Home Automation

[psinide]

Any home automation enthusiasts among us? I am currently using a ras-pi 3 as an integrator and have a bunch of things automated in the house with routines to switch on lights gradually around sunset (only if we are home), changing the LED strip on my entertainment center based on the input on the TV (blue with the PS5 is switched on, green when the XSX, red for Netflix etc), all LEDs strips to react to music when we a house party and a few more which have attracted interests amongst my friends.

 

I might get into doing this commercially on a small scale and would love to know any use cases that our community has for implementation home automations/routines etc. Would also love to help any budding enthusiasts who want to wet their feet!

[BRHeadHunter]

IVG could use a home automation thread. It will be helpful

 

I know a guy whose friend has so many things in his house with Alexa Integration ranging from ACs to even fans. I'm eager what product will get Alexa integration next? Maybe fleshlights

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Keyofx]

Excellent thread! I'm kinda locked into the Wipro ecosystem - multiple smart LED battens, smart switches, and smart bulbs - all controlled, scheduled, and routine-ized over mobile, nest hubs, and echo shows.  Unfortunately, I don't think Wipro does smart LED strips. Which ones are you using?

 

 

[Jigsaw]

10 hours ago, Cryptic_8 said:

IVG could use a home automation thread. It will be helpful

I know a guy who has a friend. The friend has so many things in his house with Alexa Integration ranging from ACs to even fans. I'm eager what will get Alexa next? Maybe fleshlights

 

I use Alexa all around for timed and on demand  lighting.

 

Yelling "Alexa Geyser chalu kar" never gets old. 

[Jigsaw]

13 minutes ago, HundredProofSam said:

Unfortunately I’m quite invested in the Philips Hue ecosystem. Unfortunate because it’s really expensive and there are now many other solutions that cost less and don’t require a hub. That said the quality and integration for lighting is probably the best you can get. It’s also well integrated with Alexa.

 

I have the Hue lightstrip above my TV, the Hue Go which is a portable soft throw light, the Hue Switch and numerous bulbs around the house.

 

I don’t have any need for scheduling so I haven’t used any of those features.

 

I’m very happy with the quality and performance but it pinches that each bulb costs 2.5-3k.

 

Are the philips smart bulbs smart enought to not require a repairing (say if you accidently power off the button)? My stupid maid does that ever so often and with the Wipro bulbs it's a long and stressful game of trial and error to get it to pair all over again with Alexa.

 

 

[psinide]

I have fans, ACs and a few other 'dumb' devices which I've converted to smart using ESP8266 chips. For me, automation should go beyond just devices being controlled by mobile or voice. Routines are the first step, as they are static, but don't need any intervention from us. Going further, I am building automations that react to events in the house and control devices in the home, like:

• Switching on the lights after sunset if we are home (sunset detection + presence detection + light control) - and since I'm tracking the sun, this automation works well for summers and winters
• If the wife & I are watching Netflix/Prime/Hotstar after sundown, the living room lights will dim. Any time the TV is paused, the lights would brighten again - this automation only triggered if both of us were in the living room. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get it to work since I got the LG C9, as I'm still finding a way to detect the play/pause state of the TV.
• Next automation - detect the morning alarms and switch on the geyser 15-20 mins before the alarm rings

9 hours ago, Keyofx said:

Excellent thread! I'm kinda locked into the Wipro ecosystem - multiple smart LED battens, smart switches, and smart bulbs - all controlled, scheduled, and routine-ized over mobile, nest hubs, and echo shows.  Unfortunately, I don't think Wipro does smart LED strips. Which ones are you using?

 

 

I've built my own smart LED strips using ESP8266 chips & WS2812B individually addressable LED strips. Its surprisingly easy, with plenty of videos on YT. And if you need any help, feel free to DM me, I'll be glad to help out 

[psinide]

1 minute ago, Jigsaw said:

 

Are the philips smart bulbs smart enought to not require a repairing (say if you accidently power off the button)? My stupid maid does that ever so often and with the Wipro bulbs it's a long and stressful game of trial and error to get it to pair all over again with Alexa.

 

 

We also have our maid who does that, I had actually taped over switches because it messed up my automation. 

 

Hue bulbs are great and don't 'unpair' after you hard switch them off or from a power cut. You can also program them to maintain their last state - before power cut if they were on, light aane ke baad they come on etc.

[Jigsaw]

Just now, psinide said:

We also have our maid who does that, I had actually taped over switches because it messed up my automation. 

 

Hue bulbs are great and don't 'unpair' after you hard switch them off or from a power cut. You can also program them to maintain their last state - before power cut if they were on, light aane ke baad they come on etc.

 

Damn i'll happily take them then. Which ones? Don't mind the cost. Am just fed up of this erratic and unintuitive pairing process where they just refuse to detect wifi 

[psinide]

19 minutes ago, HundredProofSam said:

This is pretty amazing.

Have you managed to get lights synced to video? Hue offers this for PC gaming. Philips Ambilight TVs did it back in the day as well. I was hoping Hue integration for PS and Xbox would come, but it never did.

I don't have biased lighting like ambilight, its just one LED strip I've stuck behind my entertainment unit which changes its colour based on the input selected. So when I switch on the PS5, it will light up blue at 100% brightness and in 20 seconds, it goes to 20% brightness. With the XSX, it does the some but lights up in green, red with Netflix etc.

 

Custom biased lighting for non-Philips TVs is available, but it works via HDMI, so app like Netflix won't work. There could be new options avaiable, haven't looked into it in a while

Edited February 11, 2021 by psinide

[Jigsaw]

4 minutes ago, HundredProofSam said:

There’s a starter pack that includes the hub and 2-3 bulbs. That’s about 10-12k IIRC. Start with that.

Also keep in mind that the Hub connects to your router via LAN, not wirelessly.

 

Hub? I thought it connects to the smart hub for Alexa. I have an Echo Studio which has one.

[psinide]

9 minutes ago, Jigsaw said:

 

Damn i'll happily take them then. Which ones? Don't mind the cost. Am just fed up of this erratic and unintuitive pairing process where they just refuse to detect wifi 

I have 3 Hue Bulbs & 2 Yeelight (Xiaomi Mi Lights) bulbs, neither of them disconnect with power or maid related failures. Mi Lights are of a lower brightness rating but considerably cheaper and don't need a hub. 

[psinide]

3 minutes ago, Jigsaw said:

 

Hub? I thought it connects to the smart hub for Alexa. I have an Echo Studio which has one.

You are correct, you don't need the Hue Hub with the Echo Studio. It has an in-built Zigbee bridge

[Jigsaw]

Just now, psinide said:

You are correct, you don't need the Hue Hub with the Echo Studio. It has an in-built Zigbee bridge

 

Hell yes... my brain doesn't work well during day time... yes zigbee is what i was referring to. No hub, hardwiring business pukka na?

[Jigsaw]

Just now, HundredProofSam said:

Yeah my bad. With Echo Studio you won’t need the hub. I have the standard Echo. Had Hue long before that.

[Jigsaw]

@psinide

 

My holy grail will be voice controlled windows when i need to light up. Any idea how to get going on that? 

[psinide]

6 minutes ago, Jigsaw said:

@psinide

 

My holy grail will be voice controlled windows when i need to light up. Any idea how to get going on that? 

I'll be working on curtains soon. There are IKEA & Xiaomi and some other Chinese makes which are available which work with different types of curtains. I've been meaning to prototyping something with stepper motors, same principle should work with sliding windows, but with stronger motors (and the windows are not latched)

 

I'm currently 3D printing some prototypes for a LED strip standing corner lamp. Will get onto this next, but it is a bit exhaustive, and if I manage to get something off Aliexpress for curtains, I won't reinvent the wheel.

Edited February 11, 2021 by psinide

[Jigsaw]

1 minute ago, psinide said:

I'll be working on curtains soon. There are IKEA & Xiaomi and some other Chinese makes which are available which work with different types of curtains. I've been meaning to prototyping something with stepper motors, same principle should work with sliding windows, but with stronger motors (and the windows are not latched)

 

I'm currently 3D printing some prototypes for a LED strip standing corner lamp. Will get onto this next, but it is a bit exhaustive, and if I manage to get something off Aliexpress for curtains, I won't reinvent the wheel.

 

 Awesome. Keep us posted how that works out. 

 

Just remember, like all gynecologist's say, Pics or it didn't happen!!

[psinide]

1 minute ago, Jigsaw said:

 

 Awesome. Keep us posted how that works out. 

 

Just remember, like all gynecologist's say, Pics or it didn't happen!!

 

I'l put up a few pics/vids of the corner lamps. The curtains are still a long way to go

[achilles]

@psinide how do you detect the play/pause state? With multiple devices, the app will need to be able to read that trigger to pass state command. 

 

Regarding the geyser, iOS shortcuts app has a trigger using your alarm, and even snooze. Better yet, get the solar water heater installed. 
For the curtains, I’m using a LIVIN motor which uses an RF remote. Working it using the BroadLink IRF blaster. IR blasters are great for compatibility but dumb. Can’t read the state of device. 
 

Another question: any way to control TATA SKY using a Bluetooth remote? 

Edited February 11, 2021 by achilles

[psinide]

12 minutes ago, achilles said:

@psinide how do you detect the play/pause state? With multiple devices, the app will need to be able to read that trigger to pass state command. 

 

Regarding the geyser, iOS shortcuts app has a trigger using your alarm, and even snooze. Better yet, get the solar water heater installed. 
For the curtains, I’m using a LIVIN motor which uses an RF remote. Working it using the BroadLink IRF blaster. IR blasters are great for compatibility but dumb. Can’t read the state of device. 
 

Another question: any way to control TATA SKY using a Bluetooth remote? 

I'm using the broadlink to control my AC, will check out the LIVIN motor.

 

I use a raspi running an integrator platform like node-red, openhab, hass etc. So all my devices are first added to the raspi, and then I chose what to expose to Alexa/Google. I'm an User, maybe I can use the Tasker app to do something similar with the geyser. 

 

For the play/pause state, I add the TV/chromecast/google home to my integrator platform as a media player. With Android TVs or chromecasts, their APIs expose the play/pause state, but webOS only has play/pause toggle. So I can still control it via voice/mobile or use similar toggle animations, but they will be dumb. With Android, I could actually use the state as triggers.

 

Not sure about TATA Sky, we are a purely streaming household for about 3 years now...