New blog post!
This time it's about a Lenovo USFF PC that I bought for cheap, and that I use a a Home Assistant box. A bit on the hardware, on the software part, and what HA integrations I am using.
I also talk why I in my opinion it does not make sense to use a Raspberry Pi for it.
https://stfn.pl/blog/58-home-assistant-lenovo-usff/
[#]HomeAssistant #smarthome #RaspberryPi #blog
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Thank you @mike for showing me that it's possible to generate a map of one's Zigbee network :)
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@stfn raw-dogging with no dusting before taking that photo. You mad dog!
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@mms Speaking of dogs, my german shepherd is the main reason for most of the dust in that pic :)
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@stfn ah, useful... I've been pondering where to move my HA to, currently it's running via Docker on a local machine but I wanted to move to HAOS* due to the limitations the Docker version seems to have. I've been wondering why everyone is so dead set on RPi for this use case when it just doesn't really seem like the right solution to me.
Those little ThinkCentre boxes look great, will have to look out for them.
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@yvan There's no limitation in features, the only downside is that the installation is a bit harder, and you need to remember to update the OS by yourself.
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@stfn OK, that's probably preferable then!
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@stfn I keep looking at these!
Funnily enough though, one of my jobs for today is to start moving my Zigbee stuff over to a new co-ordinator and Zigbee2mqtt, I've had some issues with messages getting lost.
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@ben I'm also having some messages getting lost, but I assume it it because at the moment I have only three ZigBee devices and thick walls, so there is not enough intercommunication to ensure all packets get transferred
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@stfn Yeah it could well be - you can buy little USB stick repeaters quite cheaply (or use smart sockets as most of those act as routers).
Apparently, though, not all firmware is created equal. AIUI, the issue I have is that the firmware on my Conbee stick doesn't resend if it doesn't receive an ACK, so messages end up being one-shot.
I've got a ethernet Zigbee hub turning up, so that I can move it to a better location than my current stick
Of course, it also might not end up fixing anything
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@ben @stfn I zapped 12v into my 5v Hue Hub the other week so I’ve just spent way too much time pairing everything to my Sonoff dongle and Zigbee2MQTT. Apart from the tedious work of re-pairing stuff without the original co-ordinator there to release them, it was relatively painless.
If you have enough devices that can operate as routers, it all seems to work great, but I know not all manufacturers’ firmwares have routing enabled.
I’ve ended up with this ridiculously densely meshed network.
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@mike @stfn Nice!
Yeah, I'm not looking forward to moving stuff over - especially as I'm going from ZHA to Zigbee2MQTT at the same time so will very likely need to update automations as I go
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@ben@mastodon.bentasker.co.uk @mike This just reminded me to go check out some more sonoff sensors but their entire site seems to have been disabled by their host!
Good job the itead one works.
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@mike @ben 😍 it's beautiful
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@stfn @ben Thank you! That’s nearly a decade’s worth of smart home devices wrapped up in a single diagram. Two of those bulbs have been connected to each of Hue, HomeAssistant, HomeKit, Zigbee2MQTT and openHAB at some point in their lifetime.
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@mike @ben ha, so technology can be long lasting!
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@stfn @ben Despite the cost, I’ll never regret investing in Phillips Hue bulbs. I’ve bulbs that have been in daily use for 8+ years and their firmware has been solid and full featured the whole time.
The company has made some weird “cloud account for local admin” noises and choices lately, but I simply avoided upgrading my hub’s firmware beyond a local-only version. That is until I fried my hub and had to do this migration.
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@mike @ben good to hear that they work so long. I wonder if my IKEA ones will last that long
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@stfn The Lenovo SFF PCs are great… I use a couple of the more powerful ones in a home lab test environment
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@andydavies Indeed they are. i would buy one, but I already have a desktop PC working as a NAS
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@stfn Even though I like them, rPi are simply too expensive for most home use. Unless you need a fanless small thing with GPIO they are just not practical with wires sprouting in every direction and usually a powered USB hub needed for usable storage. Almost £100 when you have all the gubbins.
IMO the Pi Zero 2W is the optimal Pi form factor.
My HP uSFF refurb from eBay for £30 with 8GB and an i3 idles at 8w and is much more home-approved as a generic management/automation node.
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@29821632 exactly this, for typical home computer usage, USFFs win
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