Let's Control It

Per haps this site is not the place, but on the other hand, a domotic server is kind of essential to get things done. Even with ESPEasy.
Domoticz on an RPI (two actually) is the basis of my domotic platform.
I use it with zwave, ESPEasy (i really hate the dummy devices in Domoticz), RFLink for coco (klik aan klik uit) and some weather sensors, Opentherm gateway and reading my PV converter. I works all pretty well, but I hate the dummy devices for ESPEasy.

So, I am looking for alternatives. OpenHAB is mentioned often, but the learning curve seems to be quite steep and it does not support RFLink nor OTGW.

What I would like to know is, what are the benefits of using openHAB?

BertB wrote:works all pretty well, but I hate the dummy devices for ESPEasy.

What do you don't like about the dummy devices?
Just curious, I mean, all works pretty well you say.

In Jeedom, we have autocreation of devices and sensors for espeasy. Just need to add the actions as required.
But there is not OTGW plugin actually

NietGiftig wrote:

BertB wrote:works all pretty well, but I hate the dummy devices for ESPEasy.

What do you don't like about the dummy devices?
Just curious, I mean, all works pretty well you say.

you are right, it works perfect as long as you stick to a limited number of pre defined types. Besides, for every device you are required to create a hardware device.
This does not mean that I am not satified with Domoticz. It works like a charm, but for me, but it would be nicer to have a ESPEasy plugin to get rid of all the dummies.

BertB wrote: you are right, it works perfect as long as you stick to a limited number of pre defined types. Besides, for every device you are required to create a hardware device.

Are you saying that you create a new Virtual hardware device with a individual idx for every new virtual sensor ?

I created only once a Virtual hardware device, it has idx 5, and every time I need to create a virtual sensor I click on the "create virtual sensor" link in the virtual hardware device. So the number of hardware does not change when I add virtual sensor devices.

Interesting ... I did not know that possibility.

costo wrote: I created only once a Virtual hardware device, it has idx 5, and every time I need to create a virtual sensor I click on the "create virtual sensor" link in the virtual hardware device. So the number of hardware does not change when I add virtual sensor devices.

That's also my experience.
I have one hardware device I call it ESPNetwork.
It has now a lot of "virtual devices"
Also have a "RFLink", "MQTT" hardwaredevice. (among others)
The virtual devices fits in the "master hardware", it's just a name.

https://home-assistant.io
https://blog.openenergymonitor.org/2016 ... Assistant/

Haven't tried it yet, but I hear it's cool!

node-red

and

node-red-gui

(cool flows=rules-engine, but the gui possibly more handwork than the before mentioned)

I also use nodered and nodered gui, on a RasPi as 'controller' to an ESPEasy only network.

But now want to extend this network, busy looking into RFLink for using 433MHz devices. In South Africa they sell a well priced locally built components for control of lights, with self-learning, called Qwik-Switch, which I hope could work with RFLink. Q1: Can RFLink work to mqtt only, (without a got instance OpenHab binding), cause then I can work it with nodered only?

Then I have a Paradox alarm, with 'IP150' interdace, users on OpenHab forum created a Python script with settings fil to authenticate and interact from mqtt to the alarm, I will use this to bring alarm into nodered as controller.

Thanks for this discussion, sitting with same decisions now, shall I make the dive and invest time to learn OpenHab?

Th one thing I like about OpenHab, is the other open source project with a binding to OpenHab, that allows you to integrate into iOS Siri and Apple Home Kit, called Home Bridge..., https://github.com/nfarina/homebridge

JR01 wrote:Th one thing I like about OpenHab, is the other open source project with a binding to OpenHab, that allows you to integrate into iOS Siri and Apple Home Kit, called Home Bridge..., https://github.com/nfarina/homebridge

I too would like to have some integration between Home Kit and some ESP devices to control them via Siri. MQTT might also be the protocol of choice to make it happen, and so far I have looked in that direction, although I have really only just started to scratch the surface of the issue.

Next big thing is to hook up the garage door opener to an ESP with ESPEasy and make it work, either directly with rules in ESPEasy and JSON hooks to the outside world, or via MQTT and Node-RED.

Luca

Hello Chaps,

I'm new here and am just trying to work ESP8266 ESPEasy sensors into my system, but I thought I'd give you a run-down of what I'm using so we can compare notes.

At the core of everything I have a Raspberry Pi running Node-Red. It has flows implementing well-defined REST APIs for:
1. Controllers (remotes, switches, pushbuttons etc)
2. Lights (lamps switched by RF sockets)
3. a few other things like TV/media-PC combinations

I have mongodb (document database) and mosquitto (MQTT) running on a separate Raspberry Pi.
* MongoDB for config and persistent state storage
* Mosquitto for device-to-device comms

A single pair of superheterodyne 433MHz RF receiver and transmitter modules receives and transmits control codes to switch sockets on and off. Node-Red maintains state for each device in the MongoDB database so there's never any confusion about what's on or off.

Node-Red also tracks daylight/night-time, presence of known individuals, and a few other things.
I have some Philips Hue lights, and a Philips Hue Bridge 2.0.
I also have Homebridge running on the node-red Raspberry Pi, which brings everything the Node-Red pi controls into the Apple Homekit config. Remote access is provided by a second hand Apple TV 3 sitting in a cupboard, disconnected from any TVs.

Now for the ESPEasy bit... I want ESPEasy sensors gathering data (PIR, temp/humidity, lux, rain etc) and publishing it to MQTT. At the moment (R78), with the only MQTT support being the ridiculous ego-centric disorganisation of Domoticz (which shows they really don't get the MQTT concept at all), or the over-simplified OpenHAB format, it's all a bit annoying. Node-Red has to gather loads of little bits of stateless data from each sensor, tracking each data point and performing analysis in order to analyse trends and raise events.

Yes. Events. I really don't care that much about the raw data. It's of no consequence to me. I want the bad news. Dumb gathering of stateless data points just requires a lot of work to be done to make the data useful.

Before I discovered ESPEasy, I was gathering much more useful data - performing a certain degree of analysis, and tracking state on the ESP8266 device itself, so by the time it was published on MQTT, in JSON packets, it contained things like the current date/time, the delta since the last data point, the time since the last data point (in the case of data sent only when it changes), moving averages, min & max figures, current rate of change, and so on. Hopefully you can see why this might be useful. It's all about events. It's so much easier to spot that your freezer is defrosting when you can see a positive rate of change, and a one-degree delta since the last reading which was only a few minutes ago - no additional processing or data logging/tracking required.

So it's been a bit of a downgrade coming to ESPEasy. So why am I using it? Because...

1. It takes care of all the config stuff for me
2. It gives me a generic, configurable platform for my sensors
3. I hope I can help improve it

I have no use for Domoticz or the other platforms I've tried. They put far too much emphasis on dashboarding and not enough on providing me with useful events from which to hang useful actions.

All IMHO of course. But then, when has controlling everything been a humble thing?!

Jon

Hello Jon, your project is further than mine! You have included 433MHz, I am busy investigating this. I have on one RasPi IIB+ running Mosquito, NodeRed, MySQL. NodeRed is sending data, to MySQL, ThingSpeak, and the NodeRed UI - which reports things like ho water used for the day, rain water, temp, geyser switching status, and more later. All this I do with MQTT and ESPEasy. I log all events tracked in MySQL, which I plan to do some analytics with, to prove why analytics are a key component to improving our lives - and part of any IoT solution.

I started a blog to describe what I am doing, but also conceptually which parts of IoT and Industry 4.0 we are proving in concept through home automation. See my blog entry where I describe the solution building blocks.

http://iotplay.blogspot.co.za/2016/05/t ... jects.html

JR01 wrote:Hello Jon, your project is further than mine! You have included 433MHz, I am busy investigating this. I have on one RasPi IIB+ running Mosquito, NodeRed, MySQL. NodeRed is sending data, to MySQL, ThingSpeak, and the NodeRed UI - which reports things like ho water used for the day, rain water, temp, geyser switching status, and more later. All this I do with MQTT and ESPEasy. I log all events tracked in MySQL, which I plan to do some analytics with, to prove why analytics are a key component to improving our lives - and part of any IoT solution.

It sounds like we're on parallel tracks. I'm doing all this not just to automate my home, but to research ways of using the technology to provide data for decision making, along with measurable cost savings. It might be interesting to compare notes and methods.

If it helps, my work in progress method for integrating RF and MQTT is revealed here https://github.com/JonSilver/ESP8266-RFRXTX-MQTT along with the RF hardware I'm using (having researched and tried many alternatives).