[HN Gopher] Home Assistant Presence Simulation
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Home Assistant Presence Simulation
Author : edward
Score : 86 points
Date : 2024-08-28 13:01 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| enobrev wrote:
| Simulated presence in our home: Motion-triggered lights and a cat
| starxidas wrote:
| Sure, but cats sleep around 35 hours a day.
| drdaeman wrote:
| Fortunately, presence simulation is only needed at dusk/night
| - when cats have their zoomies.
| nurettin wrote:
| I need some of those cat-sensitive motion triggers.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Old school hardware stores have them. They screw in between
| the lightbulb and the lamp.
| bobchadwick wrote:
| I used this last week! I was out of town and a friend texted me
| letting me know the lights in my house were on. I got such a
| sense of joy in knowing that it was working as intended.
| dharbin wrote:
| Can it automate a cutout of Michael Jordan attached to a model
| train set?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| You jest, but with an ESP32 flashed with ESPHome and a few
| dollars of electronics to regulate the power, I think
| controlling model trains would actually be quite doable. Your
| biggest challenge is probably dealing with network/scripting
| latency for events that need to happen in quick succession,
| like when dealing with switches.
|
| Or, if you consider Lego DUPLO trains to be model trains,
| there's this: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/lego-duplo-
| train-contr...
|
| Edit: there's also this https://github.com/aaron9589/esphome-
| for-model-railroading for the more serious model railroad
| enthusiast, though I'm not 100% sure if that actually controls
| the trains themselves (or just the switches and lights)
| shimon wrote:
| In many cases, a simple off-the-shelf smart plug would
| suffice.
| ewoodrich wrote:
| That's why I try as hard as I can to find either truly
| "dumb" devices with mechanical switches vs momentary
| buttons or devices that remember their last state after A/C
| power is restored. Hard to figure out the second option
| though without trying it unless a review happens to mention
| it specifically.
| sofixa wrote:
| Awesome. The Home Assistant and related (ESPHome, Voice
| Assistant, Music Assistanc) communities are amazing and there
| is just a crazy amount of projects one can just pick up and
| use.
| moandcompany wrote:
| It could also automate ordering pizza delivery and the tipping
| process to "Keep the change, ya filthy animal"
| paradox460 wrote:
| There's a dominoes pizza integration in home assistant
| paradox460 wrote:
| There are dcc systems that run on Arduino or raspberry pi, and
| expose an API interface. Could control one via home assistant
| bloopernova wrote:
| Slightly related, please forgive the offtopicness: has anyone
| implemented a DIY UWB location base + beacon/tag?
|
| I ask because my neurodivergent wife loses things, and often Tile
| either doesn't work or isn't load enough. I read that UWB
| promises 10cm2 or 10cm3 accuracy, which would be ideal for
| finding lost stuff.
|
| I've seen a couple of commercial offerings, but they didn't have
| pricing.
| __sy__ wrote:
| I don't know if it will count as DIY, but take a look at LEGIC
| and their devkit for this. We (seam) work with them and I
| recall seeing a couple of startups doing demo's of their UWB
| solution at their LEGIC Connect conference.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| I used some Decawave kits ~a decade ago and they worked pretty
| well... however if you want to DIY something as usable as
| Airtags I think the main struggle would be getting the package
| compact and with low power consumption (unless you want to
| track large things and are fine with a chonky battery)
| jitl wrote:
| The generic stuff in the "Find My" ecosystem works quite well.
| It's not DIY, but most things have UWB finding that works
| whole-house for me.
| Fokamul wrote:
| Hm I'm not sure if this helps. Because thieves will first knock
| on doors, even for tens of minutes. Ring etc. Normally people
| will open and thief will say some BS and go away.
|
| Cameras with backup power and backup internet connection is your
| first priority.
| Geezus_42 wrote:
| Funny because I never answer my door when anyone knocks. If
| you're knocking on my door it's because I don't know you, which
| means I probably don't want to talk to you. Anyone who knows me
| knows to call or text before they come by.
| baq wrote:
| I have kids, neighbors have kids, door is knocked on all the
| time.
| reaperducer wrote:
| You don't even have to have kids.
|
| When I was at my last house, I didn't have kids, and people
| would knock on my door every day. It was because my block
| was full of neighbors who were friendly and nice to one
| another, and not shut in their houses like hermits.
|
| The way many people in the suburbs live these days, they'd
| might as well live in windowless metal shipping containers.
| barbazoo wrote:
| You're so right. If you life in a neighborhood that even
| vaguely resembles some kind of community then you're
| really really lucky!
| sofixa wrote:
| What if it's like, a utility company trying to warn you
| they'll cut off power/water/whatever in a few minutes because
| of emergency works?
| cortesoft wrote:
| Then you will find out when your power goes out?
| joshstrange wrote:
| Just a note to anyone interested in trying out Home Assistant:
|
| It's amazing _but_ do NOT use a raspberry pi to run it. Save
| yourself a ton of headaches and buy a mini pc (there was a list
| of used mini pcs posted here yesterday from ebay). Also I
| recommend using HAOS (or whatever the "we install and run the
| whole OS" option is called) so that you can use things like
| plugins without messing around with docker. I love docker but
| trust me, life is easier on HAOS.
|
| I liked HA but felt like it wasn't really "stable". I used a Pi 3
| for a while, then a Pi 4 decked out (highest ram, NVME storage,
| super nice case, etc) and still felt like it was unstable. I
| chalked this up to HA but then rolled the dice on a Beelink mini
| pc and it has been rock solid ever since. Also don't be misled by
| the lower price of the Pi, I paid more for my Pi 4 setup than the
| Beelink (or about the same).
|
| I blamed everything from the Zigbee/Z-wave dongles, to HAOS, to
| HA itself, etc but in the end it was RPi. The 4 was the last Pi
| I'll ever buy.
|
| EDIT: I was in a hurry and didn't add my normal disclaimer when I
| talk about the RPi's:
|
| Yes I know some of you have a Pi 1 that been running you entire
| life since it first came out and you think I'm full of crap. I've
| owned every Pi 1-4 and never been truly happy with them. I bought
| them "raw" and sourced all the parts myself, I bought high-end
| (at least in price) kits with everything included, I bought all
| official accessories (like power), they always were just that
| little bit unstable.
|
| It would work great for days/weeks then randomly not be reachable
| (wired or wireless). I spent just shy of $200 for my last
| "builds" which included a NVME drive (240G, lest you think this
| is where the cost was), RPi case, RPi NVME hat, RPi 4 8gb model,
| SD card, power, etc and the result was still instability. I don't
| know what to tell you. Maybe I'm a moron but my experience with
| them has not been great. That said I want to love them and I
| loved my RPi 1B even with all it's warts, a $35 "credit card
| sized" computer was awesome. Maybe I just don't want to tinker as
| much anymore and value stability.
| vaindil wrote:
| Counterpoint: I've been running HAOS on an RPi 2 and 3 for
| several years without a single issue, and I do use a z-wave
| dongle but no Zigbee. I only do basic stuff with it (a few
| automations for my z-wave thermostat and switches, AdGuard
| Home), but it's been rock solid for me.
|
| I only had issues once, when I tried to run the Unifi Network
| Application addon. A RPi is not strong enough for that, but I
| just uninstalled it and moved on.
| gedy wrote:
| I mostly agree, but found that HA isn't too bad on Pi if you
| don't continuously update the versions even if it suggests. I
| had a lot of trouble keeping a stable system until I just
| ignored them until I really needed to install on new system,
| etc.
| domrdy wrote:
| Or a 2012 MacMini, $~90 on ebay. Quiet, small form factor, runs
| Linux.
| rockbruno wrote:
| I've been running it for a year on a RPi 2, via WiFi, from a SD
| card *and* a Zigbee dongle, which is basically what everyone
| seems to say you should not do, and never had a single issue
| with it. I don't think these issues have anything to do with HA
| itself but rather the extensions people install on it.
| chime wrote:
| I think it also has to do with how many devices you have on
| it and how often they update state. I have 300+ IP devices
| and have to run it on a mini PC because RPi was too slow. No
| custom plugins or extensions, just a few basic integrations.
| punnerud wrote:
| The problem is often that people use small MicroSD (8-16GB)
| that don't support the number of writes to SQLite3 that HA
| does.
|
| Have been using Western Digital purple 64GB MicroSD for years
| without problems (support the same number of writes as SSD)
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I've been using a raspberry pi 4 for 2 years with no issues.
| You need a good, clean power source or you can have all kinds
| of issues. Having good ventilation won't hurt. You also need a
| good sdcard that can handle a large volume of writes.
| delichon wrote:
| I'm about to buy a Pi 5 for a Pi-hole. Does the same advice
| apply to that?
| import wrote:
| You can get a mini pc for the same price and it would be more
| comfortable.
| SirYandi wrote:
| Pi5 is plenty, even overkill for a pihole. I run a pihole on
| my old pi2 and it's absolutely fine
| arkmm wrote:
| I've been running off a Raspberry Pi for years and it's been
| very stable. The main things for me were to use a good SD card,
| to use Ethernet instead of Wifi, and to also reboot the Pi
| daily via an automation.
| amscanne wrote:
| It's not stable if you need to reboot daily.
| abraae wrote:
| Knowing you can survive reboots is positive for stability.
| password4321 wrote:
| Low Cost Mini PCs https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41389931
| kkfx wrote:
| I've pip-install it in my homeserver (a small celeron with
| enough ram and storage) BUT I have a note to all HA users and
| devs: why the hell keep insisting on the WebUI for configuring,
| it's NOT reproducible nor simple.
|
| Oh, of course, for a casual user it's simple, unfortunately no
| casual users know about HA or how to physically integrate HA in
| a smart home, so the idea of making a generic end-user system
| it's a failure in principle, no matter the implementation.
| Aside nothing is forever so even if for some it's easier to go
| for a WebUI, when it will break, because it will (and with HA
| I've experienced issues various time, an update at a time) you
| need to waste big time instead of simply adapting a damn simple
| config.
|
| Hell, even NixOS with it's damn nix language is enormously
| simpler than the YAML hell + WebUI of HA. And yes, NixOS is far
| more stable and simple than playing with an entire distro just
| to run a Pythonic app.
| xd1936 wrote:
| what?
| import wrote:
| I ran it on RPI 3 and 4 with SSD for years and had zero issues.
| Now moved to the mini pc but RPI still hosting other stuff and
| works rock solid.
| sockaddr wrote:
| I've also found pis to be unreliable in the long term. Even
| buying good SD cards doesn't help. It's always something.
| Broken storage, brown out (I'm using the recommended power
| supply), sudden lack of communication over the eth port, etc.
|
| I've found that just getting an old toughbook is much more
| reliable for projects that don't require miniaturization.
| Cheer2171 wrote:
| Counterpoint: my Pi 4 4gb booting a USB3 SSD drive has been
| working fine for years. The SD cards are what kill Pis
| scubbo wrote:
| Another "Been using RPi 4 for HAOS solidly for multiple years"
| anecdote chiming in here. Typically the SD cards are the
| unreliable bit, not the Pi itself.
| m463 wrote:
| You can boot and run a pi from a USB ssd, and now pi5 has
| easier nvme.
|
| But yeah, then you're competing with a minipc. The pi5 now
| has niceties like a power button and you can battery backup
| the clock with a wired coin cell, but then it is more time
| and expense to get to what minipcs had basically forever.
| drumttocs8 wrote:
| Recommend just running it on a VM in proxmox or similar
| asveikau wrote:
| HAOS is _absolutely terrible_ when it faces filesystem
| corruption. I faced this a few times when my HAOS image
| crashed. You can 't even get it to fsck on boot when it
| happens. I think that's one big reason people on RPIs have
| issues. The FS is on an SD card, SD cards are flakey, and
| there's no good rescue path when the FS has issues.
|
| I guess USB power is also historically not great on RPI. I
| haven't played with them in a few years but I remember needing
| powered hubs. That might explain issues with Zigbee and Z-wave
| dongles. Note also the '700 series' z-wave dongles have a lot
| of issues. You can update the firmware to fix some. Mine's been
| flakey and I'm on the latest firmware from ~2 weeks ago that's
| supposed to fix all of that.
|
| I was running HAOS on VirtualBox, with the disk image on ZFS. I
| switched to running docker out of the same ZFS filesystem and
| it's much faster and more reliable, notably I don't get random
| filesystem corruption. Anecdote. YMMV.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| I'm not familiar with virtualbox, do you have any idea why
| HAOS on VB+ZFS was corrupting vs Docker+ZFS?
| ziml77 wrote:
| I had problems when running HA on an RPi as well. It was never
| very snappy or stable in its connection with the Z-Wave
| network. I don't know if it was too much power being drawn by
| the dongle or what, but switching over to a mini ThinkStation
| that I got for cheap on Ebay solved the problem. Not only
| perfectly stable with the connection to the Z-Wave network but
| also just overall more responsive.
| Sleaker wrote:
| Had rpi3b with HA for nearly 4 years now without any problems
| at all, not sure where your issues come from but I feel like
| mine is cake.
| NiekvdMaas wrote:
| Or buy an officially supporter Home Assistant Green for $99:
| https://www.home-assistant.io/green/
| jitl wrote:
| I use a normal automation to turn on the lights every day at
| sundown, and to turn off the lights every night at ($BEDTIME +
| 1hr), just as part of daily life. I don't need anything tricky to
| simulate that pattern when I'm traveling; I just don't disable
| the automation. I wonder how many people using HomeAssitant for
| their lights are manually turning lights on and off all the time.
| I would think most people would set up a daily or weekday +
| weeknight schedule and be done with it.
| closewith wrote:
| We have some automations, but mostly use homebridge and Apple
| Home scenes controlled by presence, smart switches, Siri, and
| the app. I'd imagine that's 10x-100x more common than pure time
| based automations based on the HA fora.
| deadbunny wrote:
| This has been on my list of things to do for a while, saves me a
| job. Thanks for sharing.
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