nayr's home automation build out...

[vincenttor]

Yes , its one of those hobbies that you can have and spend allot or let's say all your money on/in
I am busy with building my home for months now, biggest problem is time in my case , this morning i made a new appointment for 3 weeks work.
That's a good thing but , i have to live in Hotels and that happens allot in my business.
Again you would think, why not let someone do this for you, but that's indeed like you described : I coulda paid someone to do that for a small fortune.
This is not really what i had in mind since haha same reason you said earlier that the more money you save the nicer things you can buy

I also have a problem with Wifi already in my home since the building is fully concrete, walls.floors , everything, and then my garage has metal plating and some sort of aluminum foil as isolation between walls.
This keeps the signals away :S
I can "borrow" my neighbor there wifi signal but there house is the same as mine so haha most chance i have now is to put the accespoint at the wooden front door to receive anything
Using wireless stuff without repeaters would be big trouble in my case.

Anyway you know clearly what you are doing and what you want no doubt about that.

 

[nayr]

yeah no shit, if I built my house from ground up it'd take me an order of magnitude longer to plan the thing than build it, simply because id want to shove so many miles of wires in the walls it would be freaking assanine.. lol lets see I'll take some star trek sliding doors with secure keyless entry on everything, oah and i need speakers/microphones all over to talk to hal, and enough motion sensor density I can tell what direction people are going and figure out what there planing on doing before they get there.

I am in in old split level from the 60's with brick facade, I looked for this layout because I found it had a large corridor between the attic and basement in the middle of the split to get all the plumming/hvac/electrical/etc up and down.. this makes pulling cables around floors easier than it would normally be. You should see the wiring entrance to my server room, I thought a 4inch conduit would be more than big enough, I was wrong, its been getting harder and harder to push new cables through... heh

 

[vincenttor]

Haha, i know what you mean with the wiring
I thought the hole i made in the concrete (which was a terrible job as hard and thick that is is) was big enough.
Guess again haha.

Been busy after work , thinking what where how what cable i wanted.
Roughly estimation of cable length is at the moment 4.5 KM ( 2.79mi)
And now i am still adding cables that i did forgot and change in plans etc etc.

Luckily i bought all the cables from a ebay like website,
if bought at the store at new prices i would have been broke by now:sad2:

 

[bp2008]

I coulda paid someone to do that for a small fortune; or gone with hue bulbs or some junk that woulda worked poorly with the existing switch.

I don't understand the appeal of HUE and other "smart bulbs". Traditional light circuits are wired such that the bulb receives no power unless the switch is in the ON position. So obviously if you want to remote control a "smart bulb", you have to leave the switch permanently in the ON position and always use an app to turn the lights on and off. Kind of makes "smart bulb" a misnomer. More like "annoying-as-fuck bulb". Am I missing something?

Many of my sensors and outputs are hardwired, but there are instances where wireless is the best way.. Light Dimmers for example, the Z-Wave ones are extremely user friendly and cheap..

Do you have any particular brand/dimmer recommendation for Z-wave dimmers? I've been using Evolve dimmers but they are slow. They don't simply turn on and off, they slowly brighten to full and dim to black. Using dimmable LED bulbs makes it worse because at the dim settings they take a moment to light up. If I walk into a room and turn the light on, I might be at the other end of the room by the time I can see.

 

[nayr]

hrmm, dig in your zwave configs.. on many of my dimmers the ramp time is configurable, but Ive found the new style CREE bulbs without the big heatsink dim from 0-100 just fine.

I like these ones the most: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PYMGS3C
adjustable ramp rate, you can hold down when its off for a few moments and it'll go to 1%, and with those new CREE bulbs thats like a nightlight.

I have a linear in my living room with some four recessed can LED's, they cant dim to 0 but close.. the problem is they can dim lower than its needed to fire them back up, so if you put room real low then turn it off the button dont seem to do anything unless you hold it to brighten..

ramp in my bedroom is real slow so the lights come on alot more gradually without blasting my retinas out

I am looking at this switch, its expensive but this is my primary switch in living room and I'd like it to controll the dining room light also: http://www.amazon.com/Leviton-VRE06-1LZ-Electronic-Voltage-Capable/dp/B001HT4M3E

This one supports a default starting value and a minimum % value, so I can set it to say 50% every time it turns on which would be great because my living room lights @ 100% are bright as hell.. only really use it that high for boardgames, photos, etc.. then if lights are dimmed so low they have problems turning back on it wont be a problem

unfortunately you can see the cost of that switch, eek.

 

[bp2008]

hrmm, dig in your zwave configs.. on many of my dimmers the ramp time is configurable, but Ive found the new style CREE bulbs without the big heatsink dim from 0-100 just fine.

I like these ones the most: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00PYMGS3C
adjustable ramp rate, you can hold down when its off for a few moments and it'll go to 1%, and with those new CREE bulbs thats like a nightlight.

I have a linear in my living room with some four recessed can LED's, they cant dim to 0 but close.. the problem is they can dim lower than its needed to fire them back up, so if you put room real low then turn it off the button dont seem to do anything unless you hold it to brighten..

ramp in my bedroom is real slow so the lights come on alot more gradually without blasting my retinas out

I am looking at this switch, its expensive but this is my primary switch in living room and I'd like it to controll the dining room light also: http://www.amazon.com/Leviton-VRE06-1LZ-Electronic-Voltage-Capable/dp/B001HT4M3E

This one supports a default starting value and a minimum % value, so I can set it to say 50% every time it turns on which would be great because my living room lights @ 100% are bright as hell.. only really use it that high for boardgames, photos, etc.. then if lights are dimmed so low they have problems turning back on it wont be a problem

unfortunately you can see the cost of that switch, eek.

Hmm. Thanks. I used Evolve LRM-AS which is a decora style, and ramping up/down is slow. About 3 seconds from 100% to off, and likewise turning on to full brightness. These do not have an adjustable ramp rate. Unfortunately I have 5 of them installed and one more still in the box. Should have gone with GE but I liked the decora style better when I bought these two years ago.

 

[nayr]

that GE one I just put in my mudroom, along with a an Enterwave dual relay.. the relay is hooked up to a single physical switch but two separate runs of security lighting outside. (front door and the rest)

group associated the GE switch and Enterwave relay with a zwave contact on the front door, garage door, doorbell and mailbox; when the contacts are triggered both inside and outside lights flick on in the blink of an eye.. the fade rate indoors is pretty much nonexistant with this triggering, i think its instant-on.. If your inside you think the porch light was on before you opened the door and if your outside you think the mudroom light was on before you opened the door, its that quick.

I went with the old style switches in the mudroom cause I wanted to keep my Vitruvian man plate cover by the door that ive had since my first apartment.

 

[badmop]

Awesome work, I'd like to do somethings myself like this

 

[nayr]

Finished up my Home Theatre Controller project, this combines several tools to make use of the Home Theatre system easier.. No more IR universal remote that does only Power/Input Changes and Volume.

Uses a USB PowerMate to control Volume/Power/Lights/Primary Input change.

the cable goes between the cushion straight up behind the sofa, there it attaches to a mono-price extension cable that snakes past a heater register I modified to duct under the sofa.. then it shoots across the basement joists into my server room and into a powered hub for the CuBox. I could add more if I wanted a volume knob on the dinner table.. and I likely will.


Domoticz UI For Remote Web control:

Hardware:

• Pioneer SC-1222-K AVR
• Sharp Aquos LC-C3242U TV
• Griffin PowerMate NA16029 USB Volume Knob

PowerMate Functions:

• Left/Right = Vol Down/Vol Up
• Quick tap = Mute toggle
• Double tap = Change to Nexus Input, power on if needed.
• Long hold = Power off
• Down and Left = Dim Living Room Lights.
• Down and Right = Brighten Living Room Lights.
• LED Pulse on Power/Input change, On/Off with TV & AVR, Brightness indicates volume level.

And then on my Nexus Player I wrote a custom AndroidTV Application that gives the simple little remote the functionality that I require.. The PlayStations turn on automatically when input is changed thanks to HDMI CEC, and then simply double tap the PowerMate to go back to the Nexus when the gaming session is done.

And of course all the code is available @ https://github.com/nayrnet/domoticz-htc & https://github.com/nayrnet/androidtv-osd-remote
The Home Theatre Controller is 1200 lines of clean beautiful Node JavaScript, that can be easily adopted for your own use.. presuming you have at least a Pioneer AVR.

I am a cord cutter, I use Plex to distribute video throughout the house, each TV has a Nexus Player with wired ethernet, and my 24TB FreeNAS has Sonarr.tv automatically grabbing TV shows off the internet and sorting them correctly.. I have a HDHomeRun with an AndroidTV app for the few times we watch OTA broadcasts live (Sports, News, etc) without digging out the old TV remote.

Another great feature of this is my AVR does not have an OSD display, but my TV does.. and since its never gets an audio source I Hijacked the TV's OSD.. now when you mute receiver the TV mutes so the icon appears.. when you adjust volume it syncs it with the tv's volume and a slider display pops up to give you feedback.. everything stays in perfect sync so now effectively the TV's native OSD is being used for the AVR.. awesome!

Personally I find having a small simple remote with minimal buttons the best way to go, I would rather use an OSD menu to select options rarely accessed then have a giant remote that 90% of the buttons have never been used before.. really awesome when your toddler changes something you have no idea how to correct without resetting everything to factory default.. Nexus Player is locked down to restricted profile, pin codes are on all the playstation logins.. and any other configuration/settings require an OEM remote thats hidden on the bookshelf.. so its pretty much bulletproof.

Everything reacts instantly.. no latency at all.. even the light control which is ZWave, totally unexpected.. its so darned fast I think the OEM IR remote would struggle to keep up with my controller.

The Pioneer AVR and Nexus Player are in my basement server room, over the holidays I converted the cabinet in our living room book shelf into a media cabinet.. its totally discrete and there is no visible hardware in my living room.. 2 HDMI ports, 3 Ethernet Ports, 6 Swivel Power Ports, and a cable passthrough on the left for future use, and a weather radio behind the chargers.. the fans are speed controlled, you can almost see the temp probe taped to the roof above the HDMI outlets.. the PlayStations run cooler and quieter than they ever did just sitting on the bookshelf... lots of airflow. There are child locks on this cabinet that require a high powered magnet to key open.

Man that flash made it obvious I did a poor job cleaning up sheetrock dust.

 

[vincenttor]

nice
Love it when you do not see any equipment.
And great job, wish i could write code like this.
It's one of the things i discovered that comes in handy with a hobby like this !
i especially like how you used the tv osd

I got nothing in sight as well when im done, even the TV is hidden behind a mirror/painting haha.
Keep on posting, always gives good ideas how to do something when your busy yourself.

 

[nayr]

excellent point, yeah coding is large in part of it.. if you cant handle machine logic then your not going to see much of benefit from hooking a bunch of wires together.

thats why I post all my code up, its fun when you get an email asking for help with a program you forgot you wrote a decade ago, and amazing someone still finds it usefull.. I suspect a few lines of code Ive crafted will long outlive me.

I don’t even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, red-head. Hey, you uh… want a drink?

I want to redo my fireplace and hide the TV behind an actuating picture, but I also want a mega sized TV.. sooo we'll see, new UHD TV's with razor thin bezels and the ability to display a static photo at low power when not in use may just retire that idea.

 

[nayr]

More fun with Domoticz, so they implemented a new switch recently called a selector switch, lets me have one switch with a drop down of selections.

Well this is exactly what I've been needing for my PTZ Tracking via Presets, I now have the following hardware:

here's how I setup the selector switch:

You'll also notice I have a switch called West PTZ Car Location, this button updates the preset for my cars location.. I use SmartPSS to re-center the PTZ on my car and click that button and its saved, nice for changing the preset quickly when I have a trailer hooked up or someone else parked my car and its not in its usual spot.

I have it configured so anytime a preset is changed it emails me a photo so I can have a nice email log of event times stores offsite, all PTZ commands are going through these switches now so my automation system is always aware of the current location of the PTZ, idle timeout is now implemented via home automation system and internal timeout is disabled.

One really nice feature is better logic on my PTZ tracking and preset, for example I now have this simple script:
https://github.com/nayrnet/domoticz-scripts/blob/master/lua/script_time_ipc.lua

That script changes my idle preset at sunset to zoom in at my car, since everyone fucking with my car has done so at night.. but when its light out the preset is a more zoomed out view of the front yard cause I'd like to get activity on the sidewalks, street.. being zoomed in nice and tight on my car durring the day dont make much sense like it does at night.

Since my home automation system is also aware of my presence it is also aware if my car is parked out front or not, so now even at night if I am not at home the PTZ wont bother zooming in on a small section off asphalt.

I also setup Automator on OSX to assign hotkeys F9-F12 in every application to send cameras to specific presets through domoticz, so with SmartPSS on its own dedicated monitor and full screened I can still respond to events I see on camera with lightning fast reflexes.

Since I finally found a native OSX Dahua Smart Player my little server running Domoticz is working pretty functional as a NVR, Domoticz can only do jpeg snapshots but with it I have timestamps for events and can quickly pull up all my cameras footage directly off a network share.. they record 24/7 but I looked into how hard it would be to have domoticz trigger recordings to be saved to FTP and it was really simple, so if I wanted to do sensor based recording with FTP storage it'd be a piece of cake.

I plugged some USB Speakers into the extension cable carrying my PowerMate Volume Knob, hid them behind the couch and setup a bunch of pre-recorded messages to play on specific events.. so now we get voice announcements for when the Mail has arrived or the laundry/dishes are done.. my wife wants me to make the house sound like Marvin from Hitchikers movie, if only it was that easy.. the guy is dead so I cant even hire him for voice acting if I could afford him Anyone got a friend that is really damn good at impersonations? hehe

Ryan Renolds is whoring out deadpool so much I wonder if I could hit him up on twitter for some home automation announcements, deadpool style

Ah automation is so much fun.

 

[Kawboy12R]

my wife wants me to make the house sound like Marvin from Hitchikers movie

Now THAT would be something...

 

[nayr]

Thanks to my PTZ I got some hardware porn:

Polk Atrium 4 Outdoor Speakers, Just put them up today, didn't realize they'd take banana plugs so the wiring is waiting on a set of those to arrive.. this was kinda an impulse buy, now is the time of year to get your self some outdoor speakers.. I priced these last summer and manufacturer refurbs were going for twice what I paid for these.. $55/shipped.

since Domoticz has full control over these speakers (power/input/volume), I can run an Optical cable from my CuBox to the Receiver and make the automation system play any sound I want out these suckers.. I think im going to set me up a button tha'll play a police "whop whop" recording at max volume out these babies, those damn bastards trying to break into my car are going to need some new underwear after coming by my house.. yeah its in the back yard but tha'll just make it harder for them to tell where its originating from. If I am not happy with the results I guess I'll just have to get some outdoor speakers for the Garage's Zone

 

[surveillanceone]

You'll also notice I have a switch called West PTZ Car Location, this button updates the preset for my cars location.. I use SmartPSS to re-center the PTZ on my car and click that button and its saved, nice for changing the preset quickly when I have a trailer hooked up or someone else parked my car and its not in its usual spot.

I have it configured so anytime a preset is changed it emails me a photo so I can have a nice email log of event times stores offsite, all PTZ commands are going through these switches now so my automation system is always aware of the current location of the PTZ, idle timeout is now implemented via home automation system and internal timeout is disabled.

One really nice feature is better logic on my PTZ tracking and preset, for example I now have this simple script:
https://github.com/nayrnet/domoticz-scripts/blob/master/lua/script_time_ipc.lua

That script changes my idle preset at sunset to zoom in at my car, since everyone fucking with my car has done so at night.. but when its light out the preset is a more zoomed out view of the front yard cause I'd like to get activity on the sidewalks, street.. being zoomed in nice and tight on my car durring the day dont make much sense like it does at night.

Since my home automation system is also aware of my presence it is also aware if my car is parked out front or not, so now even at night if I am not at home the PTZ wont bother zooming in on a small section off asphalt.

I also setup Automator on OSX to assign hotkeys F9-F12 in every application to send cameras to specific presets through domoticz, so with SmartPSS on its own dedicated monitor and full screened I can still respond to events I see on camera with lightning fast reflexes.

Since I finally found a native OSX Dahua Smart Player my little server running Domoticz is working pretty functional as a NVR, Domoticz can only do jpeg snapshots but with it I have timestamps for events and can quickly pull up all my cameras footage directly off a network share.. they record 24/7 but I looked into how hard it would be to have domoticz trigger recordings to be saved to FTP and it was really simple, so if I wanted to do sensor based recording with FTP storage it'd be a piece of cake.

I plugged some USB Speakers into the extension cable carrying my PowerMate Volume Knob, hid them behind the couch and setup a bunch of pre-recorded messages to play on specific events.. so now we get voice announcements for when the Mail has arrived or the laundry/dishes are done.. my wife wants me to make the house sound like Marvin from Hitchikers movie, if only it was that easy.. the guy is dead so I cant even hire him for voice acting if I could afford him Anyone got a friend that is really damn good at impersonations? hehe

Ryan Renolds is whoring out deadpool so much I wonder if I could hit him up on twitter for some home automation announcements, deadpool style

Ah automation is so much fun.

This is awesome and a great way to take full advantage of the PTZ camera. I've implemented similar customer smarts for people so they don't have to understand how the PTZ camera works. They just sit back and look at it and the camera looks at what it's supposed to based on time, day, and other possible events, the way it should be.

Great work!

 

[vincenttor]

Haha i guess the neighbors will love your new toys
And nice job indeed for the ptz controls !

 

[nayr]

im sure they will, since now I wont have all the windows open and the home stereo cranked to 12 when out working in the yard..

at least with these out back and everything at a more sane volume people walking by out front wont be forced to jam to my tunes...

all my neighbors are pretty awesome folks, I got lucky with that as its not the norm anymore.. BoyScout and PTA family on one side, Big Catholic Family on the other, The family behind me has been in the neighborhood generations and knows everyone, and out front is a retired detective.. all with kids.

Many of them seem to be in a competition to see whom can wake up the earliest and clear everyone's sidewalks of snow.. damn bastards and there snowblowers haha

 

[nayr]

So with some CodeFu today I managed to integrate all my IPCameras into Domoticz.. each IPCamera's Video Motion Detection is now a Motion Sensor in Domoticz, also have tamper devices for if video goes blank.

There are 2 alarm inputs on my big blackface Dahua, one has a Motion Sensor and the other has a Dry Contact, and those 2 devices are now also known to Domoticz.

Pretty freaking awesome, now a camera can detect motion and turn on a light in response.. and I can get notified when the Gate is opened, etc.

 

[SquareEyes]

What an awesome thread!

Plenty of great reasons for delving into my toy box for new projects. Got plenty of the BB Blacks to play with. So much more elegant than arduino solutions I have been using.

Next project (added to the list) is to interface some dual PIR Microwave sensors to turn on my open sprinkler when local stray dogs come wandering at night to piss on my lawn.

Hmm then there is always another planted tank to start, a Stratum 1 NTP server and getting that old PEET Brothers weather station online so this island has an online rain gauge.

Inspirational!

Thanks.

 

[nayr]

sounds like we were cut from the same cloth, did I mention my Stratum 1 NTP server here? or are u just that good?

one of the things i love most about the beagles is they have a battery charging circuit on em, just solder a connector to the board, plug in a $10 lipo battery and wam.. its got an internal UPS that will keep it running all day long... high on my coding project list is to code a generic GPIO module for Domoticz/MQTT and BeagleBone, but I need to get a few more patches done on Domoticz before tha'll be possible.

I think I have one arduino left that is actually in service, and thats providing PID control for my Infrared Reflow Soldering oven

Ive also need to write an OpenSprinkler module for Domoticz before April and I have to turn the irrigation system back on.

General Status Update, integrating the IPCameras through my Home Automation logic has been a stunning success, here is a big chunk of my ipcamera logic:
https://github.com/nayrnet/domoticz-scripts/blob/master/lua/script_device_ipcameras.lua

If that code means nothing to you, the thing to take from it is my system knows if its excessively Windy or Raining/Snowing outside, ie weather that makes Video Motion detection unreliable and stops issuing commands based off those events until the conditions improve... plus a bunch of better logic that was never obtainable through native interfaces.

Example spelled out in english: if its nighttime and the back patio light has been shut off for more than 10mins, turn the back patio light on only if its not Windy, Not Raining when Motion is detected on the back Patio camera otherwise simply log the activity and dont perform any actions.