Looking for automation around temperature monitoring

[crw030]

@Frankenscript sorry I missed this originally, but +1 to EasyESP & +1 to NodeRed

I am using 3d printed kits: The Kube OLED Temp/Humidity Multisensor for HA by BK Hobby on Tindie
not the cheapest, but captures temperature and humidity (NODEMCU/ESP8266), and comes with a 3d printed case that passed WAF to have laying around the house plugged in and quietly displaying & recording temp and humidity.

The more recent versions are using EasyESP (instead of custom firmware).
For perspective, "power supply" is basically just a 5V USB charger + cable.

(bunch of) KUBEs ---(IOT wifi/MQTT)--> NodeRed ---> stored to SQL database ---> reported using a tool from work.

EDIT A year of outdoor Temperature and Humidity (garage) -- unfortunately had the Raspberry PI crash on me (memory usually) in Sept and didn't notice, which really sucks because around Sept 6,2020 we experienced a 65F delta in high temperatures in about 36 hour period which would have been dramatic on this chart.

 

[Frankenscript]

Thanks. I had to put this on the back burner for a while but I'm still interested and hope to make progress this winter!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

 

[newfoundlandplucky]

Here is a picture that shows the size differences between a 2.4" touchscreen, a raspberry pi zero, an ESP-01S module with separate programmer, and ESP-WROOM development module. I'm impressed by the ESP-01S module given its very tiny size. For my application I intend to squeeze an IRM-03-3.3 micro power supply along with the sensors into a standard electrical junction box to remotely monitor and control an HZ4152 motion sensing lamp. Hopefully this gives you some ideas for your project.

 

[crw030]

I'm impressed by the ESP-01S module given its very tiny size.

I really love how tiny that module is, but you probably have to go custom firmware/code, because it is listed as not supported on EasyESP wiki (because it doesn't have enough flash I guess).
I might try the ESP-012S or WEMOS D1 MINI next if I make smaller sensors. It looks like the ESP-01S is approximately the size of a US Postage stamp, and the ESP-012S is similar in size, while the WEMOS MINI is about 30% larger in each direction.

Also I found a project on Hackaday, that led me to: wESP32 by Silicognition LLC on Tindie which is an ESP32 (much more GPIO board and more processor than we might need for just temperature and humidity), but this board is POE powered which I thought was a clever twist. Since I looked at this a YEAR ago, it looks like ESPEasy has since come out with a firmware image that supports ESP32 now (ESP_Easy_mega-20200204_test_ESP32_4M316k.bin - something that didn't exist when I first bought the board). However, this would be akin to using a Raspberry PI 4 to take temperature and humidity readings (basically overkill), but I had mainly bought them to try and build a MQTT interface for my BOSCH TriTech detectors.

 

[Frankenscript]

This is all kind of funny to me, using these thrifty tiny computing packages.

I have three full windows 10 systems available for this project, with the likely one being a 2014 era Intel Nuc that is just sitting around and hasn't booted in a year.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

 

[randytsuch]

I really love how tiny that module is, but you probably have to go custom firmware/code, because it is listed as not supported on EasyESP wiki (because it doesn't have enough flash I guess).
I might try the ESP-012S or WEMOS D1 MINI next if I make smaller sensors. It looks like the ESP-01S is approximately the size of a US Postage stamp, and the ESP-012S is similar in size, while the WEMOS MINI is about 30% larger in each direction.

I have a few clone D1 mini's that appear to use the 12S module, with additional parts to convert 5V to 3.3V for power.

One thing I like about the D1 mini is that you can use a little 5V USB power adapter to power it, and I have a bunch of those lying around.
Its larger, but also easier to work with since it has through hole pins.
Still small enough to fit in a little case.

Here's a recent project, with some pics of it inside its case.
It is installed under the kitchen sink, where I've had occasional leaks.

One other suggestion, I have a ping based binary sensor set up for all of my ESP's in Home Assistant.
You could do it in Node Red too.
So if one of my ESP's crashes, there is a fair chance that it won't ping, and I get notified by HA. So I know I need to go reset that ESP, which fixes the problem.
I might get more sophisticated at checking the ESPs at some point, and monitor MQTT messages, to see if any ESP stops sending MQTT traffic. Would be an even better indicator than pings.

Randy

 

[newfoundlandplucky]

I really love how tiny that module is, but you probably have to go custom firmware/code, because it is listed as not supported on EasyESP wiki (because it doesn't have enough flash I guess).

Right now I'm testing with esplink. It is running MQTT, a WiFi to UART bridge, a web server, OTA flash update, WiFi AP, and a web based logging application. It uses only half of the available 1M flash. Configuration is over the air from my phone. It acts like an open WiFi AP by default when first powered up. I laughed the first time I connected to the management web page. It didn't seem possible this tiny thing is doing all this stuff.

I believe tasmota works on this device too if you don't want to build custom firmware. Don't know about EasyESP so I may be missing out.

 

[crw030]

I believe tasmota works on this device too if you don't want to build custom firmware. Don't know about EasyESP so I may be missing out.

I definitely want to investigate Tasmota, because a bunch of the cheap power outlets etc can be flashed with Tasmota to enable MQTT messaging. I definitely don't need anymore incomplete projects, but of interest to me is the possibility to solve a similar problem as @Holbs where if someone is in my backyard, garage or milling around the front of the house in the middle of the night have the alarm turn on a light or something. Too many partially complete projects!

I haven't personally forgotten to close the garage door, but if I did I'd like to get some type of notification as I've been seeing people getting tons of stuff stolen out of their garages because they accidentally left the door up (or maybe the thieves are somehow broadcasting to open doors nowadays).

 

[newfoundlandplucky]

So if one of my ESP's crashes, there is a fair chance that it won't ping, and I get notified by HA. So I know I need to go reset that ESP, which fixes the problem.
I might get more sophisticated at checking the ESPs at some point, and monitor MQTT messages, to see if any ESP stops sending MQTT traffic. Would be an even better indicator than pings.

Have been tweaking a remote WiFi monitoring system for a couple of years to get my system near 100% reliable. Garage sensors are 30' from the house and lose network connection every once in a while. Not a big deal because the garage system is self contained and I only drop web page updates during that period. Ping testing shows I lose up to five consecutive pings at a 30s test interval.

Will evaluate a parallel ESP-01S tasmota and MQTT system this winter to see how well these systems perform in my environment. I am skeptical but hopeful.

... but of interest to me is the possibility to solve a similar problem as @Holbs where if someone is in my backyard, garage or milling around the front of the house in the middle of the night have the alarm turn on a light or something.

Me too for exactly the same reason. Been following @Holbs story. Am using modified HZ4152 motion sensing lamps that record events and alert me when motion is detected.

 

[randytsuch]

Home assistant has a built in ping sensor test

Ping (ICMP)

Instructions on how to integrate Ping (ICMP)-based into Home Assistant.

www.home-assistant.io

I think I set it to a 2 hour test interval, and use it to make sure ESP's and other Pi's are running. I have seen ping pass, but other things not work though, so not perfect, but better than nothing, and since I had HA running already, really simple to implement.

For my more critical ESPs that control sprinklers and the pool I think I'll see how to do a simple MQTT loopback test to get more confidence they are working.

I did have an ESP fail a few weeks ago, and since it was catastrophic, the ping test caught the problem and let me know.

Randy

 

[Holbs]

I definitely want to investigate Tasmota, because a bunch of the cheap power outlets etc can be flashed with Tasmota to enable MQTT messaging. I definitely don't need anymore incomplete projects, but of interest to me is the possibility to solve a similar problem as @Holbs where if someone is in my backyard, garage or milling around the front of the house in the middle of the night have the alarm turn on a light or something. Too many partially complete projects!

I haven't personally forgotten to close the garage door, but if I did I'd like to get some type of notification as I've been seeing people getting tons of stuff stolen out of their garages because they accidentally left the door up (or maybe the thieves are somehow broadcasting to open doors nowadays).

Really simple if you have Home Assistant or Home Seer. Z-wave or WiFi light switch in bedroom (or any room...or all rooms) with automation to toggle on/off every second for 10 cycles upon outdoor motion from either Blue Iris & related cameras (I am getting into Deepstack AI with OnGuard that really helps weed out false alarms) or an actual outdoor motion detector (I prefer Bosch Tritech Gen2 with pet immunity).
My outdoor lamp post, porch light, 2 garage carriage lights are on the same A/C light circuit connected to a GE Z-wave light switch. My 4 outdoor 110v A/C security lights with motion detectors are on their own circuit, not even smart. Gotta have a primary/secondary method of security.

 

[newfoundlandplucky]

I just received a pair of nRF24L01+PA+LNA radio modules and will compare to existing Nighthawk R7000 running DD-WRT in repeater bridge mode. It has been running for a month without permanent failure. DD-WRT recovers from WiFi connection failure but the microcontroller drops ping and HTTP web page updates. No data is lost but it would be nice to do better.

 

[DLONG2]

HomeSeer sells a multisensor including temperature.