Smartify a stupid extractor hood

Tutorials & Examples openHAB Stories
1

We have a ceiling integrated extractor hood. Unfortunately it’s stupid, you can’t say “Switch extracted hood on” during cooking.

To make it slightly smart you need the current state of the hood (On or Off), and you need a thing to control the extractor.

For state I’m using a smart switch with integrated power measurment. I need not exact “current”, I just need to distinguish between Quiescent current and Working current. I link a switch to the “current” channel of power measurement using a range profile called rawKitchenhoodSwitch. I’m using debounce binding to stabilize the state (i.e. timeout 10 sec) in item KitchenhoodSwitch. This switch item is also known by Alexa :wink:
I can’t detect percentage of fan speed and state of light.

The extractor hood has a RF-remote. That’s why I need a smart RF-remote switch. I tried Tuya and Broadlink. I succeeded using the second brand, because openHab could learn all RF-codes of the extractor. This is enabled by the binding used to integrate the extractor hood thing.

I can’t distinguish state of hood light. But the light of the extractor is toggled by one RF command. So I gave Alexa a switch to control the light, and a rule in openHab sends the asscociated RF-command whenever the switch item gets a command.

Result:
“Alexa, Kitchenhood ON OFF” OK
“Alexa, Hoodlight ON OFF” OK

Currently I’m controlling Speed of fan by main UI. We don’t need voice command for this.

2

I’ve just put mine on a Shelly. It has no remote control.
Light and speed control are local (you’re standing in front of it anyway when you want to change that, aren’t you).
The most common use actually is to tell Alexa to shut it off because it’s vis-a-vis with our home cinema and the hoodlights are reflected from the TV screen.

3

Our’s is mounted in the ceiling. We would need a stepladder to touch the buttons.
Yes, we are in front of it, but we can’t reach the buttons. We love handsfree operation of the extractor hood.

4

Sure, if controllability is there, why not make use of that and use OH/Alexa to have it handsfree.

Another application is my chimney sweeper insisted on the hood to be off when I light the fireplace unless it’s ensured that we have an open window.
That now I can guarantee with some openHAB rules, too, although we haven’t used the fireplace in a year or so.