Home automation ...

[T i m]

Prompted by George's heads up and the discussions re Home Automation with others here recently, I diverted from our dog walk though a fairly quiet Lidl earlier and picked up one of their 'Smart Lighting Starter Kits' (£39.99) and a Smart Socket (£7.99).

The starter kit consists of a wired (only I believe) 'Zigbee 3' spec hub inc Ethernet cable and USB style PSU, 3 x ES27 white LED lamps (9W / 806 lm / 2200-6500 K) and a single 4 button remote.

Upon plugging the hub in, nothing happened so I tried a phone charger and the LAN and Status LED's lit up so it looks like a dead USB-wart (the supplied USB A -uSUB cable is ok as I'm currently powering it from the MacMini USB port).

I then installed the Lidl Home app and got it connected to the hub ok. I then plugged the smart switch into the mains and added that equally easily. Fun to toggle the thing on and off from your phone. ;-)

I then found a B22 to ES27 adaptor, screwed one of the new LED lamps in and it was fading up and down (indicating it was in 'pairing mode').

I added that to the Lidl app and again, was able to turn it on and off from my phone and play with the brightness and colour temperature controls.

Getting the light remote was a little trickier (all this was without reading the manuals of course, part of my test for how intuitive something is) but the onscreen prompts got me going there. You basically simultaneously press the power on and off buttons for 5 seconds (to get the indicator LED flashing on and off) to pair the remote to the hub then simultaneously press the brightness up and down buttons (for 5 seconds) to pair the remote to the lamp you want to manage (via the app).

Then I remembered Theo (I think) talking about he 'Smart Life' app so I installed that, unlinked the hub from the Lidl app and re-connected it to the Smart Life app and all went as easily as before (easier as I now had a bit more of a clue), the idea being that it might be a bit more flexible than the Lidl one (that it looks like it's based on)?

Then I replaced the dusk to dawn LED lamps in the front and rear lobbies with two of the Smart LEDs and set them up to both go off and on at sunrise and sunset (for this region). It will be interesting to see if they are off when we come down tomorrow. ;-)

The dusk to dawn LED's they replaced needed quite a bit of ambient light to go off so this time of year they were quite often on most of the day. I noticed that the smart setup had 'overcast' as a setting so I might be able to include that on these lights as well.

The current lamps are in std B22 pendants and because these smart lights happen to be ES27, I have to use converters. I was wondering if it's worth changing to ES27 pendants as it seems many lamps from the likes of Ikea / Aldi / Lidl are only ES? Has anyone fitted an ES pendant and can recommend some 'nice' (as in mechanically / design / usage) ones please?

The next step is to see if I can link any of this into Google Home ...

Cheers, T i m

[gareth evans]

Check out Idratek.

[T i m]

Have you used any of that stuff OOI?

It looks like it uses it's own standards / protocol (IDRANet) so that would mean extra stuff over what I already have (Zigbee).

Cheers, T i m

[Theo]

It seems the Lidl is a rebrand of Tuya Smart Life, so Smart Life should talk to more things than just the Lidl products.

Various people sell brass/copper/chrome ES pendant lampholders. ebay has a selection, or eg:

Getthing white turned out much harder if you want to support a lampshade - things like this: I don't like the 'shade rings'. The only 'normal' ES pendants I found were these (also in black): 're fine.

I also fitted a chrome batten holder, which was fine too:

Theo

[T i m]

Including Sonoff I hope as I've ordered one of their PIR detectors. ;-)

Yeah, I don't thing I like the idea of metal in such things and we are all white plastic in any case.

Yes, that would be more the sort of thing we would want / use (even if we didn't use a shade in every instance).

Cool, and they look more familiar.

Are you able to explain *why* ES seems to be so 'non standard' or is it just here in the UK? Are ES actually standard in the EU, given how often the likes of Aldi / Lidl / Ikea only seem to offer lamps in ES fittings?

I was thinking of getting at least one ES battenholder, mounted on a bit of wood, wired with a flying lead with a surface mains switch as a test bed (handy for the on-off lamp resets etc).

Coming down to the front and rear lobby lights off bade us realise how dark it was out there but not just because is was close to sunrise (so sunrise + N time wouldn't help) it was. So the next thing I'm going to try is adding a 'rule' that turns those lights on when 'Overcast'. It could mean they are on all day (and night) but it will be interesting to find out.

I would also be interested to find a B22 LED Zigbee compatible lamp to put in my neighbours (unused) outside light and trigger it from the PIR I've ordered (with his full permission etc). ;-)

Should I be able to sum the rules, eg, Only if between sunset and sunrise and the PIR is triggered, turn the light on for 10 mins?

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

This seems to suggest that their products can be ZigBee compliant::

Agreed.

I am going to try to get an RPi running Home Assistant although I'm still not exactly clear how all this stuff bolts together and what's needed for what.

I think I got from Theo that HA allows you to keep everything 'in house' (and I think that's not a bad idea), as long as I can still get confirmation of any sensor triggers when out-and-about etc.

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

<snip>

Cool.

<snip>

I saw someone doing similar on Youtube but I've not tested it against any voice stuff as yet (and not sure I'm bothered in any case as I'm unlikely to use it as the Mrs would forget what to say).

Last night I picked up the Lidl LED strip lamp and couldn't seem to see it on the list on 'Smart Life', so I reverted to the Lidl App and soon found and bound it (really just to make sure it was working).

This morning I went back to the Smart Life app and just did a search and it found (one at a time) all 3 smart switches, the strip lamp and remote control. I put the two pendant lights into paring mode before it scanned them as well. I created a group of the two lights then set them up to come on an hour before sunset and go off 30 mins after sunrise.

I may try having them come on brighter before dusk and dropping back a bit at midnight (more like night / security lights).

I'd like an input sensor (PIR on the way) and maybe a 'Smart light switch' to run in parallel with a wall one (so I can override the Smart / scheduled setting either way)?

Only time will tell how reliable it all is in use.

Fun finding out though. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

<snip>

A tiny Sonoff PIR sensor turned up this morning along with some B22 to ES27 converters (for now) and no more than 60 seconds later the PIR was paired and on my Smart Life desktop. The 3rd lamp that came with the Lidl starter kit was also paired first time and then linked to the PIR.

The PIR is just stood in the hall for now, under the hall lamp and so set to turn the lamp on as the PIR is triggered and off again 2 mins later.

All seems to work as expected. ;-)

I'm going to power the 3D printer and RPi (running Octoprint) from a smart switch so I can power it on remotely, then access the heaters via Octoprint and get the printer warmed up, ready to load the filament. It also means I can turn it off remotely once it's done (as reported by Octoprint and it's Webcam).

I think I'd like a current sensing ZigBee compatible switched socket and see what sort of thing I could do with that ('Washing machine finished' etc).

I also have a ZigBee USB dongle and some more 32GB uSD cards on their way so I can install Home Assistant on a RPi3B.

A couple more PIR's and a Sonoff switch on the kitchen lights and I might have my goal of being able to have the lights follow me around. ;-)

Cheers, T i m