Progress with Home Assistant
For the past eight months I’m been implementing Home Assistant (https://www.home-assistant.io/) and smart devices (applicances, switches, plugs) in my home.
Home Assistant is basically a control and monitoring device for smart homes full of devices and sensors but it’s so much more than that.
Home Assistant – Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts.
With Home Assistant have a you can create custom smart dashboards all of your computers, tablets and smart phones. These dashboards can be as simple or as complex as you want.
From an Home Assistant dashboard you can:
- Turn lights on or off
- Display or check the status of sensors such as temperature and humdity
- Control smart thermostats for heat or air conditioning
- See who is home and customize settings for individuals
- Check on solar panel production and battery storage
- Play and control media such as music
- Run “scenes” and “automations”
- Display camera feeds
Home Assistant requires a server. This is a device such as an old computer, laptop or Arduino device running the Home Assistant server software. This is what collects all of the status and sensor information and sends out the commands to your smart devices.
When you tap a button on a dashboard, the server receives the information, processes and then tells the smart devices what to do. The server also supplies the various devices such as a tablet with the required information to display. The server is basically doing all of the processing work in the background where as the client on your phone, tablet or computer is displaying the result.
I use a Home Assistant Green as my server. It’s a small device that you connect to your network with an ethernet cable. Home Assistant Green is about $120 and it’s all you need to start playing around with Home Assistant (https://www.home-assistant.io/)
It’s probably easier if I explain what I’ve been using Home Assistant for in my home. Basically, I am looking to control some smart plugs, monitor things like temperature and easily control my whole house music.
Since we are trying to maximize our solar investment I’m also looking to shut down wasteful vampire electricity users such TVs and cable boxes running when you think they are off and shutting as much stuff down as possible during a power outage to maximize our back up battery (Telsa Powerwall II).
Here are some of the dashboards I created.
Main Dashboard
Left
- Climate outside
- Climate inside
- Weather map showing current weather
- Forcast for the next few hours
- Status of upstairs smart plugs
Center
- Radio short cuts – one click to start a streaming radio station
- Media control for the Wiim music streamer connected to the whole house amp
- Scenes – Home Theater and Pinball
- Status of home theater devices – streaming box and AVR
- Status of various smart plugs on the lower level
Right
- Solar production – current and day
- Powerwall status – backup reserve, battery remaining, grid status and power
- Heat pump hot water tank status – available hot water, mode and power usage
- Video doorbell feed
- Door bell siren
- Outside and utility room smart plugs
Media Room Dashboard
The lower level media room has the most smart devices in the house. I want to be able to control what devices are power, make it simple to set the scene for a particular activity and shut off any noisy devices when watching a movie.
Here is what my dashboard for the media room does.
- “Pinball Scene” button – This turns on three banks of pinball machines, turns on a backlit pinball backglass.
- “Home Theater Scene” button – This turns on all of the home theater equipment – TV, streaming box, LED lights, turns on the subwoofer, AVR (audio video receiver), turns off the dehumidifier and any fans, and lights up the stairs light.
- Doorbell Camera – displays a live feed from my PoE Reolink doorbell camera.
Weather Dashboard
The weather dashboard keeps track of weather including:
- Embedded Weather Map
- Embedded Outage Map
- Forecast
- Current outside temperature
Energy Dashboard
The energy dashboard displays electricity usage and solar production.
Note currently working since the last Home Assistant update.