GreatAlbatross

joined 2 years ago
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[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 4 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

A little late to the party, but yes, I can confirm that Hue bulbs can be controlled directly over zigbee. You will need a zigbee radio if you haven't already bought one (£20-ish).
They literally just appear like a zigbee device inside that integration.

You may need to reset them before they will pair.
I forget the pattern, but iirc it's on 2s, off 8s, repeated until you see an acknowledgement flash.
Sometimes, you'll get one that takes forever, then the next bunch will just hop right on.
I have several Hue hubs I still need to offload, as I sometimes buy the combo packs that include another hub.

I also found that the response time was a lot quicker over direct zigbee than farting around with Signiant/Philips' API.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 11 points 5 days ago

The trick is to buy reasonably open devices, then provide the smarts yourself.
If it can talk to / be configured by HomeAssistant, and doesn't require internet to work, it'll probably be fine.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 2 points 2 weeks ago

That's indeed useful information!
My boiler control for the central heating has the very useful function of a 30 minute button.
Which means even if I torpedoed HA in the middle of winter, I could still get the house warm.

 

Just wondered if anyone on here is using a HA compatible one.
Zigbee or Z-Wave would be fine.
Unfortunately, the controllers I got with the main control unit are Heatmiser.
They use Zigbee, but the manufacturer's own implementation which requires buying and running a proprietary hub (and sod that!)
Rather annoyingly, the controllers are pretty functional!
The manifold wiring centre itself (UH4) just works by connecting 240v lines, so shouldn't be too hard to have HA connecting the right loops at the right time.

I've considered just doing this with shelly relays and setting up a thermostat in HA, so if anyone has homebrewed an interesting solution, I'd also be interested to hear!

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 1 points 3 weeks ago

Similar with snails: Never pull them off something to avoid hurting them as the sucker detaches.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 1 points 3 weeks ago

I bought it, played a little, but was working 60 hour weeks.
Housemate starting playing on my savegame, so when I next got back to it, I had no idea what was going on.
Haven't gone back to it since, though I have nearly finished IV a few times now.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 1 points 1 month ago

Turkey's main source of renewable power is Atatürk spinning in his grave.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 2 points 1 month ago

I just run mine without ever connecting it to the internet.
I run an Apple TV (shock, walled garden!), as it is the only device I've seen that consistently matches frame rates properly on the output.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 4 points 1 month ago

This is why I often refer to 4K as UHD: The WCG and HDR being available to consumers is far more impactful than end users having a few more pixels.

(Also because I'm a snarky pedant, and consumer 4K UHD is only 3840 wide, while DCI4K is actually 4096)

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Thank mechanical Jesus.
I'm sick of staring down north of £200 for a reliable UHD spinner. And that's second hand!

Edit: Never mind...

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 23 points 1 month ago

"A hunting accident? In the New Forest? What a strange and unexpected occurrence!"

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I love my Reolink one.
It's powered by PoE, which means running an ethernet cable, and either using a PoE capable switch, or injecting the power just for that cable with an injector.
If you're planning a few cameras, a switch is worth it, as you can power them all easily. Basic ones are £20.

Because it's powered, it will stream all day/night without worrying about batteries. It stores video locally on a microSD, and dumps clips to FTP happily.
The clip capture is pre-rolled too (30s, I think?), which is always nice.

Currently, I have the feed in dashboards, and I have an automation that flashes the lights and sends a picture to my phone when someone presses the bell.
Eventually, I'd like to integrate it directly into HA so I can speak to people without using the Reolink application.

I like Reolink's other cameras too (they do quite a few). I have an 810A, and a 510, if you wanted any feedback on them.

[–] GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's a joke. They actually use FXP orchestrated by a third party, unencrypted.
It's very efficient.

 

I thought I'd pop this up here, as I've now had mine almost a year.

I've had sonoff zigbee sensors for a while, and wanted to try this slightly updated one with a display.
To cut a long story short:

  • It works
  • It communicates and pairs with HA ZHA integration out of the box.
  • I've not had any issues at all since I bought it.
  • The display is clear
  • The bracket sticks to the wall, then the sensor magnets into the bracket. The sensor also has a fold-out stand for placing on a surface.
  • After almost 1 year on the included battery, it's showing 60%
  • I paid about £12, they're now around £14

Battery use should obviously be taken with a pinch of salt, but I would not be surprised if it's still trucking after 2 years.

Accuracy is fine for consumer level gear

I also discovered (after updating to HA latest) that temperature and humidity thresholds can be set on the device.
And that it will show symbols on the display when these limits are breached. By default, it shows a snowflake when it's under 19'C.

So, yeah. For areas where people are likely to want to check the temperature quickly, they're neat little dooberies.

 

Is your grandma a force of nature?
Does your best friend cause an impact wherever they go?
Now you can give them the recognition they deserve, by naming a storm after them.

 

I would like to start using floorplans/maps with various device actions on them. This means I need locally stored images, that can be seen over the network.
I managed to upload images to HA, but as they need to be accessed with a token, I either need to refresh the token every day (no), or have an image with a long-lived token (also not a good idea).

How have other people done things?
Is it worth spinning up an http image host?
Or maybe throwing files into an nginx folder inside HA?

Thoughts on a postcard :)

 

Oh my Jesus, can we just renationalise them already?

'We can only squeeze money out of this debt strangled utility if you exempt us from liability, particularly the executives in charge'

What a load of horseshit.

 

As I'm currently doing a re-wire, it's a great opportunity for me to put some metering in the house.
I'm single-phase, but I plan to monitor multiple sections of the house, which are each wired for 100A independently.

I'm currently eyeing up either the Shelly Pro 3EM – 120A or the 50A.
As it will fit nicely in the consumer unit, and supports Ethernet.

I previously looked at the Aeotec clamp devices, but they seem to be difficult to find with multiple 100A connectors.

Emporia Vue was also a consideration, but I'm always a little hesitant to buy products that require custom firmware to even work properly, when others are available. And I'd also like to avoid using 2.4Ghz wifi for connectivity.

I'd love to hear any experiences people have had with similar devices, good or bad. And how the integration with HA went.

 

I guess they kinda have to do this, or you'd have to keep the same person on breakfast until they retired.

I always found it a little bit comfy that BBC pipelined a lot of the flagship presenters.
Steve Wright going from Radio 1, to Radio 2 as the listeners aged, for example.

 

This was very much a me mistake, so apologies from me.

The long story short, is that we were migrating the domain between accounts.

As the previous DNS records would be wiped during transfer, we made backups, and started the process.
This morning, the "approve transfer" button was lit.
A sensible person would have gone "perfect, lets get this scheduled".
Instead, I just pressed the button.

Unfortunately, when you transfer, and are keeping continuity, you should always make sure the receiving account is ready to re-apply the settings.
I didn't, and the receiving account owner was happily asleep. 100% my bad!

All sorted now (hopefully).
There might be some weirdness while DNS updates propagate through the various caches.

I think the lessons learned are pretty obvious:

  • Consider how noticeable downtime will be, and schedule with this in mind.
  • Check that your counterpart is online when transferring a domain.
  • Always schedule a maintenance window, even if you get excited when the button activates.
 

Apology from me. We're moving some things around on the back end, and my non-thinking brain didn't think to check another admin was online before handing over control of a system to them.

Hopefully, feddit.uk will be back up before the end of the day, assuming nothing horrid happens.

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