Creating A Smart Home To Save Energy/Money (With A Bit Of Home Assistant)
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- čas přidán 9. 02. 2023
- I like saving energy, it saves me money. I also like tech, so using tech to save energy/money is like a red flag to a bull!
Website: www.ev-man.co.uk
Twitter: / evmanuk
Octopus Referral: share.octopus.energy/ore-cobr...
#smarthomegadgets #smarthouse #homeassistant - Věda a technologie
This is like Linus of LTT but with no drama or dropping of everything expensive. Good work EVM!
"I did a thing with a drill.. a man tool!"
The amount of times I've said something similar to my wife after doing something basic 😂 genuinely had a good laugh at that
I've used Powerline connections (Internet running over your internal electricity wiring) for many years. There are a number of brands - I've used Devolo throughout - and it is easy to set up and very reliable. You can either use it to hard wire (ethernet cable) devices that have a high bandwidth (TVs, for example), or set up repeater WiFi hubs. It requires no drilling!
i used the same system for my friends house to get him internet in his man cave(brick shed in backyard), he was over the moon i quote him"the first time i had internet in the shack" :) N:)
Nor do you need to reset all your passwords after a power cut or worry about the lack bandwidth / robustness of your comms. I've been using TP-Link.
Idk, I have used devolo for years to connect my stationary PC to the router and had recurring issues with reliability and performance. Getting a wifi card and a mesh network was a dramatic improvement. If I didn’t rent I would easily hardwire everything
I have just moved off my powerline network to Mesh wifi. The powerline was “OK” but I found issues with powerline repeaters dropping out periodically and poor bandwidth on occasion. Cheap power adapters (such as USB power sockets) often cause electrical noise that just kills powerline throughput
Love these videos branching out into other renewable/smart tech please keep doing them, love it!
Thank you for this, I am a man on a similar path to your own, a couple of weeks ahead of you with homeassistant, but years behind you with solar & storage as I have just moved into a new property and I'm sure you can imagine the wait time for these things now! I have only just managed to get a smart meter installed, so heading in the right direction.
I've started a new smart home with this new property using the following:
Yale Smart Alarm (upgraded from Yale alarm already installed, so can reuse sensors)
Ring doorbell and cameras
Tado heating controls
Tapo lighting & smart plugs
Be interested to hear what smart home tech others are using and how they integrate beyond Google Home or Alexa or even IFTT
Have been using home assistant for almost 2 years now. Love it. No battery or solar...
Home Assistant is hellish. It sucked me in a couple of months back and is equal parts frustrating and frustrating. Once you begin to understand it, you then want to do more, and get frustrated, and so the journey continues!
I applaud your commitment to geekiness 🙌🙌 great video and nice upgrades!
I too have started playing with home assistant and all of it's integrations. Have fun!
Also totally agree about going wired where possible or at least to each mesh wifi device!
Good luck... I've been doing smart home stuff for 20+ years now and no-where near finished. Used to build my own switches and sensors and wrote my own smarthome platform as nothing existed back then (still works perfectly 20 years later!). Now I can just buy devices from China for pennies and flash my own software on to them I'm installing devices in places I wouldn't have dreamed of years ago due to cost.
Good call on the wiring though, too many people think wifi is the solution to everything (then whinge their "internet" is slow), but my motto is "if it doesn't move, it's cabled" - hence pulling in about 2500m of cat6a in this house (we then have 5 access points for the things that need to use wifi). But you just can't beat 2.5Gb cabled to multiple points in every room (apart from a handfull of points which still go back to a 1Gb switch for the Sky boxes due to the 'noise' created by their bad STP implementation).
Home assistant is a very nice tool. I am using it too, just not to its full potential jet also because of the "Wife factor". Fun to hear you are working in IT for about as long as i am. Please continue with this series
😳 6:56 i ❤ how you nailed that black cable OVER the white conduit! 😂
Loved the video! I have HA and as others have said it's an ever evolving project! Just when I think I am happy with a dashboard and everything that its doing I start tinkering (breaking something!) and making it better!
Like it, more please.
I think I followed most of it!
Been using HA for a little while on a PC I turned into an unraid server. Got Home Assistant running in a VM. Followed speak to the geek videos for installing the GivEnergy add ons. Now have automations that look at the solar forecast and choose how much to charge the batterys overnight. Working well. Got more automations to set up for dump loads. Reminders to use up the solar so on
Yes have one, but need more time to get it worked out, and of course more time :) Looking forward both of our progress.
Yes, please continue this series.
I certainly agree with your opening comment. You can't beat some copper cable for reliable networking connections. WiFi is just about OK if you have an access point in the same room as the appliance - otherwise you will always have issues with some applications.
Andy, great overview. I have a different system called Hubitat. I like it but it was also a very complicated setup initially. It's been running for a couple years now and I have not touched it since I set it up. That means I probably have a couple items not connected and some that have gone away still in there. That is the issue with these systems, is growth. you want them to be perfect all the time, but that takes time. After working on computers all day, I don't really want to do programming at home.
Handy Andy shows his skillset, great video
Nice, been running HA for a few years now, runs all my heat pump heating, hot water, battery, PV and all MyEnergi stuff.👍
Home Assistant is great, though not always as simple as you might like. The one thing you learn as you add more and more smart home devices is to try to opt for things that can be controlled directly rather than through a device manufacturer’s cloud service. Those go away, sometimes without warning, and then you’re left with paperweights.
Some of the cloud things can be converted to local control using projects like ESPhome or Tasmota. Others I have not been able to remove the cloud element from (like our water heater and the frustratingly complicated to connect to HA Nest thermostats).
Great video, more please. Just started Home Assistant myself
Been using home assistant for a while now, it has come a LONG way and more so recently. You'll have fun with the automations.
I'm running HAOS on a Raspberry Pi400 (it's Pi 4 in a keyboard case). Also running tado for the heating (reduced my gas usage by about 20%). I have around 70 devices running on my network - eero 6 Pro mesh WiFi (runs a tri-band setup) with 3 nodes covers 4 floor house and out to the garage.
Literally having my Solar PV system fitted at the moment (started today, should finish tomorrow) with Enphase micro-inverters and a Givenergy battery, Zappi and Eddi being fitted too. Should be fun linking it all together on HA.
Good luck with your install, I'll keep watching. BTW Node Red is a great automation tool if you need something a bit more powerful than standard HA automations.
Good stuff. I'll be interested to see how you get on with the GivEnergy inverter and HA. I've been using HA for a couple of years now, and have a GivEnergy battery due to be installed soon. Picked it partly due to your recommendation and partly due to the existence of an HA integration.
Also, I'd recommend making some Sankey charts in HA to visualise power stuff - there's a HACS module for that.
just prior to me getting my FTTP instal done 8 years ago i hardwired cat 6e cables throughout my house, via a 15 to 1 tp link network switch, no problems whatsoever despite one power supply dying, which was replaced for £9.99 very minimal lag time from incoming internet to pc somewhere in the region of 6ms, best part is i have 5 ports still available for use :) :)
I didn’t really know how electronic a home could be. Bit difficult for me as i use a 20 year old gas furnace as backup heat and a wood stove as primary, in a big city with a modern home yes.
Keep up with the videos, I find it fascinating.
Inspired by your video, I've download Home Assistant as a 'Docker' on my Unraid server. Don't ask me any questions because I have no idea what I'm doing. It's just my nerdy personality getting the better of me. 40 years of the IT industry has obviously damaged me.
Great work Mr EVM electrician
Interesting, like you I've got a mix n match of stuff, I'll look into this to tie them all together
I would love to upgrade my house to something like this - shortage of money holding me back. Looking forward tonext installment of the video and it being a regular series
Ooo the zigbee would do you well 👍🏼✌🏼
I use node red rather than home assistant, it has its pros and cons, its more like scratch programming but for adults, incredibly powerful, looking forward to getting our solar and battery so i can REALLY integrate it!
What great timing have just started doing the same thing myself
Home assistant and tasmota make an excellent combo - can talk to your givenergy system as well.
Please, more of this. Considering going down a similar route myself. Out of interest, what software was the media server running there at the start of the video? Didn't recognise it. Thanks!
Excellent! I've just installed HA myself on a NAS (can you tell I'm in IT?) and started to get stuck in. I also need to excuse to buy more smart stuff.
A good rule of thumb is the guest test. If you have someone staying at your house could they switch things on and off without any nstructions?
That's what I want to set up. Will listen intently.
Must have 'saved' a small fortune making your home integrated and efficient, EVM..........!
Oh, er, sorry...did I say saved....I meant to say spent - knew it was something beginning with s...!
Respect due for admitting it though.....!!
Home Assistant is 100% the way to go, i would say thou go straight for nodered integration too it's far more powerful than hassio in built stuff and in a pinch can get non hassio stuff in via mqtt/http. Also for me the rules/flows are easier to visualise and trouble shoot. Not to mention you can chuck away that HUE bridge 11w of saving i'm sure you'll like being a Yorkshire man :) I've tried both the givenergy addons and i prefer the cdpuk one. If you need any help with hassio/nodered let me know
Love it, keep meaning to do this but you know, I'm a man so I keep putting it off lol.
Keeping making videos on this, very interesting
I went down the Samsung SmartThings route. So much simpler and just as powerful.
Impressive but well beyond my limited understanding ( does it run on coal and elastic bands )
For things that can only be wifi I use the bt whole home mesh wifi, works great, only one "needs" to be wired although you can wire them all.
Home Assistant and Tado seem to be a match made in heaven - I also use them, along with Hue and other Zigbee devices from Aqara or IKEA, to run the various backbones of my IoT setup. For me, the frontend is the tricky part, as I have little design sense - how did you produce the perspective cutaways of your house?
floorplanner.com
IKEA bulbs work well and are relatively cheap along with Aqara switches and sensors
Is your plink Wi-Fi stuff mesh compatible?
Welcome to hours of your life gone, it's additive once you get the hang of it. I have been doing this for 5 years and have over 120 smart devices. I am still waiting for my powerwall but for now I have a divert to smart plugs to use the energy I am generating.
Just hope the Ethernet you taced all along the wall doesn't fail! 😄
in future, buy yourself a box of cat5e rj45 connectors and a crimp tool cheaper and means you can get the cable exactly the length you want them.
OMG just lost 2 days of my life getting Home assistant to talk to our Solis inverter, this video is entirely to blame... it is cool now its working though.😎
You're going to have a fantastic time playing with home assistant - one useful tip is that Tado can be added using the homekit controller integration which means you don't need cloud connectivity to access the temperature data etc.
We've been using home assistant to experiment with / implement a far infrared heating system, details in the video below if you're interested:
czcams.com/video/shWhkDAYH0w/video.html
Good luck
Good luck, my heat pump integration errored, leaving my weather comp curve at +10 all night, instead of reducing it when my Go period ended. Probably cost me £3-4 😅
Shelly make a bunch of WiFi connected bulbs and relays that you can fit behind sockets and switches
Interesting.
Liked the last comment about tax deductible.
Hard wiring definitely the way to go, minimise things on WiFi, but not sure I'd run a wire up the outside of the house.
Why?
@@ElectricVehicleMan UV mainly. wind and wet also. I'd want it in conduit.
I'm in Scotland - see way too many aerial and satellite cables walloping about on the outsides of houses when the wind hits.
@@grahamleiper1538 That’s why I used external cat5.
Hope you labelled all the cables and drew out a wiring diagram !?
What media system does the tv connect to, and do all your tvs connect to it?
Plex now.
Yes I want to see the maths because as far as I can tell something like a smart radiator thermostat isn't going to pay for itself if I already have a TRV
I would use power line adapters to transmit internet thru out the house. But I won't be able to use my man tool to drill into things
I have startet On home assistent... But do not have any real fanst stuff to put on there.. my car can't the charger (EVSE) is to old..
BUT I do have cable run made to all rooms in prep..
Great video , What most people forget when doing automation is security . The network should be segregated into a house network, guest network , IOT networks and CCTV dedicated network if required at a minimum. and IOT network limited access to home networks . This is relatively cheap
VLANS are somewhat excessive for a house. And expensive too.
@@ElectricVehicleMan everyone ignore security and backups until it's too late . A managed switch Is cheap as chips.
@@PabloTBrave and a managed wifi that can do them too.
@@ElectricVehicleMan they are more expensive yes I personally use unfi there are cheaper alternatives . If you are using 3-4 access points ( one per floor ) the difference is less , plus security , speed, reliability and handover between access points is far superior. if you get hacked the extra outlay will be worth it , I watched a home automation full time CZcamsrs just the other day who got hacked and he nearly lost everything , including his source of income
@@PabloTBrave Paul hibbert?
He got done on his machine not network. And opened a clearly obvious attachment.
The person is the weak point. That’s why most of our effort at work is done on user training as much as physical security.
Lol, all IT-related channel I watch say cable is king, and just the other day I was told by a guy who does plaster/flooring/paving that cables are so 2010 and it's all wireless these days. lol
At the 12:18 mark when he said why aren't you working it reminded me of a European version of Cookie monster
I remember investing effort into wiring my TV only to realise it had a 100Mb nic and the wifi was 802.11AC, screaming internally..
What 3D house design software did you use to create your house layout on?
Floor planner
@@ElectricVehicleMan - Thanks!
0:30 my wife wants to know where you got the wall clock from
HA is a deeb rapid hole.... 😉 Watch out
half way through and I am waiting for mentions of intumescent seals, you have just drilled through your fire barrier. 😇
Why not run a cable between floors and use a mesh to propagate the wireless network. In our 5 bed house with a detached garage our router is in the office furthest away from the garage but has a physical cable running to the bedroom upstairs which also has a mesh router. So basically, with 4 mesh routers (instead of physical cables going through walls either use the router or a hub) the entire house and garden can use 300+mbs wifi. For me that's a lot easier than drilling potentially marriage wrecking holes in walls :). Basically, the mesh is the majority of the backbone for house+garage+garden.
Mesh isn’t great tbh. All it can do is repeat a weak signal, it can’t make it quicker.
@@ElectricVehicleMan interesting, while I would agree mesh doesn’t increase speed (i.e it won’t turn a 150mbs signal into a 512mbs one) in my experience what it does do is make the speed at the initial router more consistent over a wider area. So when I used repeaters the speed would drop off the further away it got from the main router and the more repeaters were used, with the mesh the drop off in speed is very much reduced. No idea how much data your pumping around the house ofc, the internet bandwidth you have available or indeed budget as self cabling is probably cheaper(unless you hit a pipe:) )
@@nxsynjs Cable always trumps wifi. Just finished installing a £130k wifi system and it’s really quick, still nothing close to physically plugging in though.
Cables are cheaper too tbh.
@@ElectricVehicleMan yeah. I'd agree. Mesh is for the scaredy cats(like me) or for those who are renting and cant drill holes :) so was offering it as an alternative for people who want to follow suit but cant :)
@@nxsynjs Mesh is simple but for best performance you do you need wifi 6 or 6e both on the router (and satellites) and the connected devices and crucially a wired backhaul. EVM is right that cable will trump wifi, but in many cases there is no practical difference. In my house even with 3 of us online, one streaming in 4k, and two watching YT videos there is no lagging if all are on the wifi. Of course you will get performance drops where the conditions are poor - really thick solid walls and/or lots of steel creating a Faraday cage.
I need you to come to my house and do this for me. 👍
12:06 devOps-y thing 😉
Now let’s not tell lies, you just want to show off the house is at your every command (like the Enterprise computer)
I would use ZigBee and Matt rather than WiFi based devices
yep.. more of....🙃
I'm a few steps ahead of you on Home Assistant and recently got a givenery after watching your videos.
If yiu need help I have a step by steep guide I made for it
I'm spending HOURS trying to get going with HA. A lot of web content/YT help is out of date, etc. If you don't mind sharing any up-to-date guides I'd be most grateful, thx.
@@mikequorn I have a MS Word doc which I can convert to PDF to help but not sure how to share if we can share files on CZcams
14:02 👏🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
You never finish these type of projects , as there’s endless possibility’s 😅
2:38 - You mean your wife is nagging you about cables!
Welcome to the dark side...
It's a man thing.