#home-automation

Posts tagged #home-automation

1. Article

   I deleted a comment today and I'm not sorry: mains voltage is not a beginner project

   Normally I'm the bloke laughing at his own failures on here. Not today. Today someone posted (in a comment on another thread, I've removed it and messaged them, they were very good about it) a build where a cheap relay module sitting on a breadboard switched a 2400W heater on and off. Live and neutral running through breadboard jumpers. No fuse, no earth, no enclosure, screw terminals exposed on the bench. They…

   Matt O'BrienOct 13, 202643likes10comments

2. Experience

   2 years of LoRa trough sensors on a dairy farm: what I stuffed up so you don't have to

   Kia ora. Not a programmer, just a dairy farmer in the Waikato who got sick of driving round on the quad every morning checking troughs. 400 cows, 28 troughs, 3 tanks. That run took me about an hour and a half before milking, every day, rain or shine. Two years ago I started teaching myself Arduino off YouTube. Now every trough and tank reports in over LoRaWAN and I get a ping on my phone if one is low. I've stuffed…

   Hamish TurnerJul 27, 202642likes11comments

3. Experience

   Stopped driving round checking troughs. LoRa, an ultrasonic sensor and far too much silicone

   Kia ora. Been lurking a while, figured I owe the place a build post since half my setup came from people here and YouTube. Background: 400 cows on about 160 ha just out of Matamata. Water is everything. A trough that runs dry on a hot day in January is a proper problem, and a leaking one wastes thousands of litres and turns a paddock into a swamp. For years the job was: ute, every morning, every trough. About 45…

   Hamish TurnerJul 16, 202617likes10comments

4. Video

   Sending this to everyone who asks me how to start with Home Assistant. Michael Leen's walkthrough is the clearest one I've found. Two things I'd add: put HA OS on an SSD not an SD card, and give it a DHCP reservation before you set up a single integration. 🔧

   Matt O'BrienJul 12, 202611likes5comments

5. Experience

   The Pi Zero that cooked itself in my letterbox (and what lives in there now)

   G'day legends. This one's a confession. Last January I built a "you've got mail" notifier. Pi Zero 2 W, a reed switch on the letterbox flap, a magnet, a little Python script that pinged Home Assistant over MQTT. Took an arvo. Worked first go. Felt very clever. Then Brisbane did Brisbane. The letterbox is black powder-coated steel, faces west, and sits in full sun from about 1pm. I had the Pi logging vcgencmd…

   Matt O'BrienJun 26, 202616likes7comments