Home Automation / Home Assistant automation?

[T i m]

With some good pointers from the Home Automaters here I've been experimenting with a starter HA system (from Lidl).

Their Silvercrest rebranded Tuya ZigBee gear all seemed to work out of the box (hub, 3 lights, some mains switches, remote control, strip light) in addition to a Sonoff PIR sensor, switching a light in the hall and others coming on/off, dusk/dawn etc.

Again, with advice here and in the hope of keeping it all local and doing more powerful things, I've installed the Home Assistant system (v Hassos) on a RPi3B and with a TI CC2531 ZigBee2MQTT (Coordinator firmware) dongle ... and that also connects ok to a smart switch and I can toggle that manually from the dashboard but I'm yet to get the hang of any of the automation stuff.

Like when you go though creating the automation it doesn't seem to use the 'friendly' name for the devices but the complex discovered names (is that right?) and it seems to be un-intuitive / settings overload, compared with the Lidl / Tyua 'Smart Life' app in any case.

But then I'm guessing it's going to be fairly complex if it's going to be able to handle all the boolean rules stuff? ;-(

So, can anyone point me to a very basic user guide / walkthrough for say adding a smart light and remote control or making a smart switch go on and off randomly please? I'm hoping if I have something that works I'd be able to tweak it bit by bit and then understand it better?

(It's all looking a bit too much like programming for me and I hope I read abut a more GUI version on it's way (or is this it))?

Host Operating System Home Assistant OS 5.8 Update Channel stable Supervisor Version 2020.12.7 Docker Version 19.03.13

Or is there something else I should have added to make it do what I want please?

Cheers, T i m

[Spike]

Common sense? As in not wasting such time, effort, and money for so little return?

Just because something is possible doesn't make it a good idea to implement.

[Theo]

I assume you or somebody reprogrammed the CC2531 with the zigbee2mqtt firmware? So you're getting status and control of your devices OK in Home Assistant?

Did you rename the devices to 'friendly' names, rather than 0x1583753737 or whatever they come as? Whenever I pair a new device I immediately rename it, otherwise I couldn't tell the individual devices apart (there's no IDs printed on the outside).

I've not set this up before, but when I go to Configuration -> Automations there's a '+' button in the bottom right (sometimes this is hidden by a popup which you need to dismiss - a bit of bad UI there).

Click + and it pops up a thing that says

"Type below what this automation should do, and we will try to convert into a Home Assistant automation"

I don't trust such things, so I press SKIP.

Then it pops up a 'New Automation' box with:

Triggers - select a source of events. For example I could go with: Trigger Type - Device Device: 'Garage' (my name for it) Then appears: Trigger: Garage_temperature temperature changes Above: 0C Below: 0C Duration hh:mm:ss

(set to whatever thresholds and press 'Add Trigger') I don't know how the 'Above', 'Below' and 'Duration' boxes work exactly, but I could RTFM.

Actions: Action type: Device Device: 'Ikea power socket' (my name) Action: Turn on Ikea power socket_switch (press Add Action)

Click the floppy disc icon (bottom right) to save.

Seems simple enough to me. Yes there are lots of boxes, but that's because there's lots of possible things you could do.

(I later went back and tried the 'we'll guess for you' thing - I typed in something like 'turn on garage socket when temperature is below freezing'. It guessed right about making a trigger based on a temperature sensor, but I had to select the garage one. It seemed to think I wanted to turn on a light, and my setup doesn't have any lights connected, so it left the rest for me to set up. Doing it manually is less hassle)

Just search 'Home Assistant automations' and there are YouTube videos. I haven't watched them, but I'd be surprised if they didn't show you.

Theo

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

on 22/12/2020, Theo supposed :

I numbered mine 1 to 8 plus a name, on a sticky label.

[T i m]

Yes, I bought it like that so reduce the level of variables I'd have to deal with.

I am.

I did.

Makes sense (and what I did). There is a 'Name' field that I believe you edit to give it a friendly name and an ID that is how it's seen by the system (that you probably shouldn't edit?). It's the ID that seems to appear when creating an automation?

Yup, that's where I go.

Seen.

I've tried it both ways Theo.

Ok, I se a trigger as 'Sun' that popped up a Sunrise / Sunset option, I chose Sunset.

I would have to select '_TZ3000_00mk2xzy TS011F' as that's how what I called 'Socket 1' comes up in the list (because I know it's in the lounge).

And there I see Turn on Socket 1, Turn off Socket 1, Toggle Socket 1 etc. (I've selected Turn on Socket 1 (at Sunrise))

Yup.

Erm, because you have made something work, it always easy once you have done that or maybe you are more familiar with programming or all the concepts than I?

Understood.

Ok. I've tried using their Wizard thing but because it wasn't obvious what device was what (other than in this case I've only but one switch in an Area I could differentiate it) .

Oh sure, when you realise what's what and what you *need* to add / adjust / set and what you don't.

My point, with the Smart Life app I was able to do everything I imagined you could with only a brief glance at the instructions that came with each instance of a device, if it wasn't / already in pairing mode when I started. After that I have been able to switch between apps, unpair / pair and automate everything I wanted (and was possibly able) intuitively ... without having to resort to instructions or Youtube etc.

Yes, I've watched a few, it didn't help because none seemed to cover what I was trying to do and anything similar didn't look like mine (re the device names etc)?

So, now I have what appears to be a complete automation (turning Socket 1 on at Sunset), do I have to create a new automation to turn it off at Sunrise or would it be combined in the same automation?

As mentioned I was able to get the Lidl app hooked up to all the devices (Inc the Sonoff PIR) and doing exactly what I wanted and it was all reasonably intuitive.

Home Assistant seems to be something, a bit like OMV or TVHeadend where it was written by a Linux geek / programmer but without running it past a newbie and dealing with all the newbie stumbling blocks? Like, 'how did I get to that screen that let me ...' sorta thing. Maybe they aren't aimed at newbies?

I'm not complaining you understand (I can see it's pretty powerful) but feel many would get as far as I did (most may not even get that far etc) but then give up with the lack of logic, intuitively or context sensitive help.

Reading the manual has rarely worked to help me better understand how it works (because if it's got to that position the chances are it's not intuitive etc) and might only answer the odd question re what something is or how it needs to be seen / reset etc.

I'll persevere though and thanks for the help. I think I just needed to get *something* automated and hopefully it will be full ahead from here / there. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Theo]

I get to select it by name, which is handy because all the Aqara sensors have entity IDs of 0x153..... which isn't very obvious.

For me all the devices come up with the names I've assigned them, and that's the 'Device' column in Configuration -> Devices.

Although, I did notice it doesn't always rename some of the child entities. If you click on the device in that list, it shows the entities in a box. For example my list for the Garage sensor is:

Garage_temperature Garage_pressure Garage_linkquality Garage_humidity

0x00158d00058a613f_battery

so for some reason it hasn't renamed the _battery entity. If I click the

0x0015..._battery I can add a 'Name Override' to be Garage_battery (being the battery level in the temperature/pressure/humidity sensor in the Garage).

(I don't really care about these readings, but renaming them saves them cluttering up some of the logs with unidentifiable things)

You have to think in terms of 'when X happens then do Y', but once you have decided that it's just filling in the boxes? Like you said 'at sunset turn light on'.

It's more complicated, but that's because it gives you more control. Also it isn't designed for a small range of products, so has to be more generic. Vendor-specific apps are designed for the handful of things they sell and for a handful of use cases.

Did you read the docs on Automations:

(I didn't, and yet I figured it out thus far)

I'd guess you need another one if that's what you wish (maybe you wanted something else, like turning off at midnight). I don't know if there's a way to pair actions:

If Sunset then Turn On; If Sunrise then Turn Off

I don't know if there's a common thingy to do both at the same time - maybe there is.

HA is a generic platform so there are 57 varieties of newbies, trying to do all different kinds of things, with all sorts of different products over all sorts of different platform. Your best bet is to find videos/blogs/etc of someone who has done something similar.

(It also appears the manual is based on writing snippets of YAML configuration, and separate to that there's a UI that can do most of it. It seems the way to do the same with the UI isn't always as clearly documented)

There's also the HA forum which is quite extensive.

Theo

[T i m]

<snip>

Are you using the Hue system to do all the controlling?

We already had quite a few things automated but via individual sensors (Dusk/Dawn, movement, time switches) but the whole HA thing means all that's easier to manage and tweak.

Like, the Dusk/dawn lamps really needed to be outside or at least in good outdoor levels of light to in the front hall would often stay on all day when it was overcast. Now it goes on / off as expected, irrespective of the light levels (although I'm hoping to expand on that via HA over the Lidl app).

It looks like Theo's pointers seem to have worked and HA has turned on a Smart Switch at Sunset as automated. ;-)

As an aside, I measured the power consumption of a Lidl Smart Switch and it was off it drew nothing (measurable by the power plug thing anyway) and .6W when on.

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

So far I have (soft) labeled them as to their role, so one smart switch is called '3D Printer' and another 'Home automation' (<that's powering the HA RPi but is managed by the Lidl app for now). ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

<snip>

Quite (similar here with the Lidl / Tuya stuff). However, I've deleted a couple of things and re-paired them and now it does seem to show the friendly names?

And that's the other thing, is it me or is the UI all over the place re how you delete something? I find myself constantly hunting to get back to where I think I need to be, as if different people have written different modules and never spoken to each other? ;-(

Ah, I saw that when taking the Sonoff PUR sensor off the Lidl system and onto HA with the active sensing bit and the battery (two instances).

Understood. KISS etc. ;-)

<snip>

Yeah, I get the logic in my head and am even aware of the boolean logic re say dusk/dawn + PIR if overcast etc (but currently no chance of implementing it physically).

<snip>

Understood, however, the implementation seems more complicated than it could be, like trying to determine what the difference is between a device, entity and integration (ok, I get what device is).

Agreed.

;-)

Nope, well, I trued to get it to answer my first question re why a new automation didn't seem to reset, 'Mode' but clicking on their link to the documentation took me to something that didn't relate to what I was seeing and when I found Mode, it didn't really help me understand what it did? I could read what it said it did, but not what it meant in the real world?

OK, I gave up on that, removed the middle hall light and hall PIR from the Lidl system and paired them into HA. Then I used one of their 'Movement turns on light' templates and it sorta worked (the light came on with the PIR but didn't go off in the 120s it was set to). Then I noticed an update (V5.9) whilst clicking about trying to find my way to stuff so applied that, it restarted and now the PIR light works as expected! So this is another 'learning thing', knowing when you *need* to restart, reset or just leave it for a while.

<snip>

Understood.

I did try before even building the system but everything I looked at seemed to go into editing the Yaml file?

Tell me about it! There is no real point me 'reading' a manual like that because it's not written by someone who doesn't already know what they want. So my only hope is that I might get some help from it for specific references but they rarely do.

Hopefully (with your kickstarter here) I will be able to conflate the contents of a template generated automation (although that is different yet again as it seems to be more like a GUI flow diagram) with an Automagic solution from the keywords and a bit of poke-n-hope inbetween. ;-)

Anyway, I am slowly weaning the devices off the Lidl hub over to HA and have just linked the phone App (seems to have worked) and now need to find out how I see / add all the devices from there, so I can override / manage any if needed?

Thanks very much again for the support Theo (Inc the initial RPi stuff). Sometimes we need a little nudge in the right direction. ;-)

Cheers, T i m