diy smart multiway trailing socket.

[T i m]

<snip>

Yup.

And that could also include independent rad valves etc? ;-)

I have 35 Zigbee devices on my live system and 10 on my development, plus a spattering of WiFi devices on both.

I'm currently only using a RP3b and TI CC2531 and I think the suggestion is that the 2531 is only really good for up to 20 devices? That said, most things seem to happen instantly (a remote switch toggles near as fast as you can toggle it onscreen etc) but I'm also looking at one of the Odroid boxes instead 1) because it's directly supported with an HA image, 2) it's very low power and 3) it's seems pretty powerful (and 4) I could always use it as a Linux box if the whole HA thing didn't work out).

My dev system is on a passively cooled Shuttle and whilst it definitely feels more responsive, especially when opening History across all devices for a week, it draws 10W idle and may make a better TVHeadend host (that I do actually have configured in another container).

What I don't understand is that the system never seems stressed, even on the RPi3b?

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

Remote access is something you would have to "bake in" if you were rolling your own anyway. So you could argue there is far less risk with kit of your own design sharing a network with other stuff.

For many users the prospect of either setting up their own VPN server to allow access to their network from outside, or even just simple port forwarding and firewall rules to make an internal server visible outside of the LAN, is a layer of complexity way too far.

So many SOHO devices manufacturers will get round this by establishing an internet server as a "hub" where the HA/Security/Whatever devices can connect to it and register, and it can then broker interactions with a prospective controlling app. This saves all the problems of remote access to devices sat behind NAT and a firewall (since most domestic routers do little or no egress filtering).

Needless to say many of these have proven to be security nightmares, exposing peoples HA and surveillance kit to all and sundry.

You can do it with the appropriate kit and controls.

(I probably have an old Vigor 2830 router going spare if you need one?)

I suppose you could set a DHCP pool to start at a base address. Then connect devices in order, and reserve addresses with MAC bindings. Then move the base address of the pool, and connect more devices and reserve them. So you could create groups in a slightly long winded way.

(failing that - you may be able to save the router config and then hack the save file before reloading it!)

[John Rumm]

Any reason why it should? I think we tend to get conditioned into what to expect from hardware when its bogged down under heavyweight OSs and GUIs and lose track of just how much power is actually available when all you need to do is shuffle commands about and twiddle with hardware.

[T i m]

True, but I was really thinking more from an ip allocation / independence sort of thing? I could ensure my user (WiFi) networks and HA (WiFi) networks were on different frequencies so that might gain me some slight performance / advantage as well?

Agreed.

And why the likes of Skype / Whatsapp / Teamviewer are 'easy'. ;-)

Check.

Yup, I think It was Theo that put me onto the security / local advantages of Home Assistant and partly why I'm trying to stick with what that can handle directly and avoiding any integration that requires any such external contact (so no Alexa / Google voice activation).

Well, I was guessing you could but was interested to learn if such was considered 'normal'?

You are very kind but 1) I've played with one in the past and they are way too complicated for me and 2) I think I have a choice of old WiFi routers I can play with here. ;-)

Yeah ... and I've already done something close to that (but without the reservations) to try to get things in order (static v DHCP pool).

Now there is a real OOTB idea, I'll give it a look. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

<snip>

Well, because doing some thing seem to take a long time (as in minutes) on the RPi but are faster (but still seem hard going) on the Dual Core Shuttle? As you say, std comm's / action stuff seems to be equally fast on both because they are having to do very little.

Yes, you are right and I agree, however, whilst some hardware can be good at doing some things, it doesn't mean it's good (well specced) at doing all?

Like when I was looking at hardware to use as a TVHeadend server. (From memory) ... Recording several channels at once seemed to be ok, even for a RPi but it wouldn't stream much, especially to a slow / non optimised client because it couldn't transcode or something?

Q. Why do they recommend the OdroidN2+ or even an i7 NUC if all that's really needed (for HA on it's own etc) is a RPi?

just remembered, I think the RPi is not considered the best choice for a serious / long term system is that it runs on an SD and that's not good for long term writes?

The Odroids (can also use) use eMMC ... but unless that's the lowest spec model that does, why not something smaller that's around the same power as the RPi 3/4?

Unless it's down to creating and supporting a range of installation images to support a wide range?

I'm on the waiting list for a 'better' Zigbee coordinator so maybe I'll try that first before upgrading the RPi. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Mathew Newton]

Ah, yes, I didn't pick up on the desire to control individual sockets.

[Fredxx]

You do realise that the RPi can load from SD card and then no more writes. So no writing at all once the image is loaded onto the card.

[John Rumm]

Well you can usually do it some some extend on consumer level kit, and have full control over it when you move up to the more business focussed stuff.

But less of a problem if you have access to someone who knows how to drive em :-)

(also binding IP to MAC is fairly straight forward)

Yup, but see above comment about consumer level kit. Some of it will get you half way there, but that is it!

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Hmm, Having experienced what some idiots do with trailing sockets, like plugging two fan heaters in and wondering why its getting hot, I do question the lack of a fuse or fuses for each outlet if you are going to make them like that. OK you will have a 13 amp in its plug, but the one I recall had a so called 13 amp in the socket bar too, and nether blew with two three kw heaters on full power. I kind of wonder about fuse ratings myself. Brian

[Steve Walker]

Fuses have different speeds of melting at different currents and also a tolerance band. At the low end of the band, a 13A fuse will pass slightly over 20A indefinitely, at the high end, it is more like 25A. Plus the heaters are likely not quite 3kw, so 2 off 3kW heaters is perfectly possible.

[T i m]

I have seen the suggestion of reserving ip address in the router here many times so assumed it was a fairly 'stock' these days. I say 'these days' because my Fritzbox router is quite old and has seen out probably 5 (Cabletel > NTL > VM routers) that I generally set into modem mode asap.

I guess few domestic users would know anything about ip address reservations and of those who do, even fewer might want to stipulate the ip address.

Looks easy enough. ;-)

Now you mention it, I think I have a Draytek router here of some sort and I did fire it up to have a play, then put it away again as it was way too complicated ('complicated' because of it's flexibility and out-of-date UI design). It reminded me of Cisco stuff ... ;-(

<snip>

And I did, first saving the config file (.export) as-was and then setting the IP address of my PC to reserved and saving and looking again and couldn't actually see any difference? ;-(

} { ip = 192.168.0.172; name = "MacMini"; mac = 00:16:CB:A2:XX:XX; medium = medium_ethernet; } {

It might be stored elsewhere so will keep looking.

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

Well, it's not really a need as such, more 'it's as easy to do 4/8 as it is 1', so I might as well [1]. ;-)

However, your reply / link has made me consider doing exactly as seen there on a currently unused 6 way trailing (ex Master > slaves) socket and probably using one of the commercial 'switches' (Sonoff / Shelly etc), so it was of good use. ;-)

I have a Sonoff smart WiFi switch already so I can measure it and check how easy it would be to fit inside the socket prior purchasing another.

Cheers, T i m

[1] There are several aspects to the Home Automation, difficulty and therefore what you might want to diy. One is the logical connection side and whilst some fully supported multi-devices will automagically discover the device and then any sub entities (like the TP-Link 3 way smart socket being one WiFi connection and device then with entities >

outlet 1, 2 and 3 etc), others take more effort / manual coding to add the various bits. eg, You can see a device present but there is no entity to action on so you have to add that yourself.

Therefore, if you only have to make one WiFi connection and then get (say) 8 individually switched sockets, that might give you more bang for yer buck. ;-)

[T i m]

<snip>

Ok, explain *exactly* what you mean by that (knowing just how disingenuous you are on most things).

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

Many will have an option to reserve an IP address for a particular MAC address - but often it's a case of you can only tell it reserve the one its already been allocated - not all of them allow you to specify the IP manually.

(Ideally (for neatness) you want to be able to specify an IP outside of the pool of addresses allocated to DHCP)

Depends on how old I suppose - more modern ones have got s bit slicker in the UI department, although probably still count as functional rather than particularly pretty.

(you can always telnet in a command line them if you prefer!)

Check there is not a checksum at the end of the config file as well...

[T i m]

<snip>

Understood.

Quite.

I also try to group like-devices together (again, only for neatness and ease of spotting any missing devices etc). All my RPi hosts on

192.168.0.120-130 etc.

OK. I think this one was quite old as I was given it. ;-)

Hmm, much better. ;-)

Yes, I did consider that but hoped I might find out if there was when I went to upload the hacked config file (and it checked).

Cheers, T i m

[Fredxx]

It will talk to a central server, which as you say can give away all sorts of network information. Potentially it will have access to any item on the local network that has given the local network access. In essence it betrays the firewall inherent from a NAT'd router.

Not many Routers allow for two different SSID and two NAT'd addresses. This would be the safest option.

My interest is slightly different. There are some open source projects that use off-the-shelf IOT hardware, where the firmware is accessible through JTAG or SWD interface. But the hardware is generally somewhat more expensive than this.

I'm interested to know whether this unit has it's programming pins exposed. The Wi-Fi module and what it uses to switch the load. I couldn't get the bits for this price.

[Fredxx]

I am not disingenuous to anything. I give credit when it is true, apologise when I'm wrong and counter untrue claims. I also have a tendency to support those who are subject to abuse.

Most systems wear out the SD Card after 18 months or so. You could always use an SSD into a USB port through a caddy. The Pi 4 has a Superspeed USB socket.

One post here explains the initial issue, namely SD card corruption during a power off and a solution.

And more here: Hope this helps. While the file system may show changes, they do not persist after a reboot.

[T i m]

Liar.

Liar.

Liar.

No, you *think* that's what you are doing (as with this example) but you are generally wrong.

Aww, what a hero ... but only after dishing it out yourself first I'm guessing.

So, your "You do realise that the RPi can load from SD card and then no more writes. So no writing at all once the image is loaded onto the card." was bullshit then. Maybe you should have Googled a bit harder

*before* you replied (or STFU).

Yes (possibly) or I could avoid something that regularly writes to an uSD card, making your "You do realise that the RPi can load from SD card and then no more writes. So no writing at all once the image is loaded onto the card." to be bullshit.

And? It wasn't a speed point nor a question about using alternative storage media with an RPi but nice squirming.

Given I've been running various RPi's of different evolutions and some for 24/7 for years and helping others do the same ... so do you think I'd get any useful advice from a troll like you?

<snip more left brainer bs>

What on earth makes you think I would be even the slightest bit interested in anything you said troll? That's why I can read all your lies, untruths and BS and not reply at all. Because you are no more important to me than something I've trod on.

What part of what I think of you (from the stuff you have come out with in the past) and then being interested in anything you say, don't you get?

Cheers, T i m

[nothanks]

Oh dear. Just let go of whatever grievance you think you have and get on with life, rather than shouting at someone you don't know. You wouldn't (I hope) act like this face-to-face so why do you think it's OK to do it on a discussion forum? Anonymity, perhaps?

[Fredxx]

Apologies, it is true I am disingenuous to abusers.

You simply don't deserve credit when you resort to abuse.

There have been a number of posts where I have apologised. I haven't seen one from you where the fact you claim are wrong. Did you apologise for incorrectly claiming many trillion animals are slaughtered each year?

It so happens I feel obliged to correct many of your stupid claims. How many trillion animals are slaughtered each year? I wasn't the only one obliged to put you right.

Quite, I return abuse. I try my best not to throw the first stone.

Many members on the forum and my personal experience says otherwise. You can choose to accept facts as facts or choose denial.

No, but it a solution to the wear properties of the SD card, however hard you wish this not to be true.

Given you accept there are wear issues of SD cards, and you didn't know of a solution, yes I naively thought my advice might be of interest to you.

More abuse typical of T i m.

Quite, facts you don't like to hear are excrement to you.

Lets get this right, you deliberately snipped the links of examples where you can prevent the Raspberry Pi writing to the SD card, so the card should now pretty much outlast the rest of the system.

There is a theme here, where the facts don't conform your liking they are ignored, removing them in the hope that no one else will notice.

Seriously, you need to get help. I'm sure your GP can assist.