Homeseer

How to Control the Xiaomi Mi Vacuum from HomeSeer

rmiles7721October 1, 20172Home Automation

Back about a decade ago we had a Roomba I had received while doing the payperpost . The wife and I liked it and it did a pretty good job. It eventually died as electronics do and I wasn’t able to resurrect it. Eventually it went to the dump. Rather than replace it we just got a normal vacuum. The price of iRobot’s stuff is prohibitive and very much a luxury. A few weeks back I received an email from Gearbest and went to check it out. One of the things on sales was a Xiaomi Mi Vacuum. An extremely good deal so I went ahead and picked it up.

I finally received the vacuum a few days ago. Everything in Chinese, instructions, the voice (it has a built-in speaker), everything. It didn’t take me very long to figure out how to get it working though. The app lets you choose the language you are going to use so that made it a bit easier. I had not planned on doing a write-up of it so if I leave out steps or get something out of order, tough shit.

Since this thing could be controlled via Android remotely I knew that in theory I should be able to control it from Homeseer (my home automation software) with some work. I came across some python scripts and saw that you could control it via Home Assistant (another, free HA software). This “tutorial” is not the only way to do this and there are probably simpler ways to do it in less steps but you have to remember, I am not a coder at all and some of that shit just blows my mind when I look at it.

Anyway, here are the steps I took as best I can remember.

    1. First thing I did was to download the Mi Home app from the play store and set it up. I originally picked the U.S. server during set up but it really didn’t provide a lot of options. After a bit of reading I changed that to the mainland China server which gave me complete control over the vacuum.
    2. Set up Home Assistant. There are only a few things I can’t already control from Homeseer and I also wanted a way to integrate them all so HASS seemed to be the best way to do that. I already have a Raspberry Pi running NodeRED and MQTT for location tracking so figured I would be able to communicate between Homeseer and HASS that way.
    3. Follow the directions here to get control of the vacuum  from HASS. The hardest part is retrieving the access token for the vacuum. You need to be comfortable using the commandline and ADB in order to do so. If you have something other than an Android phone I don’t know any other way to do it. If you have a rooted phone (I don’t) the instructions seem to be even easier. Read through the entire page first before you start following their directions.
    4. The vacuum shows up as a switch on the main HASS page as below. 
    5. In Home Assistant’s configuration.yaml uncomment and set the http api password (near the top of the file).
    6. I seem to be having issues with MQTT and being able to control things back and forth from Homeseer to HASS without using eventghost so I chose to go with a more direct route. It doesn’t offer status updates back to Homeseer unfortunately but it does give me control and uses the HASS api which is why I set the password in step 5 and uses Curl. If you are running HS on a linux PC or raspberry pi Curl is already there. If you run under Windows then download it.  Here is my commandline:  c:\apps\curl.exe -X POST -H “x-ha-access: PASSWORD” http://192.168.86.65:8123/api/services/vacuum/turn_on or /turn_off
    7. In Homeseer create a virtual device called “vacuum” or whatever you want. I made sure to leave the voice control box checked on this.
    8. Create two events. One that triggers when the virtual device turns on and another when it turns off. For the action, choose Run Another Program or Process, browse to Curl and enter the command line parameters above. The turn_on parameter starts the vacuum in cleaning mode and turn_off directs it to go back to the dock.
    9. If you use Alexa, run discovery. Since I left the Voice Control box checked during my virtual device setup Alexa found it and now I can say “Alexa, turn on the vacuum” to start it!

 

I still have several things to do. During my initial setup of the app I set up a schedule for the floor to be cleaned twice a day. I need to remove that and create a scheduled event in Homeseer. This allows for local control and doesn’t depend on control from a server in mainland China. As a matter of fact it’s probably a good idea to block any IPs from China at your router if you have any sort of IOT devices.

I also need to figure out why I can’t just control my Homeseer devices via MQTT. I can send commands from Homeseer to Eventghost and NodeRED but don’t yet know how to trigger HASS switches and other devices via MQTT. Also any MQTT commands that Homeseer receives don’t seem to trigger devices. I have to intercept them in Eventghost and use a Homeseer event to get them working.

Home Automation Hubs and How to Pick One

rmiles7721March 13, 2017Home Automation

As far as home automation hubs go, the sky is the limit… as far as cost anyway. There’s a pretty large range in what they can do and it all depends on what you want to do and how technical you are as well.

If all you want to do is control a few items and don’t mind having to open different apps then you are probably good to go just buying those items and possibly even a Google Home or Amazon Echo in order to control them via your voice. Neither of those are true hubs as some web sites claim but for simplicity I’ll include them in the list as well.

Since I brought it up, lets start with Amazon’s offerings first. They range in cost from the original Amazon Echo priced at 179.99, the portable Amazon Tap for $129.99 down to the Echo Dot for $49.99. Each of them has it’s own slightly different characteristics but they all allow you to play music from Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio and TuneIn (sadly Google Play Music is not included.) They can answer questions (using Bing), read audiobooks, give you the news and weather and for our purposes here, control smart devices including devices from Wemo, Phillips Hue, Nest and Ecobee and allow you to connect to hubs such as SmartThings, HomeSeer, Wink and more.

The service also allows you to access “skills”, over 10,000 at last count, most of which are useless junk but there are a few gems there.

I don’t want to fail to mention that if you own a FireTV or FireTV stick you can also access Alexa that way as well with one of Amazon’s voice remotes.

 

Next up is Google Home. Like Alexa, Home is not an actual hub but does allow you to control home automation hubs as well as individual devices. Currently the list of compatible items is shorter than Alexa but Amazon had a two year head start in the area and is currently firmly entrenched in the market. I’m a pretty big Google fanboy and have a Google Home sitting in my kitchen but thus far the Echo and it’s usefulness blows away Home for my family.

Home allows you to play music on Spotify, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. Not Amazon Music of course lol.

While Alexa uses Bing for it’s search engine, Home naturally uses Google. While there are some strange things you can find using Google search I have found that it’s more accurate and inclusive than Bing (fake news aside…)

Home allows you to connect to the Honeywell and Nest thermostats, Wemo, Phillips Hue and Samsung SmartThings. Using IFTTT (Alexa also supports IFTTT as well) you can control ANY other hub or software that has IF support as well. That’s how I have my Home set up to connect to HomeSeer currently.

If you are a Chromecast fan Home will also allow you to control those as well.

 

Next up is the Samsung SmartThings Hub for about $99. A true HA hub, SmartThings is compatible with Alexa voice control as well as Google Home, Leviton Z-Wave switches and modules (as well as those from other manufacturers), Phillips Hue devices, Sylvania smart bulbs, Netgear Arlo and Ring Doorbell, Schlage and Yale smartlocks, thermostats from Honeywell and Ecobee, Bose soundsystems, Keen Home Smart Vents and a ton of other connected Samsung appliances and devices just to mention a few.

There is a dedicated mobile app to access SmartThings as well. I can’t say how well it works as SmartThings is one item I haven’t tested yet.

You can set rules for what you want your devices to do based on time, other device activity (such as motion sensors, etc) and can monitor cameras and other security items.

The SmartThings Hub contains ZigBee and Z-Wave radios and also allows you to control IP based devices. There is also a pretty active community of SmartThings users as well.

I wouldn’t mind hearing from satisfied SmartThings users as to what all it can do as the only ones I know have ditched the platform looking for more robustness in HomeSeer.

 

A hub I am familiar with is the Wink Hub and Wink Hub 2. I own the original Wink Hub and while I had a lot of problems with it early on I think that had more to do with my Wifi network than anything. Since I upgraded to Google mesh networking my hub has been rock solid. While I do use HomeSeer as my main software, it’s mobile interface is crap. I have Wink set up as a secondary Z-Wave controller and use the Wink mobile interface to operate my lights. The app is very simple and elegant and just what the family needs. While setting up a complicated home automation network can be confusingly intertwined it should be simple to operate for it’s main users. If it’s faster to just get up off the couch and do something, why bother to automate it?

The original Wink hub is compatible with devices from GoControl, Nest, Quirky (now defunct), Kidde, Honeywell, Cree, GE, Dropcam, Kwikset, Lutron, Rachio, Philips, TCP, Schlage, Chamberlain and Leviton as well as more.

Wink Hub can control devices that use protocols such as Z-wave, ZigBee, Lutron ClearConnect, Bluetooth Low Energy, Wifi and Kidde.

Currently my Wink Hub is controlling most of my Z-Wave devices, some GE Link lightbulbs and a Pivot Power Genius power strip.

Wink and the Wink Hub 2 are also Alexa and IFTTT compatible as well. I use both to make sure that HomeSeer and Wink are in sync with each other. The original Wink Hub can be found on Amazon for about $60 (you can find it at Home Depot for $50 or less occasionally although they may have run through their stock by now) and the Wink Hub 2 is $96.

The Wink Hub 2 has a faster processor and more memory (512 mb vs 64 mb) so will run faster. The Wifi radio is apparently more powerful as well. A couple of things it has that the original hub does not is auto-discovery of devices and an Ethernet port.

Out of the few hubs I have tested I have to say that I am very pleased with Wink’s products.  While it does not offer quite the level of control and automation I am used to, for an entry level system (and about 95% of the users out there) I would definitely recommend Wink.

 

Next in line is the set of Vera Hubs. My experience with the Vera a couple of years ago was less than pleasant. The software was buggy as hell and I had a very hard time pairing Z-Wave devices with it. X-10 support was less than stellar and the tech support was crap. I guess “less than pleasant” was an understatement.

Anyway, it appears that they have upgraded their hubs and you now have three selections to choose from, each going up in cost based on how many devices you want to control. The VeraEdge lets you control up to 75 devices and supports Z-Wave, the VeraPlus 125 and has Z-Wave, ZigBee and Bluetooth support and the VeraSecure up to 200 and supports the same protocols as the others as well as includes a backup battery. If you have more than 200 devices I guess you’re shit out of luck. Including Virtual Devices and Times, etc I currently have 565 devices in my system.

Vera does have a pretty active community and there are quite a few plugin authors as well allowing for supporting more products than those listed above.

 

Last but not least comes the ones I am much more familiar with… HomeSeer. (yes, that is an affiliate link lol)

HomeSeer started out strictly as software but over the last 20 years has branched into their own line of hubs, switches and sensors. They also sell many other quality products over at their online store. Unlike Samsung and possibly other companies as well, HomeSeer is based in the United States.

Since we are talking about Hubs today let’s take a look at their offerings. As far as all of the hubs I have gone through these are by far the most expensive. You get what you pay for.

The lowest priced hub is the HomeTroller Zee S2. It runs on a Raspberry Pi3 and allows for the use of five plugins, or drivers (Linux based.). technologies it supports includes Z-Wave, Insteon, X10, UPB, PLC-BUS and Modbus. Specifically it support all brands of Z-Wave lighting, Philips Hue and LiFX, Thermostats including all Z-Wave,  Ecobee, Nest and HAI Omnistat, all brands of Z-Wave door locks, Audio solutions from Sonos, Russound, Denon,  Onkyo , Security systems from DSC, Ademco Vista and Elk M1G, Media from iTunes, Windows Media Player, DirectTV, Kodi, Pool/Spa devices from Goldline, Pentair and Autelis. It has 4 USB ports, Ethernet, wifi, a line out Audio port and HDMI. It runs for $199.

All their controllers offer Alexa and IFTTT support

The HomeTroller-SEL and SEL-PRO range from $399-$699. They are built on Linux and support all Linux plugins including all of those listed above. They offer 2 and 4 times the amount of memory and a 32GB SSD instead of the 8GB SD card that comes with the Zee S2. They also have VGA in addition to the HDMI port.

The two top of the line models that HomeSeer offers are the HomeTroller S6 for $899 and the S6 PRO for $1199. Both of these are Windows embedded systems and in addition to the plugins and controllers listed above also add the ability to control items from Lutron Caseta, Lutron Radio RA2, Marantz, Pioneer, GE Concord 4. They have a mic in (for voice recognition) and line out and instead of a VGA port it includes a DVI port in addition to the HDMI that all of them offer.

A more complete listing of plugins and technologies Homeseer supports can be found here.

Aside from the different technologies available HomeSeer has a very robust events system as well as scripting. Some of my events include:

  • if the temp (from my weather station) is less than 46 degrees, turn on the heat lamp in the chicken house
  • if the wattage from my washing machine is above 2.5 watts and drops below that it sends us a message and flashes some lights letting us know the cycle is complete. It also tells me via the speaker client running on the PC in my bedroom and in the living room. Once Amazon allows for push notifications that’ll be one of the first things I add to Alexa here.
  • If I tell Alexa to turn on FireTV it runs on the television, changes the HDMI input to the correct one (in my bedroom.) If the TV in the living room turns on, the JVC receiver also turns on (or off)
  • If there is motion in my yard and it’s after sunset the outside lights come one and then turn off five minutes after no more motion is detected. Which ones come on depend on where the motion was. When I open the door in the morning my foyer light, porch light and driveway lights all turn on for 15 minutes.
  • My air conditioner is old and sometimes will kick the breaker during the summer in high usage. If the temperature goes above a certain setting it sends all of us and email and text so we can reset it.
  • If the doorbell is run and we are at home, lights flash and the speaker client lets us know someone is there. If we aren’t at home it just kicks on a few lights and sends us a text.
  • Overall I have a couple hundred scripts running. Most are pretty simple but some are fairly involved.

One thing I almost failed to mention is the mobile interface. Homeseer does have their HSTouch plugin, included in Pro versions and available for purchase as an addon as well. There are clients for iOS, Android and Windows. There are a lot of people that swear by it. My own experience with HSTouch is less than stellar. I found it buggy, unresponsive and a pain in the ass to use. The designer is also difficult to use and non-intuitive. It all seems like beta software that was never finished and anything you say to the developers falls on deaf ears. I keep hoping that they will eventually move to an HTML5 model and update their mobile apps to be on par with other hubs. Until then I’ll keep using Wink or one of the several 3rd party solutions. That having been said, HS is still the strongest HA software packages I’ve used and mobile access aside it’s still the best.

These are not the only hubs available but they seem to be the most popular. Do you have one that isn’t listed that you prefer? Let me know.

 

 

Ten Things You Can Do With HomeSeer Home Automation

rmiles7721March 11, 2017Home Automation

I’ve been a pretty loyal HomeSeer user for the last 17 years or so, ever since I got into Home Automation. While there are plenty of pros and cons about it, mainly because it’s paid and everyone wants free beer, that’s not what this is about. I’ll touch on that later. One of the things I like about it so much isn’t even part of the software itself. It’s the user forums. The HomeSeer forums are for user to user support (the devs are also somewhat active there as well and monitor it) and it is one of the oldest home automation forums currently online. Over the years the support from the company has been hit and miss for me but I can almost always find the answers to what I need in the forums.

Anyway, here are a few things you can do with HomeSeer.

  1. Voice Control – While there is a skill for Alexa (which I use extensively now and love it) Homeseer has this baked in and I’ve been using it for a long time. No need to worry if the CIA is listening in because it’s all local. I have found (at least with the hardware that I currently have) that if you have a decent microphone array the voice recognition works very well. It’s only so-so with regular PC microphones.  Using plugins and scripts you can have it function as your own Jarvis with custom responses.
  2. IFTTT support – Even though I prefer to make sure that everything important is 100% local control I like being able to tie IFTTT in with my system. Like Alexa, it adds a lot of value to my system. I also use a few Hue lights and Wemo devices (my coffee maker has Wemo built in) and even though it’s easy to add them in to my Alexa I also like to have my home automation system keep track of an control things. TV show ready to download? Turn my desk lamp red and sends me a text (this can be done without IFTTT actually but that’s what I am using it for.) Last person leaves the house (tracked with the life360 app)…turn down the heat and make sure the doors are locked. I have started using the MQTT protocol as well and am in the process of removing IFTTT from stuff like this.
  3. Cameras! – I am a nut about this and have been since my oldest daughter hit her teenage years. Currently I have about ten or eleven feeds going and a couple more cameras installed. With security cameras you have several choices. Spend a ton of money on a system with compatible cameras or be like me…get whatever is on sale on eBay. Homeseer, using the HSTouch plugin has support for Foscam right out of the box but I chose a more complicated solution. I have seven hardwired cameras all connected to an old Samsung DVR. It’s a Walmart piece of crap basically, at least the software is. I also have two Foscams and a couple of webcams up and running. Everything is password protected. The thing about each of them is that they all have a feed. Rather than using a separate app on my phone to view them I use the Blue Iris software to pull all the feeds into one central place. I can view them all via web browser, the desktop software or the Android app. There is also a Blue Iris plugin for Homeseer. It allows me to have the cameras double as motion detectors to switch on lights, send me notifications, etc. I can also use my actual motion detectors and door/window sensors to tell Blue Iris to start/stop recording, send notifications to my phone and more.
  4. Media control – I am currently using HomeSeer and several Globalcache IR controllers to operate my televisions and dumb audio receivers. Yeah, just as easy to use a remote but I can tell HomeSeer (or, more often than not) to “turn on FireTV” and it switches on my television and change the HDMI input to FireTV, If I say “turn on movie time it does the same but dims my lights and turns on the LED strip backlighting that’s behind the TV
  5. Tell us if someone is at the door – I really like the idea of the Ring video doorbell and things of that ilk and while I will probably pony up the cash eventually to get one I am currently using a combination of Blue Iris and a camera and motion detectors to achieve the same results. I haven’t really been interested in adding it in but I also have a Chromecast hooked to a set of speakers on the front porch so the wife can listen to music out there and I could add in a message for visitors if I really wanted to. “Get off my fucking lawn!” I also have a Z-wave device hooked to the doorbell so that when someone rings it several lights flash and Homeseer hollers “someone is ringing the doorbell”. I think everyone in my house is deaf so this has come in handy with the pizza delivery and UPS several times.
  6. Control the thermostat – I looked at Ecobee and Nest when my thermostat finally crapped out last year and ended up opting for a Honeywell Z-Wave thermostat. Not only is it cheaper but being Z-Wave I am able to control it with Homeseer. It offers me the ability to control with Alexa but I also set the schedules from my HA system. Not only that but if someone has left a window open it will turn off the air (or heat) and tell everyone that a window is open, please shut all the windows and try again. I control the temp based on the time of year, time of day, occupancy in the house as well as the local temperature. Yes, you can use IFTTT and Nest (for instance) to do the same thing, but I prefer to be able to use the local temperature from the weather station on my back deck rather than the temp from a general area. It never matches the temp at my house anyway. Internet down? Some asshat hit the wrong key over at Amazon? Doesn’t matter. Thermostats are system critical and should never be trusted to the cloud.
  7. Tell me when the laundry is finished – This is a big win. My washing machine is plugged into a Z-Wave appliance module that monitors the energy usage so I know when it’s finished running and a couple of computers tell us when it’s complete and a couple of lights flash. I am looking forward to Amazon adding in the ability to push notifications as this will be one of the first things I add to it. I don’t currently have my dryer hooked up but it’s on the list.
  8. Monitoring of STUFF! – Just about anything can be monitored using plugins or scripts and events. Power usage, Internet usage, lights, doors, windows, RSS feeds, web sites, occupancy, the list is endless. I use a combination of text messages and emails to notify me of different stuff around the house.
  9. Actually turn stuff OFF – Most modern appliances such as televisions, receivers, computer gear never really turn off. Even when you turn them off they still continue to draw a minuscule amount of power. If you really want to be green just add an appliance module and have them completely cut off. The cents start to add up over a period of time.
  10. Control TV/Internet usage. Back when my son was in high school and still living with us everything on my network was hard wired (no wifi.) He tended to stay up late playing Soldier of Fortune and probably surfing porn sites. I had his network connection run through a switch and Homeseer automatically cut him off when the timer ran out. The same thing could be applied to televisions. Plug it into an appliance module and set a certain number of minutes per day usage. Overrides can also be added in so that you don’t get inadvertently cut off in the middle of binging on the Walking Dead.

There are a lot of other things NOT on this list and some pretty amazing things I’ve seen/heard people do. Control of holiday lighting (damn, I still need to get those icicles off my front porch), starting your vehicle, intercoms, weather reports and news, automatic animal feeding, etc. You also get what you pay for. I’ve seen quite a few different home automation systems and hubs come and go over the years, particularly in the last five to ten, but Homeseer is still here for me. Staples Connect? Dead and discontinued. Revolv? Nest purchased them and shut it down. If you were customers that purchased either of these in the last couple of years you are shit out of luck. Homeseer was originally designed to work on Windows but now it also runs on Linux and the Raspberry Pi.

Alexa Can Now Control Wink-Compatible Smart Locks

rmiles7721February 28, 2017Home Automation

Recently Amazon has added smart lock capability to it’s Alexa smart home API. I’ve been patiently waiting for the fine folks at Homeseer to update their skill so that I can start doing the same without having to say “Alexa, tell Homeseer to lock the front door” etc….

Anyway, Wink has beaten them to the punch and you can now control or check the status of smart locks from Schlage, Kwikset and Yale.

In the past I’ve written about my Wink hub and how much I hated it because it was unreliable, would lose it’s Internet connection and several other problems. About five weeks ago I did a full factory reset on it and moved it to a new position in the house. Since then it’s been rock-solid. I run my Z-wave network (including door locks) from my Homeseer controller so unfortunately it’ll be a while before I have that capability unfortunately. I am considering using Wink as a secondary controller but there are issues with that such as Alexa duplicating devices so I’m putting it off for a while.

Anyway, if you have a Wink hub and want to connect your locks to Alexa go check out the article over on the Wink blog for directions.

IFTTT Integration Coming to Apps (Already Live in Some)

rmiles7721August 11, 2016Home Automation

IFTTT has been working with developers over the last few months to directly add integration into apps so that you can unlock and potentially activate recipes from the apps rather than the web site or the IFTTT app itself.

Integrations with Abode, Awair, BloomSky, Foobot,Garageio, LIFX, Qapital, Roger, Skybell, and Stack Lighting are live today and Automatic, Emberlight, and Ring Video Doorbell are in development so should be live soon. Currently the only one I use is Automatic so that will be nice. All of the other home automation apps listed above pretty much require cloud support (as does Automatic) in order to link it up to your home automation system and while it’s a nice add-on, being dependent on something in the cloud to automate your home is a really bad idea IMHO.

Occupancy and Presence

rmiles7721July 1, 2016Home Automation

One of my projects within my smart home is to be able to monitor home occupancy as well as specific room presence. While the two are similar they end up being very different things. Occupancy is pretty basic. For the house itself I currently have three modes. Home, Out and Away. Away means we are on vacation or won’t be back for some time. Occupancy can be triggered by presence in the house, geofencing on our phones, pir sensors in and around the house and network mac addresses detected.

Presence detection is a bit more involved. I am currently using pir sensors as well as activity on certain devices. For instance, if Eventghost detects keyboard use on my PC in the master bedroom it’s a 75% that the Master Bedroom is occupied. I say 75% because I access it remotely on occasion. That’s where the pir in my bedroom comes in, as well as a relatively inexpensive iBeacon I recently purchased to start playing around with. There are IOS and Android applications for detecting iBeacons so with my phone, if it’s in range of the iBeacon, Tasker will send a message to Homeseer that I’m in the bedroom. So if the PIR detects activity in the bedroom AND my PC is in use someone is in the bedroom. If both of the above are true AND my phone has sent a message to Homeseer then it’s a 99% probability that I am there. I also have an Automatic in my car and use it with IFTTT so plan on adding that in the mix as well, increasing that probability.

The reason I have been starting to dabble with occupancy and presence is because I have been slowly adding a couple of different profiles in my home automation. If nobody is home (i.e. we are on vacation) I want certain things to happen. Lights randomly coming on, the temp set a little bit higher, TVs and stereos off, etc. If we are at home then I want a different set of events going on. Lights on at night when there is motion, etc.

This is really an ongoing process but it’s slowly but surely getting done.

Earlier this evening I cam across Dream Green House. There are a lot of really good ideas there for anyone interested in Home Automation, some of which I have been using for years and some of which allow me to clarify a few of the projects I am wanting to work on.

Speaking of projects, here is a current list of things I am in varying stages of:

Replace the LCD and Digitizer on my Nexus 6 that I use on Project Fi. My screen cracked recently and then there was a cat “accident” lol while I was replacing the LCD and the digitizer was ruined. I have a new one arriving Tuesday.

Finish Projector Screen Frame (provided tommorow is not a very long day at work it’ll be finished before tomorrow evening)
Mount Echo on ceiling (I picked up a custom ceiling/wall mount on Etsy a while back and it’s just waiting for me to hang it. While the Amazon Echo has pretty awesome mics mounting it from the ceiling will allow it to pick up even better. I already have all the tools and hardware, just need to get it done)
Set up events to switch basement speakers. Currently I have a two-zone receiver in my basement hooked up to speakers in the basement as well as my back porch. I also have a Global Cache IP2IR down there to control it. Just need to set up a couple of HomeSeer events that will allow me to change zones if someone wants to, for instance, play music through the Chromecast (hooked to one of the inputs on the receiver) through the back porch speakers. I have everything I need for this, just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Finish occupancy for all phones – mqtt, owntracks, etc. This is more time consuming and intensive because it means multiple events, virtual devices, etc. I will be completing it one person at a time so this one will take some time.
Setup Mystic on RPi 2 or 3 move to basement. Currently the Bulletin Board System I am using is Synchronet. I have it running on a Windows laptop stuck inside a TV cabinet in my bedroom. It’s slowly dying. I plan on using a Raspberry Pi 3 and put it in my basement. I currently have everything I need for that (except time).
Setup (may need new one) Emulator on rpi. I picked up a bunch of different parts for this over a period of time and plan on scrapping the inside of an old OG Xbox and mounting everything in there. I was going to use my RPI 2 for that but ended up using it for an instance of Alexa so the only thing I’m lacking is picking up yet another RPi.
Magic mirror for bathroom. Another soon to happen project that I have most of the parts for. I was originally going to use a Nexus 7 for this (and still may). I have everything I need for this although lately I’ve been toying with the idea of using yet another RPi and the LCD from the laptop that my BBS is currently using.
Fix living room lighting. When they built my house the electricians did a SHIT job. The wires are not obviously standard or marked, making it difficult to find the neutral or traveler. I installed a Zwave threeway in my living room and while I can control the overheads from the MAIN switch (or remotely), the remote switch doesn’t work and I have no idea why. I had to step away from this for a while because I was getting so frustrated. I picked up a wiring book/tutorial thing a while back and I’m going to read it a couple of times prior to tackling this again).
install other z-wave switches. I have three or four Z-wave wall switches that I haven’t installed, including another threeway for the stairs off the foyer. Need to get these mounted.
set up temp controller, redo wiring around house. Several years ago I used a 1-wire network of Dallas/Maxim temp and humidity sensors in every room in my house. The controller (a Midon Design Temp05) died on me about eight years ago and I never replaced it. Most (but not all) of my wiring and sensors are still in place and I picked up a used Temp08 a couple months ago. Going to hook that back up.
Look into hooking up cell phone to Homeseer. I want to be able to use HS to send/receive text messages and phone calls on a GSM phone. Currently I am using email to SMS but if for some reason my Internet connection is down that’s useless. It also is slow at times.
Look into setting up cell phone for BBS. I want to hook up a GSM phone to allow connections to the BBS as well. Currently it’s Telnet or HTML but it would be nice (and nostalgic) to allow dial-up connections again.

Fix my daughter’s RPi Amazon Alexa. I set up Alexa on a Raspberry Pi 2 a few months ago but was not very happy with the end result. Need to redo the entire setup. While this is at the bottom of this specific list it’s actually much higher on my todo list.

Fix Apple Homekit integration. I currently have a homekit bridge running on my HA server but for some reason it’s not working right. I am not all that knowledgable about anything to do with iPhones or iPads so this is a bit of a learning curve. In addition to wanting my oldest daughter to be able to control the lights using Siri, we have an old iPad first generation that I have loaded a touch screen interface on and need to mount in the kitchen. My current plan is to jailbreak it and add Siri to this as well.

Aeon Labs Aeotec Zwave LED Light Bulb

rmiles7721June 13, 2016Home Automation

Recently I picked up an Aeon Labs Aeotec Z-Wave LED Light Bulb, Gen5 on sale from Amazon just to check out and compare to my Hue bulbs. I like Zwave as it’s generally easier to control from my HS system and I don’t have to kludge it or control from a 3rd party plugin or through IFTTT which means it’s going to be quicker to respond.

The included directions tell you how to pair it to your controller (and remove if you need to) and that’s pretty much it. There’s a lot of stuff that’s not particularly understandable to any normal human being and once I started nodding off I had to stop reading. Anyway, I paired it with HomeSeer pretty quickly and immediately set out to try and control it. All I could get it to do was turn off and on like any other regular light bulb or smart switch. Rather than being smart and looking around the HomeSeer forums I got pissed off and set up a return to Amazon and then ordered two more from the HomeSeer store. As always, their shipping was pretty quick and so I paired to two new ones (I still had #3 sitting on my desk) and got the same results. At that point I figured out I had to be doing something wrong and started researching.

What they don’t tell you… in the box… or on Amazon… or at the HomeSeer store…  is that you have to set warm and cold white OFF in order to be able to change colors. Oh, that’s obvious. Not. Anyway, now that I know that it’s pretty easy but there should be a “dummies Guide to…” or something for the normal dumbasses like myself.

Here's how the lamp shows up on my HomeSeer devices management page. Notice the white's are turned off.
Here’s how the lamp shows up on my HomeSeer devices management page. Notice the whites are turned off.

The light bulbs themselves are comparable to Hue and using Homeseer events I can control them through my Amazon Echo’s in the house.  They, and the Hue bulbs for that matter, can be controlled by telling Alexa to “turn on the…” but unfortunately you can’t change colors that way. Hue of course has their own app and you can use the color wheel. You can control the Hue bulbs as well as these with an RGB picker on the devices page as well. That’s fine for a geek but what about the wife and kids? For that I had to set up a series of events. One for each color. Then I use an IFTTT trigger so all they have to do is say “Alexa, trigger living room blue” or whatever. The downside of that is that I have to manually set up an event for each color I think they might want. Meh. It’s cool but nothing we could live without.

Here’s what one of them looks like…

IMG_20160613_174844

The lighting is nice. They give off enough brightness to see but not so much glare that it interrupts while watching a movie.

There is really only one thing I truly dislike about the bulbs and it makes it almost impossible to use in most of my lamps. It’s the damned size. These things are fucking HUGE.

IMG_20160613_173647

On the left is a standard old light bulb like you would purchase anywhere. On the right is the Aeon Labs bulb. It’s a good inch and a half taller. Length definitely isn’t everything, at least in this case. It just so happens that my two living room lamps have tall thingamajigs that hold my lamp shades on so it worked out perfectly. I don’t have a single other lamp in the house that the third one will fit in. I thought about putting it in my bathroom over the tub and the glass cover wouldn’t fit. Rather than replace lamps in the house I’ll be buying Hue bulbs next time even though I have to work a little harder to include them in my Home Automation network.

DreamScreen TV

rmiles7721June 13, 2016Home Automation

Browsing around Reddit this afternoon I ran across a relatively new product that looks to be pretty neat. It’s called DreamScreen. Basically it’s a series of LEDs that you stick on the back of your TV like you would with a Hue strip. The main difference is that with DreamScreen they include an HDMI splitter. You hook the DreamScreen HDMI controller into it along with your video source (Fire TV, Chromecast, an HDMI cable from your AV receiver, whatever you want) and then run that to your TV. The DreamScreen controller has Bluetooth so you can pair your phone (android or ios) to it and manually control the lights as well as to set it to audio or video mode. It looks like the developers are also working on allowing you to control your Hue lights when it’s in Ambient mode as well.

Since you are running both your source and controller through the splitter, it reacts to the digital content that goes through and judging from the video (and a couple of unboxing videos on Youtube) it reacts fairly quick to changes in lighting on the TV. Here’s a promo video from their web site.

This was a Kickstarter that is over now but you can pre order the LEDs and controller from their web site, linked at the bottom of the post. It’s not terribly expensive, starting at $139 for enough to fit a 32-42″ TV and there are two larger sizes as well. You can also just order replacement or extra LEDs as well. They start at $50 which is comparable to RGB LEDs that you might pick up at Home Depot or Amazon. Yeah, you can get the Milights that are much cheaper but they aren’t specifically made for your TV.

Hoping I can pick up a set after payday, although it might wait a while. Have a roof to replace 🙁 but that’s another story for another day.

Anyway, once I’m finished posting this I’m going to shoot them an email or tweet as I have some questions. It would be nice if there was an api that I could access so as to control them from Homeseer or through MQTT and then back to HS. I haven’t thoroughly looked around their site yet so there very well may be one. At the very least I could always power the LEDs with a Zwave plug for on/off control. I’ll update the post with whatever info that they send me.

DreamScreen

 

 

Wink Hub Updates

rmiles7721June 10, 2016Home Automation

I think I may have posted elsewhere that I have a Wink Connected Home Hub. Apparently they are currently beta testing a Vacation mode subscription that’s going to cost $9.99 a month. What the holy hell?

If the Wink hub weren’t only using half it’s sensors, that only work half the time, on a hub that’s only online half the time….I could see paying $9.99 for a year of service. I pay $30.00 a year or so for the premium myhomeseer service. I don’t really need dynamic dns as I have a subdomain already mapped here but it’s nice with the HStouch android client and I can also set up multiple accounts for everyone’s IFTTT accounts in the house.

The “vacation lights” that Wink is supposedly rolling out? Already part of HomeSeer through events with NO INTERNET CONNECTION needed.

If you are a big Wink user I can see where it might be useful though. Let me know if this is something you might use.

GoControl Security Essentials – Updated

rmiles7721June 1, 2016Home Automation

So Home Depot has been carrying GoControl Z-Wave “security” kits for a while now. They are compatible with Wink which is why I guess they decided to carry these products as Home Depot sadly decided to back Wink in their Home Automation stuff. I have exactly ONE product linked to my Wink hub only because that’s the ONLY way to control it. Anyway, that’s for a different post and not relevant to this.

Unfortunately the GoControl stuff has been hit and miss for me so far. It’s no wonder some of the Home Depot stores are selling it for half price. I’ve been dealing with this for a couple of months now and trying to get at least a response from their customer service. Hell, any response at all would be nice. I emailed them the first time  on May 18th. No response. Then I tweeted to @NortekControl over on Twitter (Nortek is their parent company) last week. No response. Finally I made a slightly nasty tweet a couple of days ago. Once I went into asshole mode they finally responded with:

“ Hello Richard, please contact customer service directly via this link for email or live chat support: “

At least I’m not being ignore now. That pisses me off more than anything. Bad service happens. Sometimes things are defective. Not a big deal. You fix it and move on but as a company that sells products or provides a service what you don’t do is ignore your fucking customers.

So on to today. I’ve sent them this email using the addresses provided on the support page:

I have attempted to get support for this issue from the GoControl web site and thus far been unsuccesful. Your corporate Twitter account sent me the link to your support page.

Over the past couple months I have purchased one GoControl Z-Wave Home Security Suite – Premium and eight GoControl Z-Wave Home Security Suite – Essential. That’s a total of one Alarm, nine motion sensors and 19 door/window sensors. The alarm and motion sensors are all working well, however, the door/window sensors not so well. Out of the box only ten of the door/window sensors work. That’s almost a 50% fail rate.

The sensors were all bought at Home Depot (two different local locations to me) on fix or six trips. Unfortunately all but a couple of them have been discarded and originally I just chalked it to to buying cheap shit and figuring at least with the motion sensors I still got my money’s worth. After the last purchase I decided to contact GoControl customer service on May 18th and ask for a replacement or refund. At the time I also didn’t realize just how many of these I had purchased. I told them it was seven when in fact it was nine. That request has been ignored and as a matter of fact nobody has even bothered to answer my email at all. It took TWO different messages to @NortekControl on twitter just to get someone to respond to me there and now I’m pissed. This level of customer service is unacceptable and I’ll be sure to buy Aotec for the rest of my doors/windows around the house.
I would like replacements for all nine of the non-functioning door/window sensors as soon as possible.  Please contact me for a mailing address.
Guess we’ll see if I get a response. Even a poor response is better than none at all.
6/9/16 – So I did as @NortekControl (the parent company of GoControl) suggested and contacted their customer service. Three frigging times now. Still no response. While their stuff may be a great deal, almost a steal, I’ll pay extra next time. Buying something cheap that doesn’t work isn’t any kind of a deal. Thanks for nothing.
6/10/16 – I contacted @NortekControl once again last night to make sure they knew how disappointed I was and this time they put me in contact with someone in their tech support department. Apparently for anything z-wave related you are supposed to call rather than email. wtf? Anyway, they are sending me the nine replacements and I have the phone number if there is any other problem. Still doesn’t explain why all of my emails were ignored for over 20 days but they were very pleasant to speak to on the phone and prompt in getting me taken care of. Should these all work, or if they don’t and I’m able to get support, I may rethink my opinion. Should be getting the replacements shipped out toward the end of next week and I’ll update this post at that point.
7/2/16 – STILL waiting for the hardware to be shipped. I emailed them about a week ago (June 22nd) and was told that the person that was going to test them had been out of town and they would check. Haven’t heard a word since I emailed them that last time ten days ago. I’m shocked.