"Voting" for the most Easy controller!

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martinus
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"Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#1 Post by martinus » 10 Apr 2020, 12:05

I haven't looked at Home-Automation/IOT controllers for quite a while but just today i discovered the Blynk controller plugin and decided to give it a try.
I'm currently still running Domoticz, but only use it for charts. I usually use the custom dashboard embedded on ESPEasy to make things happen.

I can say that my first impression of Blynk is really "Easy". 8-) 8-) So it could make a nice companion to ESPEasy.

Running the local server (of course!!!) was done in a minute, no settings, just run the jar. Well java was already running on my Windows host...
I had to change a minor thing in the library because i'm running on ESP32. Upload new bin to ESP32.
Download the app, add a new ESP32 device, note the token, config the controller in ESPEasy, config a switch, and voila, demo finished.

I like the gui with good looking modern style widgets than can be relocated and resized. Also the response in both directions is great. It's just instant. Slider pushing data to ESPEasy is realtime. But the plugin also states: -TESTING. So proven or not?

So i'm in the process of convincing myself to switch to another controller.
So i would really like to hear from you all out there what could be the most favorite controller (and why...), to use with ESPEasy, specifically in terms of "Easy"??

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#2 Post by TD-er » 10 Apr 2020, 12:47

Well, the OpenHAB MQTT controller is also quite popular, but I guess it is one of the more generic MQTT controllers, so that may also have to do with it.

One of the controllers I am quite proud of myself is how the Microchip RN2483 LoRaWAN controller turned out to be.
LoRaWAN is quite complex to start with, but I did manage to make it quite simple to use.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#3 Post by GravityRZ » 10 Apr 2020, 13:28

it depends on what you are looking for.

basically you have 2 areas Frontend and backend.

i use domoticz which is very good at the backend but the frontend is not that good.
I liked the Openhab frontend app very much because it was customizable but connection with google is not that good.

for now i use
backend:Domoticz
midend:Node-red(specifically for Google connectivity and doing stuff with MQTT)
frontend:Eve on ios , apple home app

please note that i use a synology as hardware platform which is very powerfull so it runs lot's of stuff(domoticz, MQTT, Node-red, docker)

blynk looks very nice but does not run on synology as far as i can tell
Update: it seems to run on docker so i will try

also to keep things stable i only run packages or docker images so i do not mess around installing things manually because this might cause conflicts.
if you never used docker please do, it will make life so much easier.

installing node-red or Openhab on synology takes a lot of time and effort but by using docker it is a couple of clicks.
also updates/upgrades are very save because you can spin up a new image, test that one out and if you are happy switch over, if not no problem because you still got the old install.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#4 Post by martinus » 10 Apr 2020, 15:44

After a few minutes playing around with the Blynk app:
BlynkDemo.png
BlynkDemo.png (80.42 KiB) Viewed 23259 times
I would like to have this on Domoticz, but i wouldn't know how to accomplish this. I have the Domoticz app but it's very limited.

@TD: Maybe i need to check on OpenHAB also.
@GravityRZ: Isn't it quite complex to have 4 different applications to run the whole show?

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#5 Post by TD-er » 10 Apr 2020, 15:56

The Domoticz app is "less than optimal" to say the least.
The "responsive" website is then a better alternative to use on a mobile.
But on my mobile it frequently makes the browser crash when I try to load a chart.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#6 Post by dynamicdave » 11 Apr 2020, 10:11

I use the Home Assitant (OpenHab) MQTT feature on ESP Easy, purely to send/receive
information to/from Node-RED running on a RPi-4B.

I've found it very easy to set-up and get working especially as I teach a class of IoT students,
where we have 12 Raspberry Pi(es) running Node-RED on a network with 12 or more Wemos
devices exchanging data.

Most of the MQTT brokers are local on our LAN, but a couple of my students have built a
weather station that uses BeeBotte as its MQTT broker. They just entered the appropriate
credentials into the OpenHab broker in the Wemos and just like *magic* the data
starting appearing in the RPi.

Personally I've also managed to send "events" to a Wemos from Node-RED to force it to go
into DeepSleep or prevent it from going back into DeepSleep when it wakes up.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#7 Post by hvdwolf » 11 Apr 2020, 11:27

I'm still using pimatic on frontend and on backend. It runs on an RPi4 (and for some years on an RPi3 and before that for some years on a BanaPi). There is no specific android/ios app, but it runs excellent in any browser. It has SSL so I can access it from the outside in a safe way.
Development slowed down the last years, but for me it contains everything I need. And creating/maintaing rules is really flexible and easy.
There is no Google/Alexa integration (there is Google calendar and chromecast integration), but I don't care anyway. Too much "big brother is watching you" for me.

I use mosquitto mqtt as "mid-end" with the openhab mqtt on the EspEasy's.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#8 Post by martinus » 11 Apr 2020, 13:20

This morning, downloaded the OpenHAB server. Runs on java so it runs on my Windows as well. Launching the server was easy and the webgui is available in no time. But from there, things are not so easy. Could not find east steps for getting a switch working on ESPEasy using MQTT until i found a youtube that explained all step by step (at least the OpenHAB part). It took more time to get it running compared with Blynk. But it also looks more layered and more powerful than Blynk. And it uses open standard MQTT protocol instead of private Blynk protocol which is a plus.

It was good to find that OpenHAB did not need any clumsy text file configurations, all is done using a friendly webgui.
But being used to control ESPEasy on the custom dashboard, it more or less suprised me that you cannot get a simple swith control working on ESPEasy without using rules? This actually sounds not so easy after all.

But in the end i also found the flexible widget frontend that i was looking for in the first place:
HABPanel.png
HABPanel.png (9.58 KiB) Viewed 23195 times
It also reacts instantly to button presses on the ESP and toggling the widget instantly toggles the ESP led.

OpenHAB will be on my shortlist...

Back to the "voting" part. Should we start counting reponses based on product(s) mentioned?

So far we have:
  • Domoticz
  • OpenHAB
  • Node-Red
  • Pimatic
Maybe we should try to rate the "Easiness" for each of the productc listed, specifically when used towards ESPEasy devices.
The official definition of Easy for ESPEasy: Control things using a web configurable ESP without any coding or scripting involved.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#9 Post by GravityRZ » 11 Apr 2020, 14:32

Hi Martinus,
it is not complex as long as you use 1 application as you main application.

i noticed there is no application which can do everything, some shine in the backend, some in the frontend and some with google connectivity.

with domoticz i can do everything(but i need to use a vpn to do it remote and it does not have a good frontend app)
by using homebridge(docker vm) most stuff from domoticz can be used in apple home, also remote without vpn
to get google voice control i use node-red, this way i also can use it remote safely without vpn
node-red is also very usefull in putting things together(the things which are very difficult in domoticz)
google is just for fun, if it improves over apple i will use that one but for now i can use both.

so bottomline, domoticz is for me the best package at the moment but it all depends on what devices you have
also domoticz is not idiot proof so perhaps not that easy for beginners.
i have hue, zwave, temp sensors(433Mhz), esp's and and rfxcom which i use as somfy control, 433mhz receiver and energymeter


martinus wrote: 10 Apr 2020, 15:44 After a few minutes playing around with the Blynk app:

BlynkDemo.png

I would like to have this on Domoticz, but i wouldn't know how to accomplish this. I have the Domoticz app but it's very limited.

@TD: Maybe i need to check on OpenHAB also.
@GravityRZ: Isn't it quite complex to have 4 different applications to run the whole show?

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#10 Post by martinus » 11 Apr 2020, 15:14

Googled for official tutorial for ESPEasy/OpenHab. First hit:
https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/inde ... HAB_Switch
That certainly doesn't help for OpenHAB2 and current ESPEasy :oops:

Well this one's not better:
https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/inde ... icz_Switch
and at the end it points to:
https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/inde ... ght_switch
even worse...

Could not find tutorials on readthedocs or maybe didn't try hard enough.
I guess we should delete the current wiki because most of it looks legacy info and put's you in the wrong direction.

Maybe we should try to reqruite some volunteers to write specific tutorials (or provide links to up-to-date instructions)
I'm willing to help once i've found my new favorite controller...

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#11 Post by TD-er » 11 Apr 2020, 15:49

Well the frustration of the current implementation of the "switch" plugin I completely agree.

It has become a way too complicated plugin, for something that should be really basic.
But I have not yet had time to split it into the separate plugins it should be.
- GPIO out
- GPIO in
- PWM out
- Play tunes
- whatever other functionality has been put into it.

Also some controllers (not all) have special code for this plugin included, like Domoticz and OpenHAB, which also makes it quite clear the design is flawed, or at least missing something.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#12 Post by martinus » 11 Apr 2020, 16:34

TD-er wrote: 11 Apr 2020, 15:49 It has become a way too complicated plugin, for something that should be really basic.
This plugin is a nice illustration of how things get out of hand, look at how it evolved from the early stages:

R017 - 3k - this was actually the real input switch...
R120 - 13k - still quite basic, although the servo should never have been to it
Current - 47k - hmmm...

And despite all the code, i think it's still not easy to setup an ESP device with a local button + relay and connect it to a controller with both local and webgui control and proper state feedback in all scenarios. But maybe that's just my limitation atm?

- In Domoticz i can get it to work but the local pushbutton state will not be in sync with the controlled LED when the webgui is used.
- In OpenHAB i can get OpenHAB to control the LED and react on the local button, but pressing the button only updates the OpenHAB state but not the LED... (fixed that with rules, but this should not be needed IMHO)

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#13 Post by martinus » 11 Apr 2020, 16:41

martinus wrote: 11 Apr 2020, 16:34 - In OpenHAB i can get OpenHAB to control the LED and react on the local button, but pressing the button only updates the OpenHAB state but not the LED... (fixed that with rules, but this should not be needed IMHO)
I've found a setting "IsCommand" in the OpenHAB channel setting for this thing/item, but it does not seem to do anything when enabled.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#14 Post by GravityRZ » 11 Apr 2020, 16:45

i played around with openhab for some time to use it as bridge to google
i found out that you can get almost anything running in openhab when you use mqtt
things however need to be done on the server site, not on the client site like in the tutorial

here are 2 documents i made to keep myself from not forgetting how to do this in openhab.
1 is about installing openhab in docker
the second one about getting devices in openhab using MQTT v2

i abandoned openhab because i noticed google integration in node-red was so much easier and faster

maybe it helps in getting ideas on how to do stuff in openhab
openhab-docker.rar
(1.85 MiB) Downloaded 292 times
martinus wrote: 11 Apr 2020, 15:14 Googled for official tutorial for ESPEasy/OpenHab. First hit:
https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/inde ... HAB_Switch
That certainly doesn't help for OpenHAB2 and current ESPEasy :oops:

Well this one's not better:
https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/inde ... icz_Switch
and at the end it points to:
https://www.letscontrolit.com/wiki/inde ... ght_switch
even worse...

Could not find tutorials on readthedocs or maybe didn't try hard enough.
I guess we should delete the current wiki because most of it looks legacy info and put's you in the wrong direction.

Maybe we should try to reqruite some volunteers to write specific tutorials (or provide links to up-to-date instructions)
I'm willing to help once i've found my new favorite controller...

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#15 Post by martinus » 11 Apr 2020, 16:50

TD-er wrote: 11 Apr 2020, 15:49 It has become a way too complicated plugin, for something that should be really basic.
Many users likely operate a smart plug like Sonoff Basic. That was the main goal for this plugin in the first place.

Maybe a new plugin should be created for smart plugs that typically have three features:
- A GPIO output to relay
- A GPIO input connected to a local push button
- A GPIO output to a local LED indicator

And then figure out the best way to connect to controllers to make this work OOTB in a way that users expect.

But it looks we're getting off-topic now :oops:

About the tutorials, should these be on readthedocs? Or is that only for official system documentation?
How can we contribute to it?

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#16 Post by TD-er » 11 Apr 2020, 21:54

martinus wrote: 11 Apr 2020, 16:50 [...]
About the tutorials, should these be on readthedocs? Or is that only for official system documentation?
How can we contribute to it?
At the risk of getting offtopic again :)

The main reason for switching to Read the Docs was to have a version-based documentation.
That's of course a great idea... when you have versions :roll:
Apart from that, it allows for a lot more great things as automatic linkage and generate the docs in a lot of styles/formats etc. (plan to dynamically embed it in the GUI)

It is part of the GitHub repository, so you can just make a pull request for it to get it included in the RTD.
In the docs dir there is a make script (make sure you have the Python virtual env activated, so better use the 'terminal' window in Atom or VS code) just run

Code: Select all

make html
(or make.bat html)

If you don't have all Python packages installed run

Code: Select all

 pip install -r requirements.txt
in the directory where this requirements.txt is located (with Python virtual env activated)

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#17 Post by happytm » 11 Apr 2020, 22:33

For me the easiest and simplest controller is an app called MQTT Dash https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... h&hl=en_US based on MQTT protocol. It can do basic home automation very easily without any local server.This app lacks proper documentation.

For medium size home automation network Node-Red for android looks suitable choice. (no local server required) https://nodered.org/docs/getting-started/android.

For bigger home automation network with lot of devices I would use Raspberry PI Zero W with RPIEasy and Node-Red for main controller.

For all 3 cases above my choice is to have some kind of local network where all sensor or actuator devices connect to one main controller and only this main controller connect to dashboard on smart phone purely via MQTT protocol.

Thanks.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#18 Post by GravityRZ » 12 Apr 2020, 16:49

to bad it is not available for apple.
happytm wrote: 11 Apr 2020, 22:33 For me the easiest and simplest controller is an app called MQTT Dash https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... h&hl=en_US based on MQTT protocol. It can do basic home automation very easily without any local server.This app lacks proper documentation.

For medium size home automation network Node-Red for android looks suitable choice. (no local server required) https://nodered.org/docs/getting-started/android.

For bigger home automation network with lot of devices I would use Raspberry PI Zero W with RPIEasy and Node-Red for main controller.

For all 3 cases above my choice is to have some kind of local network where all sensor or actuator devices connect to one main controller and only this main controller connect to dashboard on smart phone purely via MQTT protocol.

Thanks.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#19 Post by martinus » 12 Apr 2020, 18:34

happytm wrote: 11 Apr 2020, 22:33 For me the easiest and simplest controller is an app called MQTT Dash https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... h&hl=en_US based on MQTT protocol.
I've installed the app and it's a nice tool that will come in handy to quickly control/monitor an MQTT topic.
Only noticed in the app store that the last update dates back to march 2017. This could mean that there will be no more development :cry: , or it means the app is perfect and does not need any improvement ;)

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#20 Post by martinus » 12 Apr 2020, 19:21

Googled around on topics like "Best open source Home Automation" to find several sites that have lists with some comments on each product.

It looks like these 3 products popup in every list i've found so far, with comments like "popular, large and active community, broad support of protocols":
  • Home Assistant
  • OpenHAB
  • Domoticz
So i'm already using one of them. I also found Dashticz which looks like a much better looking frontend interface than default Domoticz.
Unfortunatly the developer expects you to use an RPI and type a lot of bash stuff manually to get it going. I'm on Windows so this already looks like a no-go area for my Windows-10 stick solution.

Also installed Home-Assistant to be able to compare with the other two. Out of the box, it seems that Home-Assistent does not have a flexible widget interface where you can customize and arrange widgets as you like. I also had to install this on my laptop. For some reason Python required some Visual Studio build tools that required 4G (!!) of stuff that the MMC did not have left on the W10-stick.

Making progress on OpenHAB. The HABPanel looks very nice. Took some time to get temperature values in, i needed to install JSONPath transformation to retrieve the JSON valuepair from the incoming MQTT payload. But now it works.
Retrieving a temperature chart seems like to require some extra work though. Still on the todo list. For this it seems required to deep dive to text config files. This is where Domoticz stands out as the charts are available OOTB once you add a sensor device. A big plus!

My current shortlist of "Easy" criteria:
  • Modern Widget based frontend, highly customizable
  • 100% webgui based setup of simple things like adding a switch, a dimmer and a temperature sensor
  • Retrieving history charts/logging with a simple click on the device-details
  • Support MQTT protocol
  • Wizard like install and configure without tedious commandline instructions and endless text config files
  • Backend/Frontend/APP from one and the same development team/product team

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#21 Post by Shardan » 12 Apr 2020, 20:29

I'm using FHEM.
Connecting ESPEasy to FHEM is the easiest way: Activate the controller in ESPEasy and the device pops up in FHEM,
it's configured automatically. More easy will be difficult.

On top FHEM can handle quite a bunch of sensors and actuators, see the commandref page
https://fhem.de/commandref.html

On another note FHEM is quite complex to handle.
It needs a lot of learning and testing until you will get usable results.
That's the price for an unmatched flexibility. FHEM is written in PERL (maybe the most hated programming language :D ).
This allows to build your own functions as simple or complex as you want and place them directly into the software.
No compiling or rebuilding necessary, just restart the software. Using a database to log values for example is really easy this way.
Regards
Shardan

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#22 Post by martinus » 13 Apr 2020, 13:13

Shardan wrote: 12 Apr 2020, 20:29 Connecting ESPEasy to FHEM is the easiest way: Activate the controller in ESPEasy and the device pops up in FHEM,
it's configured automatically.
That sounds really easy !
It was also planned to have this for Domoticz when the ESPEasy project was started, but it never got that far (or did i miss something?)

Autodiscovery is certainly something that user friendly devices/controllers should support. I think it would really reduced the number of support requests that we see on the forum.

I've noticed that someone launched C014 Homie controller that supports autodiscovery on OpenHAB (and maybe others?)
Tried it on my OpenHAB lab and this is really cool stuff. Just select your new device from the OpenHAB inbox and add it to your dashboard.

But when i look at the github repo on C014, i can see that it started on april 4th-2019 and the last update (by 'christian-me') on may 21st-2019.
Anyone knows the status on this one?

I've added it to my current shortlist of "Easy" criteria:
  • Modern Widget based frontend, highly customizable
  • 100% webgui based setup of simple things like adding a switch, a dimmer and a temperature sensor
  • Retrieving history charts/logging with a simple click on the device-details
  • Support MQTT protocol
  • Wizard like install and configure without tedious commandline instructions and endless text config files
  • Backend/Frontend/APP from one and the same development team/product team
  • Auto discovery and configuration of ESPEasy nodes

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#23 Post by TD-er » 13 Apr 2020, 14:00

The code of C014 is less than optimal.
So it may need quite some TLC to clean it and have a proper look at to see if all situations are handled well.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#24 Post by martinus » 13 Apr 2020, 14:36

TD-er wrote: 13 Apr 2020, 14:00 The code of C014 is less than optimal.
So it may need quite some TLC to clean it and have a proper look at to see if all situations are handled well.
This could make sense if we have user demand for it...
IMHO the Homie initiative looks good, but if no HA developer adopts it, it'l be useless.

I think we still no not now the numbers on usage of various HA systems in relation to ESPEasy?
If i remember well, Edwin (psy0rz) was planning on this:
#define FEATURE_REPORTING

It would be nice if ESP nodes could report to Letscontroilit what controllers are in use (voluntary opt-in setting?)
Although using the MQTT controller still does not give information on the real controller in use...
Maybe add a field where users can just select from a list of systems and state their primary system (informational use only).

But with the GPDR in place, this could also be a thing...

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#25 Post by TD-er » 13 Apr 2020, 14:52

Yep, reporting could be a thing with regards to privacy.

I think we have some analytics on the Read the docs page, so maybe Jimmy can see what pages are the most frequently visited.
Still hard to draw conclusions from it, as it may be popular, or problematic :)

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#26 Post by happytm » 13 Apr 2020, 22:38

I've added it to my current shortlist of "Easy" criteria:
Modern Widget based frontend, highly customizable
100% webgui based setup of simple things like adding a switch, a dimmer and a temperature sensor
Retrieving history charts/logging with a simple click on the device-details
Support MQTT protocol
Wizard like install and configure without tedious commandline instructions and endless text config files
Backend/Frontend/APP from one and the same development team/product team
Auto discovery and configuration of ESPEasy nodes
I wanted to add another promising front end being developed by Mozilla. It can be found here https://iot.mozilla.org/ & https://github.com/mozilla-iot/gateway. it already has interface for MySensors here https://github.com/createcandle/Webthin ... rs-adapter & https://www.mysensors.org/controller/webthings . Hopefully someone can interface ESPEasy with it.

Thanks.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#27 Post by happytm » 13 Apr 2020, 22:59

But when i look at the github repo on C014, i can see that it started on april 4th-2019 and the last update (by 'christian-me') on may 21st-2019.
Anyone knows the status on this one?
I think he moved on to Node-Red and is more active here nowadays : https://github.com/Christian-Me/node-re ... convention , https://github.com/Christian-Me/remote-device-table & https://discourse.nodered.org/t/announc ... nted/22505 .

Thanks.

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#28 Post by ThomasB » 14 Apr 2020, 00:08

I'll add my two cents on OpenHab, since I've been running it on a RPI for several years.
tl;dr : Not easy, but flexible.

My overall opinion is that the flexibility of OpenHab tends to make it "hard" to configure. But setting it up should be within the skills of a enthusiastic ESPEasy fan.

Its HabPanel app can be used to create nice looking GUI screens for device control and status. Here's a sample screenshot I setup long ago:

OpenHab's HabPanel App.
OpenHab's HabPanel App.
habpanel_800.jpg (90.71 KiB) Viewed 22867 times

I have a mix of Insteon, ESPEasy, and other WiFi devices that interface with OpenHab. I had good intentions to use smart phones and tablets for control. But I found being a slave to a touch device for home control to be inconvenient.

Fortunately an OpenHab developer created an Amazon Echo control binding. So now I use Alexa to control everything. Alexa also provides voice status messages that can be triggered using OpenHab's rules.

For example, when postal mail is delivered, Alexa announces that the postman has arrived (Arduino Lora->OpenHab->Alexa Echo). I can start the clothes dryer by voice control (Alexa Echo->OpenHab->ESPEasy Sonoff). No screens to look at and no buttons to touch: voices do the dirty work.

My point is that Openhab's flexibility allows me to optimize my home control experience to work the way I live. And my wife likes it too, which is very important. Setting everything up wasn't easy, but I'm a satisfied customer.

- Thomas

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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#29 Post by martinus » 18 Apr 2020, 19:58

ThomasB wrote: 14 Apr 2020, 00:08 tl;dr : Not easy, but flexible.
My point is that Openhab's flexibility allows me to optimize my home control experience to work the way I live.
Setting everything up wasn't easy, but I'm a satisfied customer.
While investigation other systems, started to get the feeling that Easy and flexible are mutually exclusive features. :(

I'm running Domoticz now, which is very easy to get going and i think i'll stick to it for now. But i'm planning to add Node-Red to the solution as a companion on MQTT. Node-Red is a very pleasant tool to work with. It has the power of programming, but it does not really feal like programming. It is really easy to setup incoming and outgoing MQTT and add some buttons and charts. Mostly by dragging/dropping graphic items on the grid and connecting them to each other. It could very well be used for a nice dashboard, to compensate for something that is almost impossible to achieve with Domoticz.

rmhoutz
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Re: "Voting" for the most Easy controller!

#30 Post by rmhoutz » 17 Apr 2021, 15:02

I wanted to cast my vote even though this post is getting some age on it.

I have a mix of TP-Link, ESP12e, and ElectroDragon Relay Boards in my house.

The ESP devices are all using ESPEasy and have been for about 3 to 4 years.
Many have been very reliable and running for hundreds of days without a reboot.

However I recently stated to migrate to OpenHAB3 and discovered the setup I was using didn't work as well as it has in the past.
I found TP-Link/Kasa switches to be almost the same price as my ESP's so I gave them a try.
After setting them up using the Kasa app, OpenHAB3 discovered them and it was so easy to get going.

After several days of attempting to get OH3 working with my ESP's I was informed by a OpenHAB founding member that ESPEasy now supports Homie.
I thought now this is why I Love ESPEasy and support them.

My hope was to find, or if needed create a .bin to get this setup on my existing ESP's via OTA updates.
But to be honest it hasn't been that easy and while I'm not a programmer I am a PC Analyst/Network Admin so I'm not completely hopeless.

I'm hoping more will be done to make ESPEasy work with OpenHAB3 better.
I still love the challenge and everything I'm learning from working with OH and ESPEasy though.

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