hello, form argentina…
iam bulding my new house from scratch.
going to use openhab on a very high level. lights, garden, a/c, dimmers, audio, video, everything
there are many rooms each one with a mqtt arduino to control lights temp and other things.
i dont want any esential automation using wireless, iam putting utp cable all over the place.
using a j1800 server that iam testing stability of openhab “like 100 mqqt msgs per second” running with no problems for months. huge logs,
for audio openhab with mpd.
security zoneminder.
mqtt broker run on a tplink router, so if i have to switch server dont have to change any ip on the arduinos.
server j1800 itx server with 128gb ssd 4gb only one fan on the power supply. using elastix distribution. “going to have some telephony”… 0.5% of cpu…
will use an exclusive power for all the domotics.
arduino are standard mega with wiznet network.
i have to close the ceilings in some weeks so if you have some ideas or tips iam open to suggestions.
Everything you mention are things you can control.
Have you considered items you may want to monitor?
Some examples are temperature of rooms, attic, garage, the key components of the HVAC system.
Often compressors and fans will start to run hotter as they approach failure.
Depending upon the size of the house you may have a multi-zone HVAC or you could add automated dampers for the heating/cooling vents so you can allow the unoccupied rooms to be cooler/warmer that the occupied rooms.
Of course this begs the question what thermostat will you use?
Good luck with your large project!
Tom
hi tom.
yes each hvac will have an arduino. the idea is to control them using IR still have to hack the remotes and all that. but i leave the cables for future insalation.
for room control dht ones.
for specific measure maybe Ds18b20 or lm35.
the temperature is the least of the stages since the lights and other things are first.
iam using surray systems that dont have any frendly data port. maybe a serial or rs485 dont know
You should check out some of the videos by Jonathan Oxer (Superhouse TV) as he has done a lot of the things that you are talking about. Notably, he designed (and sells) a modified Arduino which has PoE capable Ethernet (it’s called the EtherTen). Using PoE (Power Over Ethernet) would enable you to power all your wired devices as well which is a huge deal for a number of reasons. 1) central power backup 2) use GOOD power supplies 3) do not need receptacles to plug in AC/DC power adapters at each unit 4) can centrally control and program power supply
Using PoE does provide other challenges however, as your switches are more expensive, generate more heat and noise, and you will likely want to have backups in case of hardware failure. Depending on your network architecture, you may also want to consider making the backbone redundant like with STP (Spanning Tree Protocol, or its many better, newer variants). This way, a switch failure for one floor would still allow your other floors to work fine. A telecom closet on each floor, centrally located is likely very important as you will have a lot to UTP and need to manage the cable runs over time and install equipment, power, etc.
I would suggest that you do not run any automation on your Elastix box. I have gone through a lot of pain, suffering, (and learning) over the years because of things that conflict with one another. Try to abstract your server components as much as possible. You will run into unplanned things like upgrading something that is no longer compatible with one software, but is required for another. To do this, I’d suggest using virtualization. I use XenServer on a small but very powerfull server (with only one fan) upon which I can easily run 10-20 virtual machines (Linux) and 1-2 Windows environments. Setting this up with dual or quad NICs and redundant swtiches would provide a very scalable and reliable way to support your software environments. This way, you install Elastix, an OpenHAB VM, MySql, even OpenStack if you wish. You do periodic backups; and even if you have a telephony server problem, your home automation will still work normally. When you need help with something, the moment that it is not a basic install and you’ve got other software running on it, it is much more difficult to support and debug.
Virtualization is really, really awesome. Containers are something else very interesting (Docker), but less supported.
hi greg… thanks for the time on the advices. some i have in mind.
never use xenserver i will do some research…
i have a serv er runing openhab for many months on the elastix server. not a glitch… idont have any plans on do an upgrade of the server.
about the power supply there will be an ups line for all the network and esentials plus some things like the fridge and some lights.
i have some very realiable old 3com 100mb switches for the arduinos and other will be ok.
my big consern is the server uptime. but openhab uses java and can be deploy in seconds from a backup…
Fernando
No problem.
You would likely not need the full XenServer… the underlying Xen technology would likely be largely sufficient for a single server. XenServer has a lot of cool features that I like however.
Have you run zoneminder on this server before? I have a decently large zoneminder setup, and while I love zm occasionally the apple cart will tip over (usually due to me screwing around) and it’ll start seriously thrashing the CPU. (Usual cause is zm_audit losing its mind.)
hehe yes zm is crazy. i use it from the early versions. i used to help with the project and made the es_ar translation.
about the virtualization looks very interesting.
Hola Fernando! Did you get it work you project? I’m planning to do the same for my new home, please let me know how can I reach you, I’m in buenos aires.
abrazo!