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taiyoko
Jan 10, 2008


Motronic posted:

This was not an issue until my last (android) phone upgrade. No matter what combination of permissions I give the HA app it's happening and it's real bad. I need to look into that again.

Before notifications via the app were a thing I used pushbullet and before that I had it sending SMS.

Check your battery settings. Battery > battery usage > HA app > set it to unrestricted. It sounds like Android's power optimization is loving with the app's ability to send notifications.

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Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

taiyoko posted:

Check your battery settings. Battery > battery usage > HA app > set it to unrestricted. It sounds like Android's power optimization is loving with the app's ability to send notifications.

It is indeed already set to unrestricted. I've been through all the app settings and permission and can't seem to find an explanation. I've this was never an issue on my pixel 3 or that terrible pixel 6 I used for a hot minute and went back to the 3 before the 7 came out.

Henrik Zetterberg
Dec 7, 2007

For those who have a bunch of HomeKit devices, there’s a new iOS app called HomeBatteries. It’ll look for any battery devices you have, such as Hue dimmers, door locks, etc, and give you a list of devices and battery levels. Super simple, and something the Home app should already do, but doesn’t for whatever reason. I personally found it very helpful and it’s only $1.99.

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


hogofwar posted:

I haven't actually looked into this, but can you tie one ZigBee device (a doorbell/button) to another ZigBee device (siren/some sort of sound maker) so that it doesn't require an intermediate hub all the time?

No. You need a Zigbee Coordinator to both establish the network in the first place, and receive sensor events from the buttons, send the play-sound commands to the siren, and execute the logic that establishes the causal link between the two.

You could probably build your own not-zigbee solution using a pair of ESP microcontrollers or similar, although if they have to run off battery you might want to target something even smaller like an AVR. I did actually consider that for my own setup for a bit, but I wasn't going to beat the price point of zigbee ($20 for the coordinator, $10 for the button, $0 for a speakers I already use) and I'm already finding other uses for the network that wouldn't arise with the dedicated AVR solution, so.

namlosh
Feb 11, 2014

I name this haircut "The Sad Rhino".
Hey does anyone have any recommendations for a grill thermometer that uses WiFi or something else? Most of them are Bluetooth so they lose connection too easily if you’re not outside with the grill. Extra points for one thats HA aware since I run HomeAssistant.

I haven’t even googled for it yet. I’m torn between buying one, and trying to create one with an ESP32 dev board, a battery, and a couple of thermocouples. I figured I’d see if there were any that people here liked

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


TIL that there is an entire category of HA subsystems, "addons", which are distinct from integrations and also cannot be installed if you aren't using HAOS -- the containerized and standalone versions of the daemon don't support addons and the relevant parts of the UI don't even show up.

So now I get to figure out how to run HAOS in a VM, because I don't have any SBCs lying around that can handle it.

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

namlosh posted:

Hey does anyone have any recommendations for a grill thermometer that uses WiFi or something else? Most of them are Bluetooth so they lose connection too easily if you’re not outside with the grill. Extra points for one thats HA aware since I run HomeAssistant.

I haven’t even googled for it yet. I’m torn between buying one, and trying to create one with an ESP32 dev board, a battery, and a couple of thermocouples. I figured I’d see if there were any that people here liked

If you forget the HA compatibility, and you should, just get this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KZR4F23/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I use this on my smoker. I hung the transmitter too close to it one time and it kind melted the battery cover and some of the corners a bit. I emailed support to see if I could buy a plastics kit so I could gut and replace. They said "we'll take care of it, just give us your address" and they shipped an entire new set - sender, receiver and probes. I have it sitting in my basement storage area because this was a cosmetic issue only, that I caused. So I really have to give it to them on support.

Henrik Zetterberg
Dec 7, 2007

I use an Inkbird 4-probe on my smoker. It’s Wi-Fi and the battery lasts forever.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XNTJKY4

en :lol: there’s a clippable 50% coupon so I guess it’s $50 now. Great deal.

Kalman
Jan 17, 2010

namlosh posted:

Hey does anyone have any recommendations for a grill thermometer that uses WiFi or something else? Most of them are Bluetooth so they lose connection too easily if you’re not outside with the grill. Extra points for one thats HA aware since I run HomeAssistant.

I haven’t even googled for it yet. I’m torn between buying one, and trying to create one with an ESP32 dev board, a battery, and a couple of thermocouples. I figured I’d see if there were any that people here liked

If you feel like doing it with a dev board, you can check out https://github.com/radiationnow/SmokeScreen as a starting point. (Abandoned project.) Since it uses MQTT for monitoring, it’s trivial to integrate into HA.

Shalhavet
Dec 10, 2010

This post is terrible
Doctor Rope

ToxicFrog posted:

TIL that there is an entire category of HA subsystems, "addons", which are distinct from integrations and also cannot be installed if you aren't using HAOS -- the containerized and standalone versions of the daemon don't support addons and the relevant parts of the UI don't even show up.

So now I get to figure out how to run HAOS in a VM, because I don't have any SBCs lying around that can handle it.

The good news is that virtualizing HAOS is super easy. I've been running it in ESXi for almost two years now.

edit: passthrough zwave dongle, no issues

Shalhavet fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Aug 22, 2023

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

I'm going on 5 years of ESXi with a passthrough USB zwave stick and passthought serial port. It just works. There are no issues at all.

I used to have a serial port pass though issue where if you rebooted it wouldn't work, but if you powered down and restarted it would, but even that's not a thing anymore.

(serial port is for control of a monoprice multi-zone amplifier)

Motronic fucked around with this message at 23:57 on Aug 21, 2023

neurotech
Apr 22, 2004

Deep in my dreams and I still hear her callin'
If you're alone, I'll come home.

I'm picking up one of these this week: https://www.tp-link.com/au/home-networking/cloud-camera/tapo-c320ws/
It's my first security camera I've ever owned, so this might be a stupid question. Once I've got this camera all setup, is there any way to connect to it via my desktop, ideally in my browser? I'd like to be able to keep an eye on the feed on my second monitor somehow.

blunt
Jul 7, 2005

neurotech posted:

I'm picking up one of these this week: https://www.tp-link.com/au/home-networking/cloud-camera/tapo-c320ws/
It's my first security camera I've ever owned, so this might be a stupid question. Once I've got this camera all setup, is there any way to connect to it via my desktop, ideally in my browser? I'd like to be able to keep an eye on the feed on my second monitor somehow.

Tapo cameras support RTSP so once you've configured some credentials in the app you'll be able to open the feed in VLC

https://www.tapo.com/uk/faq/34/

kri kri
Jul 18, 2007

namlosh posted:

Hey does anyone have any recommendations for a grill thermometer that uses WiFi or something else? Most of them are Bluetooth so they lose connection too easily if you’re not outside with the grill. Extra points for one thats HA aware since I run HomeAssistant.

I haven’t even googled for it yet. I’m torn between buying one, and trying to create one with an ESP32 dev board, a battery, and a couple of thermocouples. I figured I’d see if there were any that people here liked

I have a FireBoard and love it

https://www.fireboard.com/

neurotech
Apr 22, 2004

Deep in my dreams and I still hear her callin'
If you're alone, I'll come home.

blunt posted:

Tapo cameras support RTSP so once you've configured some credentials in the app you'll be able to open the feed in VLC

https://www.tapo.com/uk/faq/34/

Fantastic, thanks. It looks like my camera works with Agent DVR which looks like a fun way to lose a few hours tweaking/configuring.

Hed
Mar 31, 2004

Fun Shoe
Geez the smoker stuff has gotten a lot nicer since my days of ordering (fellow Goon CapnBry’s) HeaterMeter kit and soldering, getting a case, and begging for someone on Weber grilling forums to 3D print a case and manifold to hold the fan.


These thermometers look good I just need something that will damper and drive my fan. Or someone with a 3D printer to repair my blower housing 😁

namlosh
Feb 11, 2014

I name this haircut "The Sad Rhino".

Motronic posted:

If you forget the HA compatibility, and you should, just get this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KZR4F23/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I use this on my smoker. I hung the transmitter too close to it one time and it kind melted the battery cover and some of the corners a bit. I emailed support to see if I could buy a plastics kit so I could gut and replace. They said "we'll take care of it, just give us your address" and they shipped an entire new set - sender, receiver and probes. I have it sitting in my basement storage area because this was a cosmetic issue only, that I caused. So I really have to give it to them on support.

That looks really nice... was hoping for HA integration though just because I want to play with it more lol.


Henrik Zetterberg posted:

I use an Inkbird 4-probe on my smoker. It’s Wi-Fi and the battery lasts forever.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XNTJKY4

en :lol: there’s a clippable 50% coupon so I guess it’s $50 now. Great deal.

This is awesome, and it looks like a crazy good deal. It looks like it uses the cloud and you have to register which I don't really like. very much appreciate the reply though.

Kalman posted:

If you feel like doing it with a dev board, you can check out https://github.com/radiationnow/SmokeScreen as a starting point. (Abandoned project.) Since it uses MQTT for monitoring, it’s trivial to integrate into HA.

Ok, this is starting to resemble a fun project... nowhere near as polished as the other solutions above, but I think I might go down this path.

Hed
Mar 31, 2004

Fun Shoe

namlosh posted:

That looks really nice... was hoping for HA integration though just because I want to play with it more lol.

This is awesome, and it looks like a crazy good deal. It looks like it uses the cloud and you have to register which I don't really like. very much appreciate the reply though.

Ok, this is starting to resemble a fun project... nowhere near as polished as the other solutions above, but I think I might go down this path.

If you want to janitor something may I recommend https://github.com/CapnBry/HeaterMeter/wiki/LinkMeter-Home friend

toplitzin
Jun 13, 2003


namlosh posted:

Hey does anyone have any recommendations for a grill thermometer that uses WiFi or something else? Most of them are Bluetooth so they lose connection too easily if you’re not outside with the grill. Extra points for one thats HA aware since I run HomeAssistant.

I haven’t even googled for it yet. I’m torn between buying one, and trying to create one with an ESP32 dev board, a battery, and a couple of thermocouples. I figured I’d see if there were any that people here liked

kri kri posted:

I have a FireBoard and love it

https://www.fireboard.com/

I love my fireboard, but it won't integrate with HA at this time.
If you are code handy, you can use their API though:
https://docs.fireboard.io/app/api.html

The Thermoworks Smoke + Wifi Gateway will work however:
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/thermoworks_smoke/

as will the MEater:
https://meater.com/

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


Shalhavet posted:

The good news is that virtualizing HAOS is super easy. I've been running it in ESXi for almost two years now.

edit: passthrough zwave dongle, no issues

Yeah, the main thing giving me pause there is just that it's been a decade since I did anything with virtualization more complicated than "use qemu to boot a disk image to check something out and then discard it", and I've never touched KVM or virtd at all. So there's going to be a bit of a learning curve just figuring out how to interact with the virtualization tools that exist now, especially since, unlike docker containers, I can't tell nixos-rebuild which VMs I want and have it do the thing -- I have to configure the virtualization by hand.

calandryll
Apr 25, 2003

Ask me where I do my best drinking!



Pillbug
I recently migrated a bunch of stuff, including HA, over to a proxmox setup. I used these scripts, https://tteck.github.io/Proxmox/, to install everything. Completely easy and simple to do. Prior to that my virtualization experience was installing various distros to play around with.

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


calandryll posted:

I recently migrated a bunch of stuff, including HA, over to a proxmox setup. I used these scripts, https://tteck.github.io/Proxmox/, to install everything. Completely easy and simple to do. Prior to that my virtualization experience was installing various distros to play around with.

Proxmox is one of those things I've poked at occasionally, and it looks like it would be really cool and useful if I were running a cluster, and potentially still useful on a single machine, but probably not useful enough to be worth the gigantic headache that would be evacuating the entire family server from that machine, installing proxmox on it, and then virtualizing the family server. Maybe something I'll look into next time I'm upgrading the internal SSDs.

And it's currently running nixos, so managing services and containers is dead easy; unfortunately that does not extend to managing VMs, it just throws you to the wolves there and tells you to manage them by hand. I might end up writing a nixos module for qemu vm support about it or something, depending on how this goes.

hogofwar
Jun 25, 2011

'We've strayed into a zone with a high magical index,' he said. 'Don't ask me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been generated here, and we're feeling the after-effects.'
'Precisely,' said a passing bush.

ToxicFrog posted:



And it's currently running nixos, so managing services and containers is dead easy; unfortunately that does not extend to managing VMs, it just throws you to the wolves there and tells you to manage them by hand. I might end up writing a nixos module for qemu vm support about it or something, depending on how this goes.

Funnily enough I was considering changing my virtualized servers in proxmox to run NixOS. How do you find it? Do you use docker with it?

Pilfered Pallbearers
Aug 2, 2007

Anyone have some good (small & cheap) IR blasters that work with HA? I have a couple of IR controlled string lights that I want to automate.

https://www.ovedecors.com/us/watterfall-20-ft.html

These are them. The IR receiver is in the plug that plugs into the wall. I’m also down to replacing the power pack if that’s something that’s reasonable/makes sense.

Edit: The lights themselves have one of these connectors

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LCV8LGA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_G3b1FbK5H9Z85?th=1

The connector plugs into the actual power supply, which also houses the IR sensors.

Pilfered Pallbearers fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Aug 23, 2023

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


hogofwar posted:

Funnily enough I was considering changing my virtualized servers in proxmox to run NixOS. How do you find it? Do you use docker with it?

As a server OS, I love it; I've been running it on my home server since 2016 and am delighted. Having a central version-controlled system configuration works way better than anything else I've tried (ansible, version-controlling /etc, a NOTES file containing a record of all the things I've changed as sysadmin, etc), nixpkgs is pretty well-stocked, and the overlays system makes it very easy to deploy alternate versions of things (including applying local patches or custom build settings to individual packages!) in a reproduceable manner. The ability to easily test new configurations, roll back, or diff them against the currently running system before activating them has also been a godsend. It also makes it very easy to share common pieces of configuration (user accounts, monitoring services, network filesystem mounts, etc) across systems.

I do use it with Docker (as a host, not a guest) and it works fine; you can either turn on docker in the system configuration and then manage it by hand with docker-compose and stuff, or you can do what I did and use the built in docker support (the virtualisation.oci-containers namespace) to tell it what containers you run and it'll automatically pull the images when it builds the configuration and create a systemd service for each one. I'm not a docker janitor and my needs are pretty straightforward so I just do the latter.

I've never used it as a docker guest and have experimented only briefly with its VM guest support. VM host support is pretty barebones, you can turn on libvirt and it works fine, but you can't declaratively tell it which VMs you want, you have to use virt-manager or virsh to manage them in a mutable manner, which means it's not part of the system configuration and if you want it versioned you have to find some other way of doing that (I think you can get an XML export from virsh?). There's a tool for fleet management, NixOps, that can manage VMs (and some cloud environments), but it only manages NixOS guests.

It does come with some caveats. Running anyone else's precompiled software is a headache unless it's statically linked, because nixos doesn't follow FHS; steam-run is your friend for stuff like that (it runs the target in an Ubuntu-like FHS environment intended for running Steam games, which also works for many other things). Some languages or build tools are allergic to the idea of hermetic builds in general and are very difficult to package for nixos. Wayland support is still largely absent, which can be a problem for use as a desktop or laptop system depending on what you're doing, although I do have one laptop and one HTPC running nixos in the house. Configuration module coverage is extensive but not universal, and you will still need to understand e.g. the basics of writing systemd unit files if you want to manage services that don't have a module (or tweak settings that aren't exposed by nixos).

Also, it's just really loving weird compared to any other OS I've used, so there's a bit of a learning curve.

E: lightly edited reproduction of my configuration for running HA in docker on nixos:
code:
  # code for creating hass user/group omitted
  # docker configuration
  virtualisation.oci-containers.containers.homeassistant = let
    users = config.users.users;
    groups = config.users.groups;
  in {
    user = "${toString users.hass.uid}:${toString groups.hass.gid}";
    volumes = [
      "/var/lib/hass:/config"
      "/run/dbus:/run/dbus:ro"  # for bluetooth
    ];
    environment.TZ = "America/Toronto";
    # TODO: replace with sha256 so it gets re-fetched when updated
    image = "ghcr.io/home-assistant/home-assistant:stable";
    extraOptions = [
      "--network=host"
      # extra GIDs need to match the GIDs on the host system to access the stuff in /dev
      "--device=/dev/ttyACM0" "--group-add=${toString groups.dialout.gid}"
      "--device=/dev/snd" "--group-add=${toString groups.audio.gid}"
      "--device=/dev/video0" "--group-add=${toString groups.video.gid}"
    ];
  };

  # Give hass rw on the zigbee dongle
  services.udev.extraRules = ''
    SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="1a86", ATTR{idProduct}=="55d4", OWNER="hass", GROUP="hass""
  '';

  # Reverse proxy for external access
  services.nginx.virtualHosts."home.example.com" = {
    forceSSL = true;
    enableACME = true;
    locations."/" = {
      proxyPass = "http://127.0.0.1:8133/";
      proxyWebsockets = true;
    };
  };

Pilfered Pallbearers posted:

Anyone have some good (small & cheap) IR blasters that work with HA? I have a couple of IR controlled string lights that I want to automate.

https://www.ovedecors.com/us/watterfall-20-ft.html

These are them. The IR receiver is in the plug that plugs into the wall. I’m also down to replacing the power pack if that’s something that’s reasonable/makes sense.
I'm also interested in answers to this, since I have a non-smart TV and audio receiver that I'd like to be able to control, and while I'm pretty sure I have enough parts to build something in esphome, I'd honestly rather not.

ToxicFrog fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Aug 23, 2023

hogofwar
Jun 25, 2011

'We've strayed into a zone with a high magical index,' he said. 'Don't ask me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been generated here, and we're feeling the after-effects.'
'Precisely,' said a passing bush.

Pilfered Pallbearers posted:

Anyone have some good (small & cheap) IR blasters that work with HA? I have a couple of IR controlled string lights that I want to automate.

https://www.ovedecors.com/us/watterfall-20-ft.html

These are them. The IR receiver is in the plug that plugs into the wall. I’m also down to replacing the power pack if that’s something that’s reasonable/makes sense.

Edit: The lights themselves have one of these connectors

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LCV8LGA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_G3b1FbK5H9Z85?th=1

The connector plugs into the actual power supply, which also houses the IR sensors.

I don't know the specific model, but broadlink makes some that seem to work pretty well.

ShoeFly
Dec 28, 2006

Waiter, there's a fly in my shoe!

calandryll posted:

I recently migrated a bunch of stuff, including HA, over to a proxmox setup. I used these scripts, https://tteck.github.io/Proxmox/, to install everything. Completely easy and simple to do. Prior to that my virtualization experience was installing various distros to play around with.

I just did the same, moved my HA install from a dedicated box to a VM. I'm shocked how easy it was, all my custom integrations, camera feeds, Zigbee2MQTT setup etc just worked out of the box. The only thing I had to do was enable USB passthrough for my Zigbee dongle but that was very simple.

I've given the VM the same IP that the dedicated box had and my wife hasn't even noticed that there's been a change.

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

ShoeFly posted:

I just did the same, moved my HA install from a dedicated box to a VM. I'm shocked how easy it was, all my custom integrations, camera feeds, Zigbee2MQTT setup etc just worked out of the box. The only thing I had to do was enable USB passthrough for my Zigbee dongle but that was very simple.

One of the things HA did such an excellent job on is backup and restore. It didn't use to be that way :) But they definitely have nailed it.

ShoeFly
Dec 28, 2006

Waiter, there's a fly in my shoe!

Motronic posted:

One of the things HA did such an excellent job on is backup and restore. It didn't use to be that way :) But they definitely have nailed it.

It's something I've been putting off for a while as I was expecting to spend a whole weekend getting everything back up and running.

Henrik Zetterberg
Dec 7, 2007

Speaking of backup and restore, what’s the easiest way to back up my Rasp Pi / homebridge configs? It’s really gonna suck when my SD card craps out.

TransatlanticFoe
Mar 1, 2003

Hell Gem

Henrik Zetterberg posted:

Speaking of backup and restore, what’s the easiest way to back up my Rasp Pi / homebridge configs? It’s really gonna suck when my SD card craps out.

Homebridge’s UI has a backup option in the menu, when you start up a new instance it asks if you have a backup to restore from, I just tried migrating from a Docker install to a native DSM install on my Synology (same IP and port) and everything was pretty seamless.

ToxicFrog
Apr 26, 2008


ShoeFly posted:

I just did the same, moved my HA install from a dedicated box to a VM. I'm shocked how easy it was, all my custom integrations, camera feeds, Zigbee2MQTT setup etc just worked out of the box. The only thing I had to do was enable USB passthrough for my Zigbee dongle but that was very simple.

I did the HA docker->vm migration last night, and the backup/restore went smoothly, but then I spent the rest of the evening debugging spooky DNS fuckery that turned out to be rooted in HAOS writing the wrong DNS search path into resolve.conf, but only inside the homeassistant container, not on the container host or any of the other containers. So DNS resolution worked fine inside the VM and inside the hassio_dns container but failed for homeassistant itself. And since everything on my network that isn't zigbee uses internal hostnames, this meant it was basically completely nonfunctional.

I still don't have a long-term fix for this, for now I'm just connecting to the container and fixing it by hand whenever I need to restart HA. :sigh:

Motronic
Nov 6, 2009

smoobles
Sep 4, 2014

Dumb Google Home question:

I've got a speaker group set up in my living room for 2 Homes that works great for music, EXCEPT when I say "hey Google lower the volume", at which point it lowers the volume of the speaker that picked up my voice and leaves the other one at full blast.

Any ideas?

VelociBacon
Dec 8, 2009

smoobles posted:

Dumb Google Home question:

I've got a speaker group set up in my living room for 2 Homes that works great for music, EXCEPT when I say "hey Google lower the volume", at which point it lowers the volume of the speaker that picked up my voice and leaves the other one at full blast.

Any ideas?

"Hey google lower the volume of the living room speakers"

smoobles
Sep 4, 2014

TY buddy

blindjoe
Jan 10, 2001
I have a "smart home" problem I am not sure how to accomplish with the lowest expenditure. Hopefully someone can help me out.

In my house, the garage has been shortened by 8 ft as the front part of the garage was converted to a home office and laundry room.
It seems like it was done pretty jankily, but that part doesn't matter.

What does is that the garage light switch is in the original position. So when you go into the garage from the laundry room, there is no light switch. It instead is a hallway away.
There is a 3 way switch, by the garage door, but I have piled a tablesaw and junk infront of it, so its a pain to access most of the time.

The garage door opener was also in this location, but that was an easy move to abandon the wiring in the wall and run new wires along the ceiling like you always see.

I have replaced the two light bulbs with many shoplights, so now I would like to be able to switch the lights on easily from the door. Also, because its so bright, I often need to turn off the garage lights from the front door, when I go to bed and see I have left them on.


I have a Hue light system with these little wireless push buttons (left over from my last house, where one of the rooms had a wall plug only, and I had a fixture in the room), and they would be perfect. I could put one near the front door, and one at the entrance to the garage where your hand goes when you walk through a door.

However, I don't know what switch would work with Hue. This might be a simple three way switch, but I have no idea.

I also have wyze stuff in the house, and myq, if any of those systems would work but i would rather not have any more apps.
I have a Z-wave usb stick but never got around to doing anything with it because it turns out computer janitoring my house is not what I want to do.

Anyone have any suggestions, ideas on how to do this?

Pilfered Pallbearers
Aug 2, 2007

blindjoe posted:

I have a "smart home" problem I am not sure how to accomplish with the lowest expenditure. Hopefully someone can help me out.

In my house, the garage has been shortened by 8 ft as the front part of the garage was converted to a home office and laundry room.
It seems like it was done pretty jankily, but that part doesn't matter.

What does is that the garage light switch is in the original position. So when you go into the garage from the laundry room, there is no light switch. It instead is a hallway away.
There is a 3 way switch, by the garage door, but I have piled a tablesaw and junk infront of it, so its a pain to access most of the time.

The garage door opener was also in this location, but that was an easy move to abandon the wiring in the wall and run new wires along the ceiling like you always see.

I have replaced the two light bulbs with many shoplights, so now I would like to be able to switch the lights on easily from the door. Also, because its so bright, I often need to turn off the garage lights from the front door, when I go to bed and see I have left them on.


I have a Hue light system with these little wireless push buttons (left over from my last house, where one of the rooms had a wall plug only, and I had a fixture in the room), and they would be perfect. I could put one near the front door, and one at the entrance to the garage where your hand goes when you walk through a door.

However, I don't know what switch would work with Hue. This might be a simple three way switch, but I have no idea.

I also have wyze stuff in the house, and myq, if any of those systems would work but i would rather not have any more apps.
I have a Z-wave usb stick but never got around to doing anything with it because it turns out computer janitoring my house is not what I want to do.

Anyone have any suggestions, ideas on how to do this?

Hue doesn’t do wired switched. Hue’s system is bulbs only. Unless your shop lights are hue bulbs (which I highly doubt) there is no way to do this within hue’s ecosystem.

There are 2 ways to do this.

1. Get a smart in wall light switch
2. Get a switchbot ( https://us.switch-bot.com/products/switchbot-bot )


I like Lutron’s stuff for the in wall switches, but it’s pricey. Essentially, you’d get a Lutron hub, an in wall toggle switch, and however many “pico remotes” you want. This would allow you to flick the switch with your phone, automations, or you can put the pico remotes anywhere within range of the hub and they’ll function as the actual in wall switch. You could have one in the front of the laundry room, one upstairs, hell even one in your shitter if you’re so inclined.


Edit: I missed that you’re already bought into Wyze. Wyze also makes in wall switches that will achieve the same effect. I don’t use Wyze, but you should be able to use google home or Alexa or similar to make the hue buttons fire off the Wyze switch.

Pilfered Pallbearers fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Sep 1, 2023

hogofwar
Jun 25, 2011

'We've strayed into a zone with a high magical index,' he said. 'Don't ask me how. Once upon a time a really powerful magic field must have been generated here, and we're feeling the after-effects.'
'Precisely,' said a passing bush.

blindjoe posted:

...
Anyone have any suggestions, ideas on how to do this?

Not sure if it's the best option but using one or more Hue switch module somewhere should be the most seamless hue compatible option. I'm not sure if it's best to put them near the lights or on each switch though. It may also require neutral wires.

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blindjoe
Jan 10, 2001

Pilfered Pallbearers posted:

Hue doesn’t do wired switched. Hue’s system is bulbs only. Unless your shop lights are hue bulbs (which I highly doubt) there is no way to do this within hue’s ecosystem.

There are 2 ways to do this.

1. Get a smart in wall light switch
2. Get a switchbot ( https://us.switch-bot.com/products/switchbot-bot )


I like Lutron’s stuff for the in wall switches, but it’s pricey. Essentially, you’d get a Lutron hub, an in wall toggle switch, and however many “pico remotes” you want. This would allow you to flick the switch with your phone, automations, or you can put the pico remotes anywhere within range of the hub and they’ll function as the actual in wall switch. You could have one in the front of the laundry room, one upstairs, hell even one in your shitter if you’re so inclined.


Edit: I missed that you’re already bought into Wyze. Wyze also makes in wall switches that will achieve the same effect. I don’t use Wyze, but you should be able to use google home or Alexa or similar to make the hue buttons fire off the Wyze switch.

Sounds like Lutron might be the way to go, and supposedly lutron works with hue? Only reason for the Hue was each switch is $50 and Ive got a pile of them. Also it means buying new hubs etc which is sigh.
- Also Hue is pretty useless it seems, this starter kit is only good if you have places to put the bulbs.
- wyze seems fine, just would have to futz around in the boxes and rewire to be single on/off, as its single pole only.
- nice part is they are cheap, $20 and can be bought at home depot
- for Hue/wyze integration, I guess I need IFTTT - which is online, I guess it would be fine for most things, as long as the wyze switch works with no internet too.


The Hue switch module seems weird - only good for controlling Hue stuff, and the wrong shape for square boxes.
Neutrals are fine, they are all in the switch boxes.

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