Recommendations on everything from the ground up - hardware devices?

[rlkoshak (Rich Koshak)]

@defaultuser

For the standard stuff, I’d like to have a system that can know when individuals are home so their areas of the house can be environmentally set for them. A geofence would be ideal for that. I’m thinking the door lock with codes may handle who comes in, and perhaps RFID chips on our phones or something. I really don’t care about home security, but am not opposed to putting cameras or motion sensors around to make my life easier if that was an issue. I’d like the door lock to notify me when someone enters.

Look into FIND, reelyActive, and any of the many many presence detection postings on this forum. Unfortunately this is one area that is hard in home automation.

Most of us end up using a combination of sensors and events to determine if someone is home. I think most of us have been unhappy with geofencing because the updates don’t happen frequently enough to be timely (e.g. doesn’t report you are home until several minutes after you get home.

@defaultuser

For lighting, I’d like a combination of color changing bulbs and white dimmable ones. I have a bunch of ceiling fans and would like to automate them too, which I think I got a solution for. Based on what I’ve read, zwave is the way to go, but I’m totally open to any and all advice.

Consider usability here. An important requirement for me is I shall be able to turn on and off the lights manually even when OH is down. That one requirement eliminates a whole host of options. But it also ensures that in failure cases or when I have guests my house is still intuitively usable. Consider the failure cases.

@defaultuser

For my entertainment system, I have ROKU, and I like it, although if I could get OpenHAB or another thing to coordinate so I can turn on Pandora or access my music library of a connected computer or phone that would be awesome, but that may be a bit advanced for me.

A binding was started but I don’t think it was ever finished. But the API is pretty straight forward and there are several examples for controlling Rokus through OH Rules.

• Roku API Example
• Roku Support

@defaultuser

I’d also like a thermostat that I can turn on the A/C and vent separately.

Ecobees are popular as are Nest and Zwave.

@defaultuser

Lastly, my router is 2.4Ghz and is the one I got from my provider. I am not opposed to getting a different one if it will help reduce issues in the future.

Hard to say. It depends on what technologies you want to run. Stuff like Zwave and Zigbee don’t use WiFi.

Honestly, such open ended questions are really hard to answer. Everyone’s home automation is bespoke. Everyone has different requirements, tolerances, and limitations. So without going way deep down into your specific requirements all we can really offer is “this worked for me”.

My recommendation would be to start small. Find a pain point and solve it, learn from that and expand. Don’t feel you need to standardize on any technologies to start. You will learn as you go and probably end up with a bunch of different types of technologies. That is one of the main purposes of OH.

It’s hard to go wrong with Zwave. If cost is a concern, Sonoff is pretty popular. I’m really liking what I see with the Shelly 2 (they seem to really get this problem space).

@defaultuser

If you have any advice on what to buy, where to buy, what not to buy, or any personal experience to share whatsoever, I will appreciate it. I am in Florida, USA and if you are too, I’ll take you out for a beer and pick your brain.

U.S. Meetups for openHAB

Colorado Springs Meet face to face fellow OH users and makers. I can reach out to the local makerspace. CO has a pretty vibrant maker community and I’ve not managed to make it to even the Denver Maker Faire yet, shame on me. Now that my son is getting older I want to get him involved in this sort of stuff so have started to look. Not that I know of but can ask around. +1 for Denver

@defaultuser

We have our smartphones around at all times and we can use those.

Consider usability, particularly usability for guests. If you have to grab your phone, open the app, browse to the lights control and tap the button to turn on the light I’d call that a home automation failure. Either the light should just know to turn on based on events, or turning it on should take no more steps then flipping the wall switch. Home automation is supposed to make your life easier.

@defaultuser

I really want to make a doorbell that can play audio files of my choosing because its an inside joke in my family. I was thinking just make that come out of the soundbar or whatever…

This is a project I’m researching right now. I ran across this tutorial: https://www.instructables.com/id/MQTT-DoorBell-Using-ESP01/. I’m going to probably adapt it to use a NodeMCU since I have some of those on hand. The biggest problem to solve is converting from the 16V in the doorbell to 5v or 3.5v needed by the microcontroller. Eventually I plan on getting a 3D printer or CNC machine and at that time I’ll probably build my own Ring (note, Ring is not currently supported by OH as far as I’m aware).

Good luck!