements all the things I want to have. also, they cost more than my RV is worth. Since I’m a PM as my job let me lay out my goals for this project.
Goal:
have the ability to control lights, main power shut off, heating, cooling, water pump, inverter, propane flow, refrigerator temperature, and main water shut off.
have the ability to monitor Coach batteries, starting motor battery, solar charger, temperature/ humidity( in and out), smoke, carbon monoxide, propane gas levels, water tank levels, black water tank levels, location, and AC /DC usage.
have a touch screen displaying this infraction within the coach ( replacing the old gauges).
Have it accessible from a phone app and website.
Now, this is a lot to tackle all at once so I’m going to start with basic elements. so let’s call this phase 1.
Phase1 goals,
install the 7-inch display with a raspberry pie 4 to run it and be the “brain”.
set up DC switches to control lights and water pump.
have a tank monitor system in place (still figuring out how to do this)
install the humidity and temperature sensors in and outside of the RV.
Extra, add battery monitor to both starting batter and coach battery.
this is just the start but I wanted to intro this project with the goals. how is what I’m working out. But I know home assistant will be the OS I’ll go with. if you have any suggestions or products, let me know.
I am currently working on a project almost exactly like this for my coleman light. Main focus is tank monitoring. Ultimately i want to control all switches and valves. also i am going to monitor power, water, and propane useage. I already have a thin client running HA and an internal network to connect it all together.
Right now i am trying to use an esp32 to monitor the voltage levels on the tank sensors already installed but it seems that i bought a board that is not part of esphome (as strange as that sounds).
anyone already have any designs for this monitor system i would love to see it to learn something. i want it to monitor two gray tanks, a black, freshwater, and battery voltage.
I have replaced switches in our Adria caravan with Sonoff 4CHRPRO3, I control them with Home Assistant (and a 433MHz remote) - that is actually the easy part, only some wiring is needed.
Your real problems start when You want to connect Home Assistant to RV specific appliances or components such as Truma, Alde (heating and AC), Dometic or Schaudt (12v power distribution) - they use propriatary wired communication network.
Sorry to bump this old topic but I’ve been thinking I want to go this route for my ideal camping setup.
Even though I will be building mine around a truck bed the concept is the same.
Here’s my current setup and why I’m frustrated:
I’m using an Ecoflow battery (they locked up the local API and now I’m locked out)
Govee exterior lights (Bluetooth only, I don’t think anyone’s gotten these to be controllable with any of the new Bluetooth stuff going on but I’m interested in seeing if I can get them to work locally some how)
Cheap refrigerator (No wireless connectivity)
Diesel heater (Crummy RF remote that doesn’t work that well. No feedback. No remote temperature sensor for inside the tent.)
For the battery I think the right route is to buy standalone components and put them together yourself, I’m not sure what I would use for the charge controller/distribution (12V/5V USB) /110V US inverter and if anybody has seen anything that can be integrated into HA.
The lights I have revert to their last state on power restoration, so I’d settle for that just being switched on by the power distribution solution above.
The Fridge, I’m not to worried about the setpoint, maybe I can just stick a temp probe in there and it can close ok or I can notch out a hole and reseal around it. I want to know if it’s getting to warm in there and my food is spoiling.
I think the diesel heater is the easy item as Afterburner looks like a great option, people have gotten that into HA, not sure about the remote temperature sensor part.
