I’m a 33 year old software developer (>10 Years, mostly C#) from Germany.
Currently I don’t have a good/single solution for my devices (from a bunch of companies).
I have:
Homematic (CCU2)
- 5 door contacts
- one doorbell contact
- 3 switchable power outlets
- 2 light switches (1 with dimmer)
- 2 motion detectors
- one remote (not used)
IP Camera
- 2 HikVision (via POE)
- 2 Spare HikVision (currently not used)
Netatmo
- weather (and second module, no rain/wind module)
- thermostat
Philips Hue
- Some light bulbs including one Osram Lightify
- 1 LED stripe
Bloomsky
- Sky2
- Storm
Amazon
- 2 Echo dot
- Echo Spot
Synology
- 1813+ (surveillance station)
- 214play
Apple
- Apple TV (LG not so Smart TV)
- Apple TV 4k (LG Smart TV)
- some iPads and iPhones
Ubiquiti
- POE Switch
- CloudKey
- 2 AP AC PRO
Other
- Multiple Google calendar (garbage collection, hollidays …)
Planned:
Ei Electronics
- 5-10 wireless smoke/heat detectors
- one in relais (combined with Homatic actuator)
- one out reais (combined with Homatic actuator)
Ubiquiti
- POE Switch (to use the other IP cams)
- AP (for Outdoor)
From the softwareside I’ve tried “homebridge” with “iobroker”, to connect the Homematic stuff to Siri & Alexa but it’s not very reliable.
What I miss (besides the chaos), I’d like to have a good solution to collect data (mostly outdoor data like temperature from Netamo & Bloomsky).
I use Alexa (livingroom, bedroom, car) and Siri (everywhere else) mostly to turn on/off the Hue lights.
The door contacts and motion detectors are external events for the IP cams and I also get a push message (via Pushover).
What I hope for is better scripting and more complex scripts. Also the possibility to easy override trigger temporarily, like “don’t turn on the porch lights for the next X hours” (no matter what … don’t care if there is motion or any other event, they have to stay off). Presence detection would be nice, but not (or not only) via GPS, since I work nearby (ca. 50 meter).
My current plan is to use HA with Homegear (to use the Homematic components).
I was running Homegear and Home Assistant on a Pi for a while and it worked pretty well. Never used Homegear in Docker though. But I don’t think this would be a problem. In general I think a raw installation (not hass.io) would be better suited for you as it gives you more flexibility.
For most of your Hardware there are components available. For the smoke detectors it depends on how you connect them. I have the Ei Electronics hub attached to the Pi’s GPIO and control the siren that way (I don’t listen for detected smoke though). Home Assistant can do this (GPIO) out of the box. If you plan to use some other circuit that controls the detectors that could be different though. I think I’m going to switch to an esp8266 based solution because I actually want to move away from the Pi because of its limited resources. But for having a first look the Pi is perfectly fine.
In general you should browse through the components section and see for which hardware the integration is available.
The plan was to use some of my unused Homematic stuff (HM-Sen-DB-PCB) to connect the Ei Electronics relay to “forward” the alarm and then push it to my phone.
But for now I have to wait until my HM-MOD-RPI-PCB arrives since I can’t get the RPI-RF-MOD to work.
I am long time user of Home Assistant and doing the other way, checking it the material can be integrated with Home Assistant.
I am right now looking at your configuration and I think you can help me. I am right now looking for smoke detector. I am tempted to buy the homematic one because I feel that if I want I will find a way to integrate it with Home Assistant.
But as far I can see Homematic does not have heat detectors (for the kitchen) which made me think EI Electronics would be a better solution.
Did you go forward in your project in order to help me taking the decision ?
yes I continued the project an I’m using HA. But it took some time and some iterations.
Currently I have HA running on Docker on my Synology and am considering switching to a new DS (RS1221+). The rest of the list has remained mostly the same. All in all, a few more devices have been added but nothing special.
On the subject of smoke detectors, yes I have the Ei Electronics ones. Currently 4 of them (I don’t have a heat detector yet, but it’s still on the shopping list.) and even though the post is from 2018, I’ve only had them in use for a short time so I can’t say much about the quality yet. But the main decision against the Homematic detectors where the bad reviews (at a similar price). I have already implemented the direction detector → module → Homematic → HA. Which works wonderfully. In the event of an alarm, all detectors beep and in addition a (priority) push message is sent to the mobile phone via HA as well as an announcement via all Alexa loudspeakers in the house and all lamps in the house and outside are turned on.
The other way, to control the detectors from outside (Ha) (e.g. to use them as an alarm system) has not yet been implemented and I don’t know if I will do/need it. The Ei450 Alarm Controller might be enough for me.
You just have to think about whether it’s worth the effort. Because each detector costs 50-70€ (incl. radio). The module costs 80€ and the Homematic interface also costs 50€. I hope that in 10 years there will be a way to have the detectors refurbished by Ei Electronics (At a fraction of the price), but that’s the problem of a future me
Thanks this is really valuable information. How does the EI Electronic → module → Homematic → HA works ?
I actually have already 3 EI without the radio I guess it will be better for me to add the radio to those and complete with more EI than having two different solution.
You can connect whatever you want to the Ei Electronics Ei413 module. If you only want to get informed for smoke, a 1-channel (whatever) would also be sufficient (Homematic, ESP … ) the other two channels are for co2 and fault (e.g. battery empty).
Also there is a thread at the Homematic forum Projektvorstellung - erweiterte Rauchmeldeanlage - HomeMatic-Forum / FHZ-Forum
…