Private home installation schematic

Hardware Home Automation
1

Hi everyone,

I’m farely new to the world of openHAB and home automation. I am also not a native english speaker so please forgive me some spealing mistakes here and there :slight_smile:

At the moment I’m planning to use a Raspberry Pi in conjunction with openHAB as a future home automation system. One big requieremt is to be able to control basic feature of the house, such as lights or roller blinds, even without a working a automation system.

I want the systems to work side by side (automation <—> standard installation) but why do I plan it in this way ?

  • Easy maintenance for people that are not into the world of openHAB (“normal” electrican).
  • Don’t lose control of the house in case of a broken automation system.
  • Don’t want to commmit to any expensive BUS (e.g. KNX) system at which each actor or sensor cost 5 times as much as standard “stupid” control costs.

Unfortuanetly I just realized that I can’t upload a file since I’m a new user, thus I try to explain the setup as detailed as possible based on a single room setup with a single consumer.

  1. Room setup:
    Standard latching switch for house installation.

  2. RaspberryPi:
    openHAB server placed in the switchboard with GPIO.Bindings ( 1 x Output, 1 x Input).

  3. Flip-Flop PCB:

  • Self designed PCB at which a state controlled bistable D-Flip-Flop is mounted. PCB also placed in the switching board.
  • At the set input of the Flip-Flop, the output of the latching switch from the room is connected parallel to the GPIO output of the Raspi.
  • Output of the Flip-Flop is then connected to the input of the Raspi, such that the current state can be monitored.
  1. Solid state relay:
  • The control input is connected to the output of the Flip-Flop PCB.
  • The output directly drives the lamp in the room connected to 230V (AC) powerline.

I hope you get the basic idea?!

If possible, I’ll upload a scheme as soon as possible. So at that point I justed wanted to get any feedback from the community about this setup. All kind of comments are welcome and appreciated :slight_smile:

Thanks
David

2

Dear David,

Centralizing everything in one panel is feasible when the number of circuits/cables is not very big. I would go for a more decentralized approach, with power and communications as two separate and noninterference lines.
Having a manual system connected in parallel to the GPIO outputs is not a very good idea (you waste a valuable input on current detection which you could freely program for different scenarios), I would in turn suggest using 2/3 positions selectors in the panel, to redirect your button from the GPIO input to the relay coil of your GPIO output in case the raspberry pi fails to work.

Best regards,

George

3

Thanks George for your comment. That is a good idea… I’ll continue planning the installation scheme since the are many aspect of the home automation that i didn’t cover yet. I’ll upload a sketch as soon as possible!