I’m anxiously awaiting a used mini PC I ordered off eBay to set up our first HA system! I’m grateful for this forum to help guide me with that purchase.
My burning question in preparing for this change, after doing all kinds of research: What’s the best way to transition my 8266 EspAlexa dimmers to HA?
EspHome looks awesome - I love the simplicity and it will make adding new DIY sensors to my home a breeze. But I also love to tinker with the code, so would the Node-Red/MQTT route be better? Or some other route I haven’t yet discovered? Any suggestions to help me hit the ground running with winning techniques are much apprecited!
Here are 2 examples of my code tweaks in EspAlexa, which sort of points to how I may also want to tweak other fun DIY automations:
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After creating the dimmers, I checked how they actually functioned with the particular bulbs they were running. Formulas were added to the code to convert Alexa’s incoming percentage to what actually works with the lights… so telling Alexa to set a light to 1-99% may actually set the dimmer to a range between 20-60%, the minimum required to power on the light without flickering and the max percent that basically ran the LED at full brightness. Each formula for my dimmers vary based on the load they are each lighting up. If I use EspHome, could I make these adjustments in HA, or should I use MQTT and continue using my current Arduino code?
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I made my dimmers before gradual dim/bright was offered, so I coded in my own “sunrises” and “sunsets” (triggered by setting light to 2 or 3%), which also fall within the dimmer percent that works best with the load. Going beyond that, I wanted to be able to set timers for reading at night without having to create a bunch of Alexa routines that accounts for multiple devices and possible increments of time. With my code, we can tell Alexa to set a light to any increment of 5+1 to start a timer + sunset function. So telling Alexa to set light to 11% initiates setting the light to our desired/programmed reading brightness, starting a timer for 10 minutes, then running the sunset (16% starts a 15 minute timer, etc.). If Alexa is told to do something different with the light, the Arduino cancels the sequence completely. This is obviously a favorite feature in the household! So is this easy to replicate in HA if I use EspHome, or should I stick with my Arduino code go with MQTT? Or do you have another suggestion altogether? Maybe this whole idea is nothing fancy or new in the HA community and is super easy to accomplish!
Thanks for your input and helping me jump into a smooth(er?) transition! Kinda sucks to spend a couple days setting something up just to find it doesn’t meet your end goal and needing to start fresh with another format.