I'm planning to buy a house and making it "smart". Does anyone know any resource that can guide me?
Something like garage door that opens with a tap on my phone, music that follows me room to room, door camera that can be viewed from TV ("alt-tab" while watching Netflix), lights controlled by voice, smart mirrors.
Can be a blog, a forum, or a book, but it should be holistic—I don't want it to end up like a Goldberg machine.
God, don't use Homeassistant if you actually value your time. I've ranted and raved here on HN about it before. It's a hobby project where the devs only care about using the latest and greatest methods and tools for the sake of padding their resumes. They will often re-write things for no reason, release things into the UI as placeholders, and don't care how many end user installs break. You will spend massive amounts of time keeping up. Case in point - they removed Python 3.7 support in late 2020. 3.7 is not EoL until mid 2023, and was the default version in Buster, the Raspbian release at the time. We all had "fun" compiling Python from source.
Tons of great general suggestions here. But I want to chime in for the Tailwind garage door opener. It's very obviously built by engineers and for engineers. Install is harder than other options, but rock solid, zero maintenance unlike others and it can do automatic garage door opening and closing totally self contained by detecting your phone + car Bluetooth. I was absolutely blown away by it compared to the MyQ which is usually touted as the best and is so locked down because they signed a deal with Amazon as to be totally useless.
I personally know a high-end residential architect (who has worked on several billionaire FAANG homes) if you would like their contact (There are several high-end architecture companies that focus specifically on home tech (yeah, but to a level that one isn't typically familiar with)
Home Assistant as your main controller. Then just make sure it get devices that work over local standards like Zigbee or Zwave and not proprietary protocols.
Even better: buy an old office desktop from about 10 years ago, upgrade the ram and storage (if you feel like it) and install Proxmox. Now you can run as many servers as you want, faster, probably cheaper, and with much less hardware.
It would be worth measuring the power usage/efficiency. I run a home server that runs quite a few things on it and the power usage is around 225 watts at idle. At my electric rates, that amounts to around $45/month in electricity alone.
225 watts is a bit high for most small servers, but mine seems to be rather high due to the fact that I have about 18 SATA HDDs connected to it for file server capabilities.
A Raspberry Pi 4 consumes around 5 watts running at full bore, 2-3W at idle. Of course, it also couldn't handle what I am doing or I would use it.
In fact, my Home Assistant is running on a small mini-itx Intel celeron box dedicated to that because the PI was a bit too slow for my needs. But I run quite a bit of automation stuff on my Home Assistant instance. It draws around 25 watts at idle.
This is exactly what I did. I have an HP EliteDesk 800 G3 Mini sitting on a shelf in my basement running HomeAssistant and a stack of other software that the technology in my house more or less relies on.
I was one of those guys that hosted nearly everything on a bunch of Pis. While it was fun initially, I eventually got frustrated. Yeah, self-hosting stuff is fun'n games. But sadly things do break, SD cards fail, hardware dies and backups do not work.
Personally, I am only hosting a few important services locally. These services are one hundred percent automated and can be deployed in minutes. For everything else I pay someone else to host it or I got rid of it entirely.
That does not mean that it isn't a great hobby. I just found myself investing may too much time for a small benefit. Also, I think that I did not learn anything new by preparing the sixth Pi or running some Playbook/Dockerfile/Installer that someone else has written
In my experience on a pi - SD cards don't fail, they get corrupted.
one solution is to use an OS that isn't constantly writing to the SD card, like openwrt. I have a pi running openwrt and it is rock solid. The filesystem only gets written in very specific cases, for example there are no logs writing to the sd card continuously.
Another solution is to set up an overlay filesystem for raspbian
And you could use a USB drive like a samsung fit instead - that has been very solid for me.
The corrupted SD card had me baffled for a while as randomly some binaries would get corrupted (like php, which would throw random errors, files of a Grafana install would end up in lost+found) - the cause?
Me, using a spare Apple iPhone charger (1A) to power the Pi - haven't had an adequate power supply around at that time..
As a rule, i use 5V PS with at least 2.5A with the Pis and (almost) never had issues like the Raspys complaining with that rainbow colored box (or "vcgencmd get_throttled")...
So, yes, getting a good power supply (well, one that can supply 2.5A++ - if these are really good (as in "noise free") is another matter, which i've discovered with my BirdNET-Pi now) is key for the longevity of your SD card!
I came here to say the same thing. I'm in the process of migrating to an SSD because I've had two SD failures. I picked up a Samsung 850 250GB for $25 on eBay and need to buy a USB cable for ~$25. So it's a little more expensive than just buying an SD card, but comparable to buying a few SD cards!
A sizable percentage of all of the Pi devices made likely are sitting unused in boxes in closets around the world. The resale value isn't high enough to motivate many people to go find them and sell them to those who would put them into productive use.
I managed to get one from Adafruit last week. They restock ~weekly, typically Wednesdays, and sell out within a few minutes of the notification going out.
It depends also on whether you need a real name brand Raspberry Pi or whether you can use any equivalent computer. For instance, pine64 makes significantly nicer hardware in the same price range and is actually in stock.
It's probably been mentioned before, but if you want something that is:
* A fair bit more grunty than a Pi
* Fairly power efficient
* x86
* More of a standard computer
You should consider picking up what Servethehome has coined the TinyMiniMicro nodes. They're the kind of computers you typically find strapped to the back of a monitor in a doctors office and usually are fairly power efficient machines. I, for example, have a Lenovo m710q - which has an Intel 6500t (a quad core CPU), 16gb of ram, and a 512GB SSD, which I paid around 200USD for, that is significantly easier to manage than a Pi (since it's 'just' a computer) and sucks back around 10w of power at idle (which is roughly triple a Single Pi 4) - but still in the realm of negligible. It actually replaced a Pi 4 for my self hosted home stuff, and it was a fantastic choice that I do not regret.
Lots of this type of computer are available in all sorts of configurations, and the more 'standard' nature of the machine opens up a lot of possibilities the Pi either makes more difficult, or impossible. For example, my node hosts a bunch of services for me, but it also acts as a Steam In Home Streaming machine that I have connected to my living room television, which allows me to stream games from my desktop to the TV fairly effortlessly.
The one thing I don't really get is why, pi's everywhere? Most of the times an esp32 will be more than enough for a few sensors. No need to be running a full OS and the added benefit they are actually available right now to buy.
Ive encountered this sentiment a lot from my hardware engineering friends, I dont know if its a side effect of the job or something, but they tend to value the sort of "efficiency of exactly the right chip / protocol / whatever" over the "versatility / community / perceived technical quality " around the same. Sort of like a callback to Betamax VS VHS.
- Hydrogen fuel cells are a better technology than batteries
- Zigbee is a better wireless protocol than wifi
- you dont need a RPi, an ATTiny and some transistors would work fine
sure, but wifi is being improved for tons of use cases and Zigbee only really has the one use case just now, getting started writing code for x86 with a full OS is much simpler than for a microcontroller etc etc
ultimately the network effect / whatever kick in and the popular stuff usually ends up winning IMHO
Pi is standard, extremely well supported, has GPIO and most people are familiar with running a container and gluing python compared to writing C (I know about micropython, but Joe PythonLearner doesn't).
I've always had it bookmarked, but never had the time to think about it or to do anything more than a random Pi for homebridge for a few Z-wave switches I have.
[+] [-] wiradikusuma|3 years ago|reply
Something like garage door that opens with a tap on my phone, music that follows me room to room, door camera that can be viewed from TV ("alt-tab" while watching Netflix), lights controlled by voice, smart mirrors.
Can be a blog, a forum, or a book, but it should be holistic—I don't want it to end up like a Goldberg machine.
[+] [-] snapetom|3 years ago|reply
Just get a Hubitat and be done with it.
[+] [-] agilob|3 years ago|reply
https://old.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/
https://old.reddit.com/r/homeautomation/
[+] [-] zaphod12|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samstave|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mason55|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uuee|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pkulak|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jjeaff|3 years ago|reply
225 watts is a bit high for most small servers, but mine seems to be rather high due to the fact that I have about 18 SATA HDDs connected to it for file server capabilities.
A Raspberry Pi 4 consumes around 5 watts running at full bore, 2-3W at idle. Of course, it also couldn't handle what I am doing or I would use it.
In fact, my Home Assistant is running on a small mini-itx Intel celeron box dedicated to that because the PI was a bit too slow for my needs. But I run quite a bit of automation stuff on my Home Assistant instance. It draws around 25 watts at idle.
[+] [-] edf13|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zrail|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m463|3 years ago|reply
I have a vm for macos. I have containers for git, dav, nextcloud, etc.
only thing I would love is something like docker to build containers from one dockerfile.
[+] [-] MuffinFlavored|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] M0r13n|3 years ago|reply
Personally, I am only hosting a few important services locally. These services are one hundred percent automated and can be deployed in minutes. For everything else I pay someone else to host it or I got rid of it entirely.
That does not mean that it isn't a great hobby. I just found myself investing may too much time for a small benefit. Also, I think that I did not learn anything new by preparing the sixth Pi or running some Playbook/Dockerfile/Installer that someone else has written
[+] [-] m463|3 years ago|reply
one solution is to use an OS that isn't constantly writing to the SD card, like openwrt. I have a pi running openwrt and it is rock solid. The filesystem only gets written in very specific cases, for example there are no logs writing to the sd card continuously.
Another solution is to set up an overlay filesystem for raspbian
And you could use a USB drive like a samsung fit instead - that has been very solid for me.
[+] [-] moepstar|3 years ago|reply
Running HA, Pi-Hole, OpenVPN, solaranzeige.de, piVCCU, piCorePlayer, BirdNET-Pi, OctoPi/Klipper (2x), Pi1541 etc...
No. single. failure. yet.
The corrupted SD card had me baffled for a while as randomly some binaries would get corrupted (like php, which would throw random errors, files of a Grafana install would end up in lost+found) - the cause?
Me, using a spare Apple iPhone charger (1A) to power the Pi - haven't had an adequate power supply around at that time..
As a rule, i use 5V PS with at least 2.5A with the Pis and (almost) never had issues like the Raspys complaining with that rainbow colored box (or "vcgencmd get_throttled")...
So, yes, getting a good power supply (well, one that can supply 2.5A++ - if these are really good (as in "noise free") is another matter, which i've discovered with my BirdNET-Pi now) is key for the longevity of your SD card!
[+] [-] BrianHenryIE|3 years ago|reply
I came here to say the same thing. I'm in the process of migrating to an SSD because I've had two SD failures. I picked up a Samsung 850 250GB for $25 on eBay and need to buy a USB cable for ~$25. So it's a little more expensive than just buying an SD card, but comparable to buying a few SD cards!
[+] [-] creativenolo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benttoothpaste|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wintersFright|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ajsnigrutin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Mountain_Skies|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwm20|3 years ago|reply
I managed to get one from Adafruit last week. They restock ~weekly, typically Wednesdays, and sell out within a few minutes of the notification going out.
[+] [-] qgin|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yjftsjthsd-h|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daverol|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cosmic_quanta|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m463|3 years ago|reply
I think the nuc-like boxes might be competitive, but I wonder if they aren't inflated too.
[+] [-] agilob|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kn100|3 years ago|reply
* A fair bit more grunty than a Pi
* Fairly power efficient
* x86
* More of a standard computer
You should consider picking up what Servethehome has coined the TinyMiniMicro nodes. They're the kind of computers you typically find strapped to the back of a monitor in a doctors office and usually are fairly power efficient machines. I, for example, have a Lenovo m710q - which has an Intel 6500t (a quad core CPU), 16gb of ram, and a 512GB SSD, which I paid around 200USD for, that is significantly easier to manage than a Pi (since it's 'just' a computer) and sucks back around 10w of power at idle (which is roughly triple a Single Pi 4) - but still in the realm of negligible. It actually replaced a Pi 4 for my self hosted home stuff, and it was a fantastic choice that I do not regret.
Lots of this type of computer are available in all sorts of configurations, and the more 'standard' nature of the machine opens up a lot of possibilities the Pi either makes more difficult, or impossible. For example, my node hosts a bunch of services for me, but it also acts as a Steam In Home Streaming machine that I have connected to my living room television, which allows me to stream games from my desktop to the TV fairly effortlessly.
[+] [-] alexchantavy|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jerodsanto|3 years ago|reply
You can get notified of when it posts here: https://changelog.com/podcast/489#transcript
[+] [-] fimdomeio|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chrismatheson|3 years ago|reply
- Hydrogen fuel cells are a better technology than batteries - Zigbee is a better wireless protocol than wifi - you dont need a RPi, an ATTiny and some transistors would work fine
sure, but wifi is being improved for tons of use cases and Zigbee only really has the one use case just now, getting started writing code for x86 with a full OS is much simpler than for a microcontroller etc etc
ultimately the network effect / whatever kick in and the popular stuff usually ends up winning IMHO
[+] [-] e3bc54b2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluesquared|3 years ago|reply
I've always had it bookmarked, but never had the time to think about it or to do anything more than a random Pi for homebridge for a few Z-wave switches I have.
[+] [-] swayvil|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pojzon|3 years ago|reply
Alexa, Siri etc just dont cut it and are not private assistants.
I want Jarvis for personal use.
[+] [-] behnamoh|3 years ago|reply