I have a room with 9 RGBW strips and I want to realize the follwing features:
Switch on/off the lights via OH,wall switch (to make it wife compatible) and also by speech with alexa
Dimm the lights
Choose color
and so on (you get the idea)
So here is my question:
What kind of LED controller to use (KNX, DALI, DMX, or whatever)?
My problem is how can I realize that openhab gets the status from alexa or the wall switch what is switched on or not and vise versa. So when I push a button on the wall switch that openhap gets the status that scene 1 is on now for example. Or when switched on by Alexa and of by the the wall switch that openhab also gets the actual status.
Is this possible? What hardware to use? ⌠(I need an idea in general to get on trackâŚ)
PS: I´m very flexible when it comes to wireing, everything is in one control cabinet in the room and close together, so wireless conections are not a problem (wifi, bluetoothâŚ) also LAN DC 5V, 12V, 24V also AC 220V is available.
When you say, âwall switchâ, do you mean replacing an existing light switch in your wall with a wireless switch, which would then control your wired lights and connect to openHAB? Or do you mean mounting a simple wireless button on your wall that only communicates with openHAB for the purpose of triggering your LED lights? (there shouldnât be an issue in either case)
If youâre talking about in-wall light switches, your wireless switch will be regularly polled by OH to check its status. So if you press the switch to turn it on, OH will see that and stay in sync. Conversely, you can turn the switch on using OH or Alexa, which sends a command to the switch. Everything stays in sync.
If youâre talking about mounting a battery-powered button to the wall, then the state of the button doesnât matter. Every time you press it, youâll send a command to OH, which will trigger a rule to turn your LED lights on or off.
I canât help you choose an LED controller, but I donât think youâll have trouble being able to switch the lights in a variety of ways.
In many cases, the devices will report to OH directly instead of requiring OH to poll. In fact, most work in this way.
There is no really good way to answer this except to say âyou can do this with literally any switch that OH supports.â That is the whole point of OH. OH acts as a hub that processes events from supported devices and allows you to write behaviors (i.e. Rules) that tells other integrated devices what to do in response (.e.g button was pressed, turn on lights 1, 2 and 5.)
There is no replacing of any switch, the old ones will stay untouched as a regular switch, so to say as fall back if OH is down for some reasonâŚ
All LED lighting is new and new wireing alsoâŚ
I still have no idea which hardware (LED controller) to use⌠this is very confusing to meâŚ
Those two sentences do not got together (at least in way the I understand). When keeping the old wires and switches in place (ââŚas fall backâŚâ), how are those wires and switches relate to the new LED lighting and wires?
If the old wires/switches are to act as a fall back, switching the switch to OFF would leave any connected device without power, all âsmartâ function gone.
If the new LED lighting/wiring is completely seperated from the old wiring, the old can not act as a back up.
Or�
MDAR
(Stuart Hanlon, UK importer of Velbus hardware)
6
The first major question to ask isâŚ
Will you be able to run all the 5 core cables from the RGBW back to one place, and use something like a 24 channel DMX LED dimmer.
Or, do you want local dimmers next to the LED strip?
Like a 4 channel DMX dimmer, if you want a wired solution.
Youâll need a simple way of getting DMX out of openHAB2, Iâm a big fan of SmartShow lighting products, their NetDMX device would be perfect.
Well, it´s not really a fall back. The LED and the old âlight bulpâ are not related at all. The old light bulp will be normally NOT used at all (location is stupid), maybe I may integrate it later with sonoff or so but this should be no topic here.
So far I understand your answers is, that I use like an EnOcean switch to send command to OH and alexa does the same so OH always knows the status?
Yes all the 5 core cables from every LED-strip running back into one distribution cabinet, I was thinking about to use a 10 channel controller to have 2 sections where are multple LED strips act similar (e.g. section one iluminate in white, section 2 iluminate in some color).
So a controller is absolutely possible.
1 Like
MDAR
(Stuart Hanlon, UK importer of Velbus hardware)
10
You could go wild and use SPi led strip, so that you can address each pixel, but thatâs âprobably TOO muchââŚ
I already have a 10 channel DMX connected via artnet bridge, but I think my problem is that DMX is a pulse signal which has no on/off state�??
MDAR
(Stuart Hanlon, UK importer of Velbus hardware)
12
Hell no !
Each DMX universe has 512 individual channel, each with intensity between 0 & 254
So using Art-NET / sACN encapsulated DMX you can have ~130 RGBW pixels / devices per Universe.
Janâs DMX binding offers OnOffType controls, as well as full colour and intensity.
His chase Thing is really clever.
Unless youâre referring to the actual DMX data stream, in which case, I think youâre correct.
There is always a live data stream (at least at the DMX level), even if itâs repeating 0 values to each channel.
SmartShow SPi adapters concatenate universes into single SPi streams.
But if youâre looking at that many SPi pixels, you should look at an intermediate Pixel mapping software solution, with OH controlling the pixel software.
(Which is what Iâve done in that staircase video)
DMX relay boards are configured to work something like this.
DMX channel value < 128 = Relay OFF
DMX channel value > 128 = Relay ON
I dont´t understand this completely, but so far I understand I can use DMXâŚ, but how does this work with Alexa and a wall switch?
MDAR
(Stuart Hanlon, UK importer of Velbus hardware)
14
openHAB2 is the King Maker
Alexa talks to OH
Wall buttons / switches talk to OH
OH decides what to do, and instructs any output devices. (Like the DMX protocol)
Iâm not an Alexa user (but some of my clients are), I use Google Assistant.
If you add the Tags, âColorâ & âSwitchableâ to a Colorpicker item, you can request colours (by name) and On Off to be sent to OH.
I have a simple rule with a couple of IF statements so thatâŚ
A button is pressed.
IF - nothing is on, create scene 1.
IF - Scene 1 is set (by checking Chase1), create Scene 2
IF - Scene 2 is set (by checking Chase2), create Scene 3
IF - Scene 3 is set (by checking Chase3), Switch everything OFF (by telling a âCatch Allâ single DMX dimmer Item to Switch OFF {DMX channels 1/512})
Iâm glad you got a start on the LED side. For the wall switch, youâll have to install something that can communicate with OH. A standard light switch canât do anything more than turning on/off power to the lights at the other end of the wire, and OH has no way to know whether itâs on or off.
Per my previous comment, I think the easiest solutions are to install a wifi light switch or mount a battery-powered button on the wall that communicates with OH.
@ahe take a look at the Shelly 1 switch, it works out of the box or you can flash a different firmware, and fits easily behind you existing wall switch. Hereâs a link but be aware you do not have to use their cloud service. You can use mqtt and it work well with OH. https://shelly.cloud/shelly1-open-source/
