Hi all,
I want to built a small Panel with 6-10 Buttons for my Kids,so that they can control their playing room. So a touch solution ist not an Option.
Best would be if it ist battery powered.
Of course it needs to be integrateable into openhab
Any ideas how to start?
If I were to do this I’d use an ESP8266 or ESP32 loaded up with ESPEasy for the firmware configured to detect and publish button presses over MQTT. OH can subscribe for these messages and do what ever needs to be done.
Slightly more expensive but potentially easier would be to use an SBC like a Raspberry Pi 0W. There are lots of software you can run on it to report the button presses. My GitHub - rkoshak/sensorReporter: A python based service that receives sensor inputs and publishes them over REST (should work with any API but mainly tested with openHAB) or MQTT. It can also receive commands and perform an action (e.g. set a GPIO pin to HIGH). It currently supports Bluetooth, GPIO on Raspberry Pi, Amazon Dash buttons, command line scripts, and Roku IP address discovery. can do this and it can communicate either via MQTT or to OH directly through it’s REST API. I use this on an RPi 0W to report the states of reed sensors to report the open/closed states of doors.
If you’ve a more powerful SBC, you could install another instance of OH on this machine with the GPIO binding and use the Remote openHAB binding to synch it with your main OH instance.
The hardest part is going to be wiring everything up I think. Detecting and publishing button press events can be configured for the most part.
lots of smart button arrays available depending on what you select as your protocol.
If you are not looking for battery operated, then you will end up putting a couple 2 gang boxes in the wall to bury the actual control devices (relays that will control things) if you can take battery’s then plenty of solutions that are battery operated, I saw one that looks kid friendly 6 buttons that may work out its wireless.
If you are looking for a full separate solution, then items like rich mentioned are pretty good solution. With your limited details and specs, it is really hard to suggest much more then very generic approaches.
On the simpler end, a ZigBee remote switch like this might do.
Yep, plenty of solutions if OP is willing to have batteries like I mentioned before That device requires battery’s.
If the OP is wanting to have something not battery powered, it will require a wall box to hide power sources and any control/relay devices.
What we do not have info on is what the OP has for existing protocols. IE Zigbee or Zwave or is he using shelly devices and wi-fi.
Along with the target ages of the kids since that will decide some of the other items, he may need to consider such as wall box heights as smaller toddlers cannot reach a standard light switch or wall box safely. And so on from a specs and detail perspective to really provide good recommendations.
I agree with @rlkoshak
A nice ESP32 solution might be fun.
I’m a big fan of the M5Stick range.
I’ve got an Arduino script that checks to see what hardware is plugged in and sends status data back via MQTT in JSONs.
I’m happy to share the script if you want to explore that.
Long term, it could be a fun way to engage your children with electronics and coding.
A very brief write up is here
