Hardware recommendations

[kjakobczyk (Krzysztof Jakóbczyk)]

@binderth @Rivi @luckymallari @rlkoshak Thank you Guys so much for all this priceless knowledge! Initially I thought that I’ll build a single, homogeneous automation system and my understanding was that it will consist of all electricity/automation stuff in my home, but it is not. Still I will have electricty, LAN, and different devices from different vendors installed, configured and used separately, but I can have OH on top of it to do the manual stuff automatically. You have cleared my vision in this term. Thank you for that.

There are so many important information here, so I don’t know from what to begin. Please bare with me while I review them all:
@rlkoshak @luckymallari

@rlkoshak

Why do you say that? Many on this forum run massive HA systems on a RPi3 quite happily. For the most part HA is pretty light in the resources it requires of the OH server.

@luckymallari

There are users here with thousands of items and lines of rules using RPI3, including me.

I know, I know, OH can be hosted on RPi with ease, it will be cheap and reliable, while having a dedicated industrial PC for that is just a huge overkill.

@rlkoshak

Personally, I would recommend a commodity server running a Type 1 Hypervisor (ESXi or Xen) with OH and your other servers (there will be others) running on VMs. I personally go one step further and deploy my apps in Docker containers.

I just love this approach! Both in terms of Xen and Docker, but don’t you suffer from limited communication capabilities of such solutions? I never experimented with Docker USB redirection (does it even exist?), while in Xen the options are limited: you have USB redirection, but it happens that it’s not working properly, you have PCI redirection, but also not all PCI boards work correctly that way. What are your experiences?

@rlkoshak

I wouldn’t recommend Slackware unless you have a really strong preference for it.

My preference comes from the fact that I’m a huge security and privacy freak. Slackware allows me to rule it all without struggling with apt-based package management which in terms of privacy and security is - in my opinion - quite problematic: with one apt-get upgrade you download thousands of MB of packages without verifying what’s really going on in the system. With Slackware I have a total control of that. Of course this is a point for a wider discussion and not the purpose of this forum, but this is why I prefer Slack over other distros. It is also rock-solid meaning that it can literally work years without reboot, and this is what I like in Linux systems .

@rlkoshak

In these cases, a common approach is to host a small SBC (e.g. RPi 0W) close to the RS-232 device with a simple script or program to publish/subscribe for sensor readings/commands and OH will communicate with the script over IP, often using MQTT.

Simply genius! Having serial connection far from basement, where indeed I will host all the stuff would result in significant voltage drops on the lines and may make the serial dead at the end of the wire. Thanks for bringing my attention to this!

@rlkoshak

Slow down and start slow. If you try to do ALL of this at once you will get discouraged. Start with some lights or start to build your home automation logic without actually connecting to any devices and get a feel for how OH works and what it can do.

I want to start with a plan. I have my home designed in SketchUp, I want to draw every single communication and electricity line before I even touch the drill, but before I will be able to draw any line I need to know exactly what electronics, hardware and automation parts I’m going to use, so the first point would be to prepare my wish-list (already in the first message), then the bill-of-materials needed for this stuff, later on focusing on the plan, a then finally some tests with small portions of electronics. Of course if I would buy a ton of parts I’d be doomed.

@rlkoshak

Most of us here HAVE based our whole home automation on OH.

This is enough for an explanation .

@rlkoshak

I think Thomas’s main point is that much of the controller logic and “smarts” of your home automation should be diffused throughout your home.

Now I fully get the idea!

@luckymallari

Plan to have 5V in your outlets. This will make it easy to source 5v when you need to without messing with transformers and converters.

Do you have such solution at your home? It’s a really cool idea, but the voltage drop on the lines with 5VDC would make it unusable in my opinion if the voltage would be served from a single point power source.

@luckymallari

For alarm system, I suggest a Honeywell Vista based panel

Thanks for that suggestion! I was installing Satel’s for 6 years and have better understanding of their technology, but will review Honeywell as well!

@luckymallari

My diy stuff even turns off my stove when I arm the alarm.

I would need similar stuff to turn off water valve when I leave home or in case of anti-flood sensor execution.

@Rivi

@Rivi

Concerning heating, I guess it would depend on what you’re planning, both in terms of insulation and of system. Since you’re building, it’s your call.

I will have 25cm of graphite polysterene foam with floor heating on two floors. Windows will be as close to passive as possible in relation to costs.

@Rivi

If you want an alarm from day zero, what is your goal here?

Prevention: to scare people away.

@Rivi

Well, although I generally agree with the de-centralised KNX suggestion, here KNX seems not quite up to date, considering what has recently become available in terms of RGBWW LEDs. Consider something like Philips Hue here, in my opinion.

Are you refering to KNX only in terms of light control? And what has recently become available in terms of RGBWW LEDs? I’m sorry, but I’m quite new to the topic .

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

@kjakobczyk

I would need similar stuff to turn off water valve when I leave home or in case of anti-flood sensor execution.

Be careful with DIY stuff concerning heating and security. not only do you rely your health and your house on that - there could be some regulations on that in Poland…

@kjakobczyk

Are you refering to KNX only in terms of light control? And what has recently become available in terms of RGBWW LEDs? I’m sorry, but I’m quite new to the topic .

Basically, there are two main “worlds” in lights:

• just bulbs turning ON/OFF and dimming them
• using the LED technology to also change Colors

There are of course loads of actuators, which do the first Job (on/off, dimming), but there are also actuators, which can handle RGBW(W) LEDs, meaning they can also change colors.

[kjakobczyk (Krzysztof Jakóbczyk)]

@binderth

Basically, there are two main “worlds” in lights:

just bulbs turning ON/OFF and dimming them
using the LED technology to also change Colors

There are of course loads of actuators, which do the first Job (on/off, dimming), but there are also actuators, which can handle RGBW(W) LEDs, meaning they can also change colors.

So, in my opinion the sole bulbs turning ON/OFF with dimming cabapilities seems to be cheaper than RGBW(W) LEDs. If I would be interrested in the first solution, should I look for KNX bulb controllers?

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

@kjakobczyk

If I would be interrested in the first solution, should I look for KNX bulb controllers?

You should at first make yourself familiar with KNX itself!
no offense, but KNX is even for technically minded people not self-explaining at first.

Try: Die von Ihnen aufgerufene Seite existiert nicht – KNX Association [Official website] or a good book on home automation and KNX. I don’t know any in polnish, I’m afraid.

tl:dr> for KNX to work, you Need:

• your bulb connected via a seperate Phase to
• your dimming/Switch actuator
• KNX bus cable to every actuator/sensor

So in that simple case:

• your bulb is connnected to your central control box (cellar?) so you can connect the Phase
• your actuator is situated in the same central control box (they’re typically DIN rail). The actuator Switches/dimms/changes color of your bulb according to the used technique (dimming LEDs is different to dimming edison lamps - but most KNX actuators either recognize dimming types or a programmable for the kind of dimming)
• the KNX bus cable runs through your whole house (could be any topology, but no loop is allowed) and connects your light switches/sensors and other KNX stuff with the dimming actuator.

That way it’s irrelevant, whether you touch your switch in the room or you send a KNX telegram via OH2 or manually - the actuator which listens to the so-called GA (group address) will react and do as told (in our case switch on/off or dimm). You can easily reprogramm your switches without the need to change any wiring.

downside: if you want to alter your configuration (adding new KNX devices, changing programmed commands within KNX devices) you need a software called “ETS”, which isn’t free, but costs a few 100€.
upside: you can control every aspect of your KNX installation yourself and you’re absolutely free on how and when to expose KNX to e.g. openHAB.

[kjakobczyk (Krzysztof Jakóbczyk)]

OK, so how is it different to Philips Hue light bulbs? Also: what are other options than KNX, that I could go for? I know about Modbus-based systems, but I don’t know what is the modern approach. I know that my heating system (heat pump) will only have a Modbus control exposed to building management system and thus I’m thinking if it would be worth trying to go for Modbus for a complete building.

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

@kjakobczyk

OK, so how is it different to Philips Hue light bulbs?

simply Philips Hue light bulbs have all the logic within the bulb.
with KNX and other systems you have that seperated:

• the lamp - it just lights, dimms or changes Color
• and the controlling unit - it controls how the lamp works

so, if your lamp is defect - you just change it with a new one, the logic stays in the actuator. the Hue bulb is changed with its logic. Then you have the hue bridge, which is like the KNX bus and provides the API and the communication protocol.

@kjakobczyk

I know that my heating system (heat pump) will only have a Modbus control exposed to building management system and thus I’m thinking if it would be worth trying to go for Modbus for a complete building.

I know nothing on Modbus, so I’m not the best to answer this. But I can imagine, using modbus for getting information from your heating and send some commands to it. And you have detached from it some kind of system for your lights.
Best of breed means, you’re using dedicated (the best suited!) systems for different aspects (in our case: heating, light/electric, security, …) - you can always connect the gaps between that systems via openHAB.
My advice is, use one dedicated system for lights and the rest for your electric (outlets, blinds, …) this one saves you much hair, as you only have to adress one system per usecases and not many. You could easily lose track on which device is controlled by which system… If you have e.g. KNX for all your electrical devices - you can stay within the boundaries of KNX and have a basic setup for all actions (switches for light, blinds, …, temparature and motion sensors, …). That way not only the WAF is higher, but you can also use the Basic functions in your house even if openHAB or some other logic modules are offline.

[kjakobczyk (Krzysztof Jakóbczyk)]

@binderth

That way not only the WAF is higher

And what is WAF ? Sorry for being such a noob!

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

@kjakobczyk

And what is WAF ? Sorry for being such a noob!

W ife
A cceptance
F actor

[Rivi (Thomas Rivinius)]

@kjakobczyk

Are you refering to KNX only in terms of light control? And what has recently become available in terms of RGBWW LEDs? I’m sorry, but I’m quite new to the topic

Yep, here I meant KNX only in terms of lighting. RGBWW refers to a technology where each lamp has five LEDs, RGB plus warm white and cold white. This enables a much more nuanced color display than just RGB, additionally it gives a smooth control over color temperature for pure white, ranging from about 2000 to 6000K. It is in my opinion perfect for creating/supporting moods and scenes with light.

The KNX solutions for this I am aware of provide the five output voltages for the LED, meaning they are suitable to control LED strips, but not bulbs. There is currently no way to encode this kind of information in the mains. Since there is no other cabling to a light than that, any RGB(WW) capable bulb needs an additional channel of communication.

To decide whether this is something you or anyone else in the house will want, maybe just buy a starter kit and play with it. You could sell it if you decide to go to a switch&dimmer only solution. It can also be fitted later, but considering the cost of a first KNX and then Hue installation, you should carefully think if you really need the former, in case you already decided you’ll want the latter on the long run.

[kjakobczyk (Krzysztof Jakóbczyk)]

Thanks for a great answer!

@Rivi

It is in my opinion perfect for creating/supporting moods and scenes with light.

Is it a crazy idea to do with it an ambient light for home cinema ? Something like Philips Ambilight?

[Rivi (Thomas Rivinius)]

@kjakobczyk

Prevention: to scare people away.

The best prevention is what I wrote above, sturdy doors and windows. Since your security requirements seem quite high, I would say go with a stand-alone, power-fail and sabotage safe system and a certified company, as they will know how to best place all the elements for perimeter surveillance (detecting the intrusion attempt when it is happening) and motion sensors (detecting the intruder when he is already in). When you say “prevention”, I suppose you mean the first, rather than detecting an intruder already inside.

In addition to a siren belonging to the alarm, you can have it send a message to you home automation to make additional fuzz, but then that’s just the cherry on the cake.

Btw, if you want anyone to be scared even before trying, you need to make sure that at least some elements of your security system, usually cameras, are clearly visible from the outside. Where I live burglary is quite a bit more common than in Europe; they even sell dummy cameras, meaning just the housing of the cam, to make a house seem protected.

[Rivi (Thomas Rivinius)]

@kjakobczyk

Is it a crazy idea to do with it an ambient light for home cinema ?

Not at all. Personally, I always set the lighting mood accordingly to what’s on screen.

Actually, some expensive Philips TV come with a system called ambilight, where they have a large number of RGB LEDs around the frame, shining back on the wall. However, other than a room lighting system, these are individually controlled by the TV according to what’s on the screen and react very fast.

Just setting the mood, that’s maybe a few LED strips behind the TV and illuminating the ceiling, is still well doable with KNX, but I personally have come to like the capabilities of the system so much that I do not think I would go to back to a lighting system not capable of color temperature/color.

[kjakobczyk (Krzysztof Jakóbczyk)]

The only point is the price: in case of KNX you’ll be hit by the costs in the beginning, but then the lights if they fail (and they will), they will cost you few bucks, but for Hue the initial costs are maybe not that high, but after replacing dozens of bulbs may get to the point where you would have KNX for it. That’s of course a great simplification, because I don’t know the costs, however it seems to be something that needs to be taken into account on a design-level.

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

@kjakobczyk

The only point is the price

I may be old and stuff, but if I learned something that is: don’t look at the price first (and only).
I know it’s hard if it’s the first time you’re planning a house… But imagine sitting in your living room, getting to bed at the evening, making yourself ready for the day, … In short: try to imagine, what you would like to have! Don’t let yourself go with gadgets and think in functionality only. “I’d like to see, that all lights are off, all windows are closed,… before I go to bed or leave the house” or “I don’t want to have to maintain three different systems for light, outlets and my blinds”, …

Take your time and write it down. Not technically in sketches, but in writing. If you know Scrum, write epics and user stories and fill your product backlog. After you have written down your requirements, try to build an architecture around them. I know, as a technical person we tend to take software and functions and use that as a start. But: you and your family have to live in it…
Yes, let your wife write requirements also. Sometimes they will collide with your initial thoughts.
The price tag comes early enough. If planned intelligent, you can start with an MVP and build more modules later on…

[rlkoshak (Rich Koshak)]

@kjakobczyk

I just love this approach! Both in terms of Xen and Docker, but don’t you suffer from limited communication capabilities of such solutions? I never experimented with Docker USB redirection (does it even exist?), while in Xen the options are limited: you have USB redirection, but it happens that it’s not working properly, you have PCI redirection, but also not all PCI boards work correctly that way. What are your experiences?

I have no limitations. You can pass hardware through to the container easily with the --device=/dev/ttyUSB0 option (using the path to your device of course). I’ve no experience with Xen; I use ESXi. I did have a little trouble with ESXi 6.5 as their USB drivers were a little half baked and I couldn’t get reliable connectivity between my USB zwave controller and my VM. But I downgraded the USB drivers and it has been running without a hitch for over a year now I think. I don’t know if newer versions of ESXi continue to have this problem.

Though passing the USB device through to the VM and Docker container is not necessarily required. Particularly if the location of your server is not ideal for wireless communication with the Zwave or Zigbee mesh networks or the like you can use Share Z-wave dongle over IP (USB over IP using ser2net / socat ) guide with a cheap SBC like a RPi 0W to plug your USB dongle into and connect the device to your VM over TCP/IP.

@kjakobczyk

download thousands of MB of packages without verifying what’s really going on in the system.

And you do a thorough code review of the tens of thousands of lines of code that goes into a Slackware upgrade?

@kjakobczyk

I want to start with a plan. I have my home designed in SketchUp, I want to draw every single communication and electricity line before I even touch the drill, but before I will be able to draw any line I need to know exactly what electronics, hardware and automation parts I’m going to use, so the first point would be to prepare my wish-list (already in the first message), then the bill-of-materials needed for this stuff, later on focusing on the plan, a then finally some tests with small portions of electronics. Of course if I would buy a ton of parts I’d be doomed.

“No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” - Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

You need to get real experience with these technologies before you can develop your design and plans. The wish list is a great place to start but if you start with a bill of materials and detailed architecture and plans before you actually have any experience with any of these technologies and systems you are almost guaranteed to make some very costly mistakes.You need to be doing tests and prototypes NOW while you are developing your plans and architectures. If you wait it will be too late. Each of these have edge cases and limitations that you will not be able to discover until you actually start using them.

@kjakobczyk

Do you have such solution at your home? It’s a really cool idea, but the voltage drop on the lines with 5VDC would make it unusable in my opinion if the voltage would be served from a single point power source.

Most solutions I’ve seen are to have AC to 5V DC converters in the rooms. So the main power is SC but at the outlets you have some 5V DC outlets. At least that is how some of my outlets work. Amazon.com I’m not sure if Lucky is referring to something similar.

@kjakobczyk

So, in my opinion the sole bulbs turning ON/OFF with dimming cabapilities seems to be cheaper than RGBW(W) LEDs.

Just be aware that smart bulbs are incompatible with traditional wall switches. If you have a regular old wall switch and flip it off the bulb goes offline. You would have to wire up “smart” switches that don’t actually control the power to the bulb but just turns them on and off.

For this reason (and the fact that I don’t care about color) I use switches and outlets that I can control, not bulbs.

[Rivi (Thomas Rivinius)]

@rlkoshak

Just be aware that smart bulbs are incompatible with traditional wall switches. If you have a regular old wall switch and flip it off the bulb goes offline. You would have to wire up “smart” switches that don’t actually control the power to the bulb but just turns them on and off.

Yep, but that’s also true for the dumb bulb version in KNX, the wall “switches” are programmable sensors that only send commands to the actors mounted in the switchboard. For KNX, if you want a manual off, you need to go to the switchboard (or just install an traditional one in the line and make everyone swear to never touch it).

Actually, this is a difference KNX vs. Smart: the smart ones can be turned off and on with a wall switch, and come up with a neutral white. A KNX installation does not allow that, because the power is switched by the actor on the switchboard, so when off an additional wall-switch has no effect.

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

@Rivi

For KNX, if you want a manual off, you need to go to the switchboard (or just install an traditional one in the line and make everyone swear to never touch it).

Did you ever experience a KNX installation? What you proposing is just dead wrong!
Every 240v KNX device (in our case a bulb) needs at least a separate phase to the actuator, which is usually in the switchboard. The KNX bus cable runs to the place you would normally place “traditional” switches. The touch/switch sensor there can be programmed and it will send a command on the bus. The actuator now switches/dims/changes colour of the bulb.

Sure, if you cut the 240v in the switchboard or place a “traditional” switch in between, the bulb won’t get power. But that’s … WILD …if installed that way.

[Rivi (Thomas Rivinius)]

Sorry, that’s the sentence I forgot to remove after having written the second para, where it is expressed correctly.

[Rivi (Thomas Rivinius)]

@binderth

switches/dims/changes colour of the bulb.

Since you keep mentioning that: Can you point me to an actor that works with bulbs, and what bulbs? As I wrote, so far I was only aware of color changing actors for LED strips, and I would be really interested if a more versatile KNX implementation existed.

[binderth (Thomas Binder)]

@Rivi

the second para, where it is expressed correctly.

Still makes no sense. The actuator, which gets the OFF command cuts the power just as a “traditional” switch would do. No difference - except you can adress the actuator via the bus and therefore can automate it.