Hardware recommendations

[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.