Using a remote/multiple PiFace board

Configuration
1

Hi there.

Very new to hassio (have only had the docker image running for a week to play around with it), but have been using OpenHAB for the previous 4 years and have extensive experience with that. I keep coming across things that relate back to hassio (latest being esphomeyaml) and am investigating migrating my setup over.

I’ve been reading the documentation and from what it looks like, the PiFace modules for hassio imply that you’re running the interface board on the same RPI that you’re running hassio on?

I don’t plan to run hassio on an rpi and I also have multiple piface setups doing different things (multiple garage doors, trip wires, etc). Just wondering if the PiFace boards can be accessed remotely.

Cheers.

2

If they can be accessed over the network, then they can be accessed in home assistant.

Having said that, the native support is as you stated.

How do pifaces communicate over a network? Is there an API? Rest or mqtt or something like that?

3

For anyone who comes across this post, the solution was installing this on the RPI that runs the PIFace, and using MQTT: https://github.com/flyte/pi-mqtt-gpio

4

I have been trying to setup pi-mqtt-gpio on a rpi on my network, but I get lost on how to configure it. Would you mind providing some advice on your install and configuration?

5

Apologies, I actually moved away from this because my PiFace hardware died on me, and it wasn’t worth replacing it. The configuration however was very easy, it was just taking one of the examples listed in the documentation and changing gpio_modules to piface2 and referencing the appropriate PiFace pins, and then creating the equivalent MQTT switches in HA.

I had already moved the bulk of my sensor/control network to ESPHome but I didn’t want a wifi device, but then I found that the Olimex ESP32-POE-ISO is supported in ESPHome, and I replaced my RPI+PiFace setup with one of these and some relays.

The whole thing feels a lot more robust since I’m not booting a whole RPI and as an added bonus one less PSU to use. The install isn’t as tidy as the PiFace but that’s on me…

6

Thank you for the response and the update on your project. (good to know about the Olimex board, I have been looking for an ethernet based ESP board). Any guides you recommend similar to your current setup?

I still have not had much success getting my piface to talk back to Home Assistant. I can run simple commands when I SSH to the rpi. This issue is me not knowing how to work with Python and modify the files that I need to modify using the command line.

Thanks again.

7

My setup is a garage door, and I’m using as much configuration in ESPHome as possible. It’s a combination of these two configurations with my own requirements: