Dan Built His Own Smart Switches and Connected Them to Home Assistant

0:04 [SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome to the Holmesis and Podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: My name is Rohan and as usual, I'm joined with my friend Phil. [SPEAKER_01]: Hey Phil. [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, we're hot hot hot going. [SPEAKER_01]: Good. [SPEAKER_01]: And today we're also joined with Dan. [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Dan.

0:16 [SPEAKER_01]: Alright, and before we get started, it's quick word from our sponsor, Home Assistant Link by Nabukasa. [SPEAKER_01]: If you have ever tried to set up remote access the hard way, dynamic DNS reverse proxies, self-signed search, Nabukasa is the easy button. [SPEAKER_01]: Sign up, flip a switch, done.

0:32 [SPEAKER_01]: And you can access your Home Assistant instance from anywhere. [SPEAKER_01]: What's more is that you also get secure off-site backups, voice control with Amazon Echo or Google Home devices, and the ability to supercharge your DIY voice assistant. [SPEAKER_01]: And here's the part we love.

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1:02 [SPEAKER_01]: We'll put the link in the description for you. [SPEAKER_01]: This episode is also sponsored by our friends at Apollo Automation, makers of open source smart home sensors built for the home assistant ecosystem. [SPEAKER_01]: They're an official open home foundation commercial partner and their devices are built with local control, privacy, and reliability in mind.

1:20 [SPEAKER_01]: Almost everything they offer is works with home assistant and made for ESP home certified, giving you full control and flexibility right out of the box. [SPEAKER_01]: And the best part, they build in the open, working directly with the community with to create sensors that people actually need.

1:34 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're deep in a home assistant, or even just getting started, definitely check them out at ApolloAutomation.com. [SPEAKER_01]: All right, Dan, welcome to our show today. [SPEAKER_01]: How's it going? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, good. [SPEAKER_02]: Glad to be on. [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, uh, yeah, come on.

1:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and where are you joining us from today? [SPEAKER_02]: I'm actually from right in the middle of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, Wisconsin. [SPEAKER_01]: nice. [SPEAKER_01]: That's all right. [SPEAKER_01]: And what brings you on today? [SPEAKER_01]: What's on your homocystin to plate? [SPEAKER_01]: My homocystin plate.

2:09 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, hey, what brings me on is my long journey getting to homocystin. [SPEAKER_02]: Ah, yeah, I've I've gone through a lot of different automation software. [SPEAKER_02]: I was doing stuff with X 10 and [SPEAKER_02]: I kept saying there's there's gotta be more this is too simplistic and I can't do everything I want to do I had always ideas in my head and what do I want to do what do I want to do you know I'd like to do this in this but I don't have a way to do it.

2:43 [SPEAKER_02]: And then I ended up finding it was a software called Open Source Automation, the creator that was a guy named Vaughn Rupp, and that was a Windows based software actually set up a Windows server, and I'd say he did a really good job on the software. [SPEAKER_02]: He had a number of people that were on the software, doing stuff with other types of hard where like RS-45 stuff and what not and yeah and then actually when I saw that one of the things that I had always wanted to do was get into my heating and I found on eBay [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, and RS 45 based thermostat controller, which I actually, I still use that today.

3:39 [SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's the one still running my, my furnace in my house. [SPEAKER_01]: If you don't mind me asking, I don't know if you know this off hand, but what brand is that I have, I have not heard of that in any residential setting before like a commercial one's stupid is by company called RCS residential control systems actually.

3:56 [SPEAKER_01]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: I wrote a good. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: That's all talking about residential. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't with mob bus or anything, but they had their own protocol and they had it all published. [SPEAKER_02]: So I took their published protocol that they had and I did programming back then.

4:18 [SPEAKER_02]: I've been into electronics programming [SPEAKER_02]: module in C++ for open source automation that kind of integrated that protocol into open source automation, giving me control of the thermostat and whatnot. [SPEAKER_02]: I use that for quite some time. [SPEAKER_02]: And then I did a little jump in around for a few years.

4:46 [SPEAKER_02]: I used a [SPEAKER_02]: It was actually written in Pearl, and I absolutely hate programming Pearl, that's solidified my hate for Pearl. [SPEAKER_00]: I can't say I've ever done it, but I believe, yeah, I started then using, have you ever heard of the modics or the modics I have used to modics before when I was just getting started with my own smart home, and this was beyond my X10 days, I was like, this is just before home assistant.

5:26 [SPEAKER_00]: I used the Modics to help program some of my Z-Wave network because it had stronger Z-Wave stuff than the app I was using at the time and so the Modics was able to, yeah, sort of, be that bridge, I was up to go in, set configuration options on the network and then carry that back out onto the software that I was using at the time.

5:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, because I think it also runs in a Docker container very similar. [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was like, uh, very similar to home assistant, right? [SPEAKER_00]: It was a good fun of a Docker container open source. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, it was just not as it's popular. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm trying to remember what I ran it on back then that might have been one of my old Raspberry Pi 2.

6:10 [SPEAKER_02]: I've gone through Raspberry Pi 2's 3's and my Raspberry Pi 4, which is the first one that I used for home assistant until I migrated to a little Dell micro PC that I'm running now. [SPEAKER_02]: But when I was running demodics, I ended up finding, and you actually had another guy, ironically named Dan, talking about this, my sensors.

6:43 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And the one thing that I love them all by sensors is, you could build your own hardware. [SPEAKER_02]: And it was all pretty much our, you know, based and I did stuff like, actually, I'll show you some of them. [SPEAKER_02]: These were some of my old my sensors based light switches that I built.

7:07 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how well you can see that, but this is a four button light switch. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's the single button version. [SPEAKER_02]: And some of the [SPEAKER_02]: some of the inspiration that I took from that, another guy that I used to watch all the time in Australian guy, uh, Jonathan Oxa from Superhouse?

7:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, Jonathan Axeer. [SPEAKER_02]: I saw his stuff on light switches that he built for his hose and he built the circuit boards for his light switches where you could [SPEAKER_02]: just grab a board and build it in a number of different configurations. [SPEAKER_02]: So I took that idea and I carried that forward in the mind.

7:54 [SPEAKER_02]: So what you saw there with the four button and the two button version, I actually designed my own PCBs forum and everything. [SPEAKER_02]: I made it so, yeah, if I wanted to make a two-button switch, I just grab it and I put the two-button configuration on it. [SPEAKER_02]: If I wanted a four-button switch, most of the lights and stuff in our house now are the four-button versions.

8:20 [SPEAKER_02]: Let's be a control other stuff in the room. [SPEAKER_02]: They're basically seen controllers, they're not actual. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, there's not like four relays in there to control the four lights. [SPEAKER_02]: And actually, one of the things that that made me want to design those lights, which is when we bought this house, like in the bedrooms, there were the light and ceiling fan combinations in the in-house.

8:47 [SPEAKER_02]: And it was one single white switch. [SPEAKER_02]: You flip it on and it was anybody's guess what would happen? [SPEAKER_02]: Would the fan come on? [SPEAKER_02]: Would the like come on? [SPEAKER_02]: And whichever one didn't come on, you'd have to go on, pull the chain for the one you want it on.

9:04 [SPEAKER_02]: Pull the other chain for the one you want it off. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I don't like that. [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, then I, then I ended up, [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And I started using those actually when I was when I was into my sensors and stuff, I heard people talking about a controller that they were using called the Vera Controller, which I'm sure heard of.

9:34 [SPEAKER_00]: It was like, I had the Vera Light, which was like, basically. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it did. [SPEAKER_01]: Somebody bought it and one of the things that's like white people or somebody bought it and then in an accident I thought. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, so I was using my MySensor stuff with the VeraController and basically the way it worked is that the MySensor's controllers used a little Loretio module called the NRF24 radio modules and then you had a gateway controller that hooked into the Vera, so when you push a light switch, [SPEAKER_02]: that says radius signal to the vera controller and the vera controller says oh he pushes light switch I need to turn this light up so everything was dependent on that vera controller and I use that for probably about three or four years and I just got to the point where things started getting a little flaky with it and I'm like you know

10:35 [SPEAKER_02]: If that beer controller dies, you know, all my leading in my house, days, you know that, you know, that takes the way for approval factor. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's single point of failure, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like, it's very nervous, like, makes me nervous. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, how can I get off that single point of failure?

10:53 [SPEAKER_02]: Some of my sensors, guys, we're seeing that there were ways to connect one of my sensors controller to another one, just so they can talk to each other, so if you push the lights switch, it would turn on a relay and another controller instead of having to go through the [SPEAKER_02]: And I tried figuring that out and it was kind of difficult to figure out and I said, no, not really my thing.

11:21 [SPEAKER_02]: Then I'm like, I got to find something different. [SPEAKER_02]: And I had heard of home assistant in my journeys with my sensors because it was one of the controllers that a lot [SPEAKER_02]: but back then that was I'd say in the 2017 days somewhere around there and back then it was just primarily YAML.

11:45 [SPEAKER_02]: I was kind of intimidated by YAML, so I'm like, I leaned away from it for a while. [SPEAKER_01]: You did Pearl, you were intimidated by YAML from Pearl. [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, it was, it got to a point where I'm like, I have to do something, I'm like, I got a Raspberry Pi, I'm going to throw home a system on it, see what it does.

12:08 [SPEAKER_02]: I loaded home a system on the Raspberry Pi and when I first brought it up. [SPEAKER_02]: It had found a whole bunch of stuff in my house that I'm like, I don't even know I could control that. [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly. [SPEAKER_02]: That's cool. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: That's what kind of I'm like.

12:28 [SPEAKER_02]: this looks promising. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I got to stick with this and then then the community just grew and so when I was using the VR controller, when I was using the Sunoff basics, I used a firmware called ESP-Easy. [SPEAKER_02]: Yep. [SPEAKER_02]: And I was using that for quite a while, because that did everything I needed with the Vera controller.

12:55 [SPEAKER_02]: I actually wrote some code for the Vera controller to use ESPEZ software and and run those. [SPEAKER_02]: And then when I switched to home assistant, I'm like, wow, ESPEZ, that'll do MQTT. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, nice. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: I switched over to using MQTT. [SPEAKER_02]: And then I found this beautiful thing called ESPO.

13:21 [SPEAKER_01]: And then life changed. [SPEAKER_02]: That was a rabbit hole. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And and that's going to be a never ending rabbit hole for me. [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, I actually, I read design the light switches, the light switches that I'm using now, [SPEAKER_02]: This one's labeled with a bunch of on-offs on it.

13:45 [SPEAKER_02]: for the switches. [SPEAKER_02]: My wife didn't like the feel of that, so I made them, because this is all 3D printed. [SPEAKER_02]: I made them with no writing on them, and that's kind of what we're using today. [SPEAKER_01]: So how did you go about testing that, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So again, building my own sensors and stuff, like yeah, totally, totally down for.

14:08 [SPEAKER_01]: Not that I necessarily fully have the knowledge behind it, but I wouldn't be too worried about it. [SPEAKER_01]: like, I would be scared of is connecting mains power to to sensors that I built. [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's an absolute opposite to the same thing. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, um, yeah, now to that.

14:28 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, I mean, for you, it's just straight up legal, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Because you got to. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because I'm in the USA. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't need to call an [SPEAKER_02]: Well, when I was doing the my sensor stuff, there were people that were using these, they were little power supply modules, actually, what are these?

14:53 [SPEAKER_02]: They're by a company called Highlink, and it was a common little power supply module that they used in them. [SPEAKER_02]: That's this piece right here. [SPEAKER_02]: It just converts 110 down to five volts. [SPEAKER_02]: You could get them in five volt versions, 12 volt versions, but I got the ones that went down to five volts.

15:12 [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what I actually used in my first batch of late switches, my my sensors late switches. [SPEAKER_02]: Then I was in the my sensor forums and there were a lot of people talking about these basically fakes. [SPEAKER_02]: People were cloning them and selling them as the regular highlight modules.

15:33 [SPEAKER_02]: And [SPEAKER_02]: people were seeing that there were a lot of problems with those with failures and whatnot. [SPEAKER_02]: And when I when I did like my first batch of ESP home switches, I did those with the [SPEAKER_02]: you know, I've had to find something else. [SPEAKER_02]: So now the little power supply monitors that I use, they're there's slightly larger than that, but they're they're mean well and mean well is a good power supply brand and and they did work really well.

16:08 [SPEAKER_02]: So I stuck with those and in the in the back side of these, [SPEAKER_02]: the back side of this. [SPEAKER_02]: I can fit not only that that mineral power module, but I have a 15 amp really, did I can put in there? [SPEAKER_02]: So, if I build a single button version, I can have it with a relay in there, so that can actually control a device.

16:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Those have been working pretty rock-solid since I built them. [SPEAKER_00]: So, my question to you now is that you had your fairness there that we were able to control on an RS-232 port. [SPEAKER_00]: Is that still being controlled by home? [SPEAKER_00]: This isn't on an RS-232 port today?

16:53 [SPEAKER_02]: what I did is I took my old code that I wrote back in 2012-2013, whatever it was, in C++ and I [SPEAKER_02]: that was connected to an RS-45 controller and then with that ESP module, I had that running MQTT. [SPEAKER_02]: So then I can control it from MQTT and I had full control from home assistant.

17:39 [SPEAKER_02]: god of figure out a way to do this. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, then came the days of AI. [SPEAKER_02]: And yes, god, I, I, I love the stuff I can do with AI, know, I was having trouble figuring out how to port that over to ESB home. [SPEAKER_02]: I threw that in AI, and AI is like, oh yeah, here's what you're trying to do, you know, do this, done it.

18:04 [SPEAKER_00]: So it sounds like you've got a lot of like a hardware based in your home automation. [SPEAKER_00]: Are you then like you've got my senses switches, like you've got, you know, designing holes, switches around your home. [SPEAKER_00]: Are you then relying on those physically control your home, or are you more relying on home assistant to automate the lights or the furnace or whatever, [SPEAKER_00]: And then being able to automate against it as opposed to using those, which is a back home.

18:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Amazon lady, I have a lot of Amazon ladies in all my, in all my rooms in the house. [SPEAKER_02]: My wife has a lot of medical issues and she just likes the fact that she can say, Amazon lady, you know, turn on the light or turn on the ceiling fan and it turns on. [SPEAKER_02]: Mainly that's what we're using.

18:53 [SPEAKER_02]: I have some automations for lighting and I'd say probably a year, year and a half ago. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, I gotta get like some door and window sensors and stuff like that. [SPEAKER_02]: I was thinking of building some Wi-Fi ones and as having little troubles with my Wi-Fi setup and nose and I'm like, I don't know if I want all these Wi-Fi controllers [SPEAKER_02]: Like I'm gonna try a different platform so that's when I got into Zigbee, the SM Lite, SL-ZBO6, I'm like if I'm gonna buy a controller I'm gonna get a fairly decent one and and that one initially I was pouring it just with a USB cable.

19:39 [SPEAKER_02]: I figured well at some point [SPEAKER_02]: which I ended up finding one on Facebook Marketplace. [SPEAKER_02]: I got a HP48 port purely switch now that I picked up for 40 bucks. [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, you know, I can use that for other stuff, because I've been wanting to do some camera stuff, which I'd say roughly month and a half, two months ago speaking of 40 bucks.

20:12 [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, I ended up buying two real-in-camera from a guy in Facebook Marketplace 40 bucks a piece. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, perfect. [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, people are saying, you've got those for 40 bucks, that's a steal. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Really camera is the way they integrate with homelessness is so nice.

20:33 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I know. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just getting my feet with frigate. [SPEAKER_02]: So I got the basics of frigate set up, but I got to figure out some automations and stuff. [SPEAKER_01]: So you mentioned, you're mentioned, health issues in your family, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And are you doing any automations or any, did you build any, [SPEAKER_01]: technology, essentially any sensors or anything like that around around that.

21:02 [SPEAKER_02]: I did. [SPEAKER_02]: I ended up buying two Akara FP2s and one of them, my wife is on oxygen, so she runs, there's an oxygen concentrated that runs in the bedroom. [SPEAKER_02]: And [SPEAKER_02]: I had that FP2, I got to do some reconfiguration of that thing and get it back in there, but I had that set up in there to kind of watch, she'd lay in bed and watch TV a lot.

21:33 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, when she was in there, [SPEAKER_02]: then I'd have it turning on the oxygen concentrator. [SPEAKER_02]: I had I bought some Zigbee power modules that can do power tracking in all that. [SPEAKER_02]: So I got those in there, but I had it controlling [SPEAKER_02]: like that and she put a fan by the side of the bed to keep herself cool.

21:59 [SPEAKER_02]: So whenever she walk into the room, that stuff would turn on that where an innocent trouble was with the ceiling fan in the room. [SPEAKER_02]: The ceiling fan wants the mess with it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the millimeter wave and the ceiling fans, all right. [SPEAKER_01]: I think that the physics problem that they still haven't.

22:18 [SPEAKER_00]: The FP300 has some AI learning capabilities, which is apparently meant to help with things, so you can put it on like a learning mode and people then detect what it [SPEAKER_00]: I've had some limited success with it in places like an on suite or a bathroom where there is a exhaust fan.

22:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Previously, those would get tripped up similar to what you were describing, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Like a constantly having presence detected because the exhaust fan was on. [SPEAKER_00]: But now with those IP300s, I can say I put it into AR learning mode, one of the fans on, let it do its thing.

23:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes it's hit and miss, but most of the time it is accurate, eventually [SPEAKER_00]: people who do that there's no more presence and then turn everything off. [SPEAKER_02]: I've seen Noah's and isn't there now, is it the FP 400? [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, possibly. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't have to have it yet.

23:18 [SPEAKER_02]: I thought there were two new Akara sensors at some point would like to get those and try them out. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't do a lot of present stuff right at the moment. [SPEAKER_02]: One of the things I built, actually, this goes back for the my sensors days, [SPEAKER_02]: I built a PAR module to control the lights that shine out on our driveway.

23:45 [SPEAKER_02]: So when you'd walk up, it would turn the lights on, but I could also control those from the [SPEAKER_02]: But the little P.I.R. [SPEAKER_02]: modules that I was using there were the cheap, you know, $10, $15 and I had a lot of problems with those with false positives and... [SPEAKER_00]: Particularly outstretched.

24:13 [SPEAKER_00]: Surely they would have a lot of false positives outside. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it did. [SPEAKER_02]: I built another one using ESP home and that one I actually put a [SPEAKER_02]: Long range no meter wage sensor in there, but I had a lot of problems with that no need a way sensor too I don't know if it was the power that I was giving it that it wasn't filtered good enough or what the issue was But I had problems with that and right now I just went and bought a cheap 40 dollar [SPEAKER_02]: Harbor Freight one that's got two LED lights on it and I got that up there now and then I got one of my real-en cameras pointing out at the driveway so at some point I could see using some of the AI detection with that real-en camera and having that work with home assistant to control those lights.

25:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think the AI detection on cameras is fantastic and a great use case for that. [SPEAKER_00]: That's one of the downsides of those cameras is that I want them inside the house to do their AI detection for a person in a room that I don't cameras in my house because the outside they work fantastic and it's great for, you know, if you're sitting outside around and you've got a patio where just building one at the moment and, you know, if you've got a camera out there, you can actually see, there's people sitting down at the patio, let's turn the [SPEAKER_00]: And Nate's worry about, you know, the PIO, the millimeter wave, they just a camera feed doing it for you.

25:43 [SPEAKER_01]: And depending on what you're using, you can even detect that, hey, it's dark or bright or whatever, based on that illuminate, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Like, based on Luxe values there. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: And I actually didn't have luck sensors on the ones that I had built. [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I could tell it that, you know, only turn on when it's dark outside.

26:05 [SPEAKER_02]: That sensor value fed into the house. [SPEAKER_02]: So I could use that for other things. [SPEAKER_02]: Is it dark outside? [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I'd have that as a value. [SPEAKER_02]: Because I'm all for collecting as much information is a can. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm constantly looking at stuff saying, hey, I should automate that.

26:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Like, probably the dumbest thing in the world. [SPEAKER_02]: We have a garbage can that has an automatic lid. [SPEAKER_02]: You way behind over it and the lid opens. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: I should pump that into home assisting. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what they all all do with it, but I at least still have the information.

26:48 [SPEAKER_02]: How many times in my garbage can't open today? [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know what, it's so funny, like I always think those things and I'll leave it in there and I won't use a free year and then I just take it out because I'm like, yes, this data's in here, but I realize I really don't care about it and then now all it's doing is it's filling up my my history with stuff that I don't care about.

27:11 [SPEAKER_02]: Some day I'm going to do something with this, like you say, some day never comes, and you finally get to the point of just get rid of it. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you're looking to upgrade your smartphone, you really can't get past these. [SPEAKER_00]: Then you 800 series Z-Wave a long-range motion dimmer, the X-12 800 LR, combines three home devices into a single wall switch.

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28:27 [SPEAKER_00]: for the best prices on the X-12 motion dimmer and the full range of Azuz smartphone products head over to thesmartesthouse.com. [SPEAKER_00]: That's thesmartesthouse.com [SPEAKER_01]: So Dan, let's talk about some of the protocols and such you're using. [SPEAKER_01]: I know you're doing a ton with your own hardware USB home and so on, which are typically Wi-Fi based.

28:46 [SPEAKER_01]: Are you doing much with Zigbee, Z-Wave, matter, any of those types of protocols? [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, some Zigbee, no Z-Wave. [SPEAKER_02]: And I haven't gotten into the matter space yet, because it just hasn't mattered to me. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Ah, I don't know. [SPEAKER_01]: we just fair right I mean if there if there isn't a necessarily in need to introduce a new thing what's the value of doing so right right one one thing that I'm [SPEAKER_02]: I'm still working on trying to figure out you guys have actually gotten more support for my bus.

29:30 [SPEAKER_02]: We, I'd say a year and a half, two years ago, we had to have our well replaced in the house, our water well, that was an expensive bill. [SPEAKER_02]: But when I had to put in, I had the option to put in, it was like a constant pressure system which uses a very bit frequency drive for the pump, which has mod bus in it.

29:58 [SPEAKER_02]: So I actually have an ESP home controller built to talk to that, I gotta do some reconfiguration on the VFD controller to have it spit out the, [SPEAKER_02]: model stuff for it to work with. [SPEAKER_02]: But again, been using AI to try and figure out AI's like, well, yeah, if you know how many amps and stuff your pump is, you know, we can figure out how many gallons per minute.

30:32 [SPEAKER_02]: is it's pushing into your house so we can calculate water usage. [SPEAKER_00]: Could you then also have that as an emergency shut off? [SPEAKER_00]: Like, if you have a water that stands out around the time, could you then tell why I'm what bus to shut off that pump and stop standing water around the house?

30:47 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm assuming I can, the guy that actually put in the well for me, he was a guy that I used to work with at a gas station years ago. [SPEAKER_02]: His dad owned a well drilling company and he kind of took over the business [SPEAKER_02]: but he knows that people at the company for that variable frequency drive because he deals with them all the time for for the different wells and stuff that he puts in and he's going to get me in contact with them and he says if anybody's going to know anything about these controllers and how to get that that my bus turned on and the stuff that you want to get out of it like [SPEAKER_02]: being able to use that as an emergency shutoff, you know, then I can do that.

31:33 [SPEAKER_01]: That's a good source. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I was going to say, if you can also just obviously you can also always have your [SPEAKER_01]: the water shut off right you can put out you can put a smart shut off on there and yeah again on what make the the servo control ones that you're talking yeah exactly because then you can just turn it off right and in case there's anything you can't turn it off from the well so technically it's it's behind there but right and I can all go well [SPEAKER_02]: All the wells going to do is there's a pressure switch on there.

32:03 [SPEAKER_02]: Once it reaches a certain pressure, that pressure is what shuts the the wall pump off. [SPEAKER_02]: So you shut the main off to the house, because there's a week. [SPEAKER_02]: It's just, it's just going to sit there with the pump idle doing. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's interesting, because yeah, because I'm now in my new house, I am on a wells.

32:27 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so that's that's a little interesting for me to [SPEAKER_02]: And that actually made me think of my situation. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I got to mention that when I talked to the guys. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Great. [SPEAKER_01]: I need all the ideas. [SPEAKER_01]: But let's see how much time permits.

32:44 [SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, I bought a [SPEAKER_02]: a Zigbee water leak sensor, I had a problem, there's a little pump on my heater and air conditioning unit. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a condensation pump. [SPEAKER_02]: When you get condensation buildup or when the dehumidifier is running and pulls all that humidity out of the air, it dumps it down into this condensation pump.

33:08 [SPEAKER_02]: And that then, when it gets full, there's a float switch in there, that'll then turn that pump on [SPEAKER_02]: I actually had a problem with the little overflow pump one time where I don't know something went up with that float switch, it was stuck or something and that thing started overflowing onto the floor.

33:34 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, well, I got to buy a new one. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it turns out the new one that I bought looked exactly like the one that I had, but it had there was an extra feature in there, like an extra float switch that it was made for an alarm. [SPEAKER_02]: So I just took that to that Zigbee water leak sensor, so if that ever happens again, then that'll trigger that alarm and trigger the Zigbee sensor, and then I can do stuff of homelessness, which you know, your insurance company likes that because I told my home homeowner's insurance guy that [SPEAKER_02]: did I do stuff with automation?

34:18 [SPEAKER_02]: He says, yeah, let me know what kind of stuff you have and we can get you some discounts on your home orders insurance. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's good. [SPEAKER_00]: That's how this is saving your money. [SPEAKER_00]: That's great. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's costing you money too, but it's worth it.

34:32 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're right. [SPEAKER_02]: They're still stuck in my pocketbook, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, now tell me about the garden. [SPEAKER_00]: I know it's getting to some of for me at the moment, so I'm getting it back to get the old irrigation controller back out. [SPEAKER_00]: You credit your own in SP home as well, I'm assuming.

34:50 [SPEAKER_02]: I had one that I created in my sensors, which that's actually part of what got me onto the Vera controller is because the really controller that I built, there were some [SPEAKER_02]: Demodics couldn't handle and people were saying if you want these extra features, you got to get a Vera controller.

35:14 [SPEAKER_02]: So that's what got me out of the Vera controller. [SPEAKER_02]: But I've since rebuilt that, it's just eight relay board for my irrigation. [SPEAKER_02]: I got four zones, and then one of them is for the pump start. [SPEAKER_02]: I got a separate irrigation pump that I run. [SPEAKER_02]: which is a separate well point.

35:40 [SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, one of them starts the pump, and then ESB home has a great irrigation integration that you can use with it. [SPEAKER_02]: And I got that running. [SPEAKER_02]: I got to, I want to do a little more with [SPEAKER_02]: using homelessness to track weather and stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: I, the only thing I have for weather tracking right now, I have a temperature humidity, and I think it does bear metric pressure, but I, I could see getting like a tempest weather station or something like that.

36:19 [SPEAKER_02]: At work, where, where you can do rain and all that, because where I live, [SPEAKER_02]: We're constantly getting notified, hey, there's rain coming and we won't be home. [SPEAKER_02]: We don't get anything. [SPEAKER_02]: Why I don't know, it all just goes around us. [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, to have local sensing of that, instead of going by a weather forecast that says, yeah, it's both serene today, and we never get anything.

36:47 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_01]: Have you, have you tried using an SDR, like a software defined radio and just scanning to see if there's anything around you? [SPEAKER_01]: Because if somebody else has a weather station that's on an open channel, that's around you. [SPEAKER_01]: Again, it's close enough that your radio can pick it up.

37:07 [SPEAKER_01]: right? [SPEAKER_01]: And that then you might be able to get away without actually getting one. [SPEAKER_02]: Speaking of that, I actually do have an SDR, but my my home assistant box is in my basement. [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not like hooked it up to my laptop or anything to say take it outside and see if there's anything in the area because yeah, you're right.

37:31 [SPEAKER_02]: I've heard of a lot of people, you know, [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, if there's something not the might to do list too, and I just haven't gotten around to be like Maybe somebody has something cool out here, right, and it's uh [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would definitely like to try that at some point and see if there's something around.

37:52 [SPEAKER_02]: Because yeah, those from what I hear are fairly easy to sniff out and pull data from. [SPEAKER_00]: I wish I found that up for I purchased a weather station because maybe there isn't neighbor that has that. [SPEAKER_00]: Now I am the neighbor just providing that to us. [SPEAKER_01]: You are now neighbor for that.

38:11 [SPEAKER_00]: I guess it's better that I have controlled with anyway, because it's easier, right? [SPEAKER_01]: And it's more direct to whatever. [SPEAKER_01]: And now you're aligned on somebody else if they take it down, if they move it, if they whatever, or just, you know, something comes in to block the RF between you and them.

38:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: So Dan, is home assistant now controlling your irrigation? [SPEAKER_00]: Or is it a manual process where you go and turn it on by home is not automated? [SPEAKER_02]: I don't have it running on a schedule right now, my, my, I haven't set up through the Alexa where my, my wife can say Amazon lady turned on the sprinklers.

38:48 [SPEAKER_02]: It basically turns on a cycle which will start at zone one and then it'll just run through each zone until it's done and then shut off. [SPEAKER_02]: But yes, I would like to do, like I say, more with ESB home on that to do some of that control, but having more of that weather data will help.

39:11 [SPEAKER_02]: And another thing I thought about trying is getting some Zigbee soil moisture sensors. [SPEAKER_00]: That was going to be my next question. [SPEAKER_00]: Yep. [SPEAKER_02]: Part of the issue with that is if I'm going to get them, I want them small enough to where, [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not like mowing a thing down with my writing lawnmower, you know, because I'd be going through sensors left and right, because I keep mowing them over with my lawnmower.

39:41 [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I'd have to watch that, but yeah, if I can, if I can get soil moisture data, that might even be a little better than [SPEAKER_02]: the an actual rain data. [SPEAKER_00]: I know Gavin from check FM has this problem right. [SPEAKER_00]: He wants the soil most of the moisture sensors, but it's just one of them over with his lawnbower.

40:03 [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: But I think there's a few options out there. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're happy to have them in the garden bed, they're supposed to be in the lawn. [SPEAKER_00]: There's a few options. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I feel you're talking about gardening. [SPEAKER_02]: My wife had bought this greenhouse kit where it's got the food and plastic panels too.

40:21 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: And it's a whole frame and everything. [SPEAKER_02]: And I want to do a controller box out in that. [SPEAKER_02]: I got some servo motors to our monitor, the temperature in there where it'll open the windows at the top. [SPEAKER_02]: as cool and cozoom and then I've been watching some videos of some guys.

40:46 [SPEAKER_02]: I think one guy was in like Austria or something like that. [SPEAKER_02]: He has a whole garden set up where he's actually got drip irrigation pumps that they pump over to the plants and stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: There's so much data that if for a homeless system, is it plant cards or it has plant cards?

41:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah there's a few now but [SPEAKER_02]: where you can tell what kind of plant you have it or actually show you a picture of the plant. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And it knows, hey, I need this much water or whatever. [SPEAKER_02]: So you can tell, okay, this pump is pumping water to this kind of plant and it's just going to take care of it for you.

41:27 [SPEAKER_02]: and with my wife and her medical issues she may not always be able to get out there to do the watering and whatnot if if I can have that kind of managing that for her. [SPEAKER_01]: You know yeah they're kind of irrigation things are huge quality of life improvements especially with [SPEAKER_01]: like especially with any kind of ability issues, right?

41:51 [SPEAKER_01]: Like that can be that can be huge. [SPEAKER_01]: But I get, I mean, it's, [SPEAKER_01]: also polarizing, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Because there's some people that just find like, you know, watering their plants or grass or whatever it is, super cathartic, and they're just like, you know, just enjoy it and relaxing, whatever.

42:08 [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm of the other camp where I'm like, I like my plants and grass to be healthy, but I don't necessarily want to be out there doing that every day. [SPEAKER_01]: And, or I don't have to do not eventually, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So, [SPEAKER_02]: when my wife was younger, that was one of her things, is her on a side and taking care of her plan.

42:27 [SPEAKER_02]: She, she absolutely loved doing that and not that she doesn't anymore. [SPEAKER_02]: It's just with her medical issues and stuff. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not as easy. [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe not every day, right? [SPEAKER_01]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: So if I can do some of this to help manage that for, all the better.

42:45 [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_01]: And it can be an optional thing too, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, hey, you know what to them up for it. [SPEAKER_01]: Great. [SPEAKER_01]: You don't need to run the automation. [SPEAKER_01]: Have a bypass and she can go out and do it. [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

42:55 [SPEAKER_01]: And if that makes her happy, if that wants, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So it doesn't have to be an all or nothing, right? [SPEAKER_01]: So that's the, that's the cool thing here. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, you mentioned before, Dan, that you are looking at installing frigate, because you've got those to really cameras, what are some of the automations that you're hoping to get out of your camera setup?

43:18 [SPEAKER_02]: One of them that are a lot of people do that. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, it seems kind of basic to some, but it always kind of fascinated me was a garbage day, Bindi. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, are your bins at the end of the driveway? [SPEAKER_02]: You know, you can set up your zone there and have the camera look.

43:38 [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, bins are there. [SPEAKER_02]: You know, have Amazon lady announced to the house tomorrow's garbage day. [SPEAKER_02]: You got to put the bins up. [SPEAKER_02]: That and one of the other things that I did I would like to do we have We have two dogs and two cats. [SPEAKER_02]: We we got the cats out sometimes, but it's mainly the dogs and I could see getting some more wide angle cameras [SPEAKER_01]: until you can kind of get a better game.

44:06 [SPEAKER_02]: You get a right, get a better view of say the front yard and whatnot. [SPEAKER_02]: And I've always wanted to be able to tell hey are the dogs inside or outside. [SPEAKER_02]: you know, and then you can have a camera looking around and here I see a dog outside. [SPEAKER_02]: And my understanding is you can go so far as to say, is that my dog or is it the neighbor's dog?

44:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's cool because because we we do have a neighbor that has some other dogs and occasionally their dogs will come in our yard. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, not that I want to shoot him out of the yard, like you hear the people with with cats and stuff, you know, it's easy to cat in the yard and turns on the sprinklers and To get the cat out there, you know, I'm I'm more interested in this puppy finger printing, so that's a cool [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't know how it does, how it would, especially if they're both the same breed if one's like, you know, like a black color dog and one's a brown color dog, okay cool you guess you can you can tell but if they're both.

45:16 [SPEAKER_01]: dumb nations or something or they're both whatever Yorkie's, how are you going to tell her? [SPEAKER_02]: And like it's which they're not, they're they're they're all different breeds they got the camera that I have looking at the backyard. [SPEAKER_02]: I have it in one corner of the house it gets the majority of the backyard but it doesn't [SPEAKER_02]: does it quite hit our deck and I'd like to get something on the deck because I will let the dogs are said and you could be out in the front yard doing something and the dogs always want to come in the patio door and hear you are in the front yard.

45:50 [SPEAKER_02]: One guy that did something that I [SPEAKER_02]: that I thought about trying to read from smart homes over. [SPEAKER_02]: Bob, he had, he put pressure mat at his back door. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: So when the dogs are sitting at the back door like they're wanting to come in or you can say, you know, if there's pressure on the map for so long, you know, you could have Amazon lady put out a message or send something to your phone, you know, if you're out in the yard with your phone, that hey, the dogs want to come in.

46:30 [SPEAKER_02]: Usually we can tell, though, because we can hear him barking in the back. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's good to say. [SPEAKER_01]: It's good to let you know it to make sure you're awake. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, we're over here. [SPEAKER_02]: Come on, let's see what we can do.

46:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: That's funny. [SPEAKER_00]: I guess another thing you could do with those cameras is things like, you know, is the washing outside? [SPEAKER_00]: You said washing outside? [SPEAKER_00]: Is it have we just got on alert? [SPEAKER_00]: That's going to be rain. [SPEAKER_00]: And there's washing outside.

46:51 [SPEAKER_00]: It's sent on alert. [SPEAKER_00]: So I had to bring the washing inside. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we don't typically put ours outside. [SPEAKER_02]: We just use our indoor dryer, but yeah, we get a lot of wildlife around us. [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, there's a lot of deer that'll roam around the area.

47:10 [SPEAKER_02]: So, I could see, you know, getting some video footage of the deer roaming through the yard at one point that it, [SPEAKER_02]: that one of them cameras would have been really nice, quite a number of years ago, I built a small pond in our backyard that has basically a, there's a pump in the lower pond area that pumps water up.

47:37 [SPEAKER_02]: to this upper thing and then there's a little waterfall that runs down to the big pond. [SPEAKER_02]: I used to have some coffee fish in there. [SPEAKER_02]: I go out there every day and I'd feed them and then I'd actually bring a man and I kept him in a fish tank in the house in the winter.

47:55 [SPEAKER_02]: But I went out there one day to feed him and all six of those fish were gone. [SPEAKER_02]: I had to have been, oh wow. [SPEAKER_02]: I had to have been one of the animals in the area. [SPEAKER_02]: Got hungry and hey, we're having fish for dinner. [SPEAKER_00]: We had Jason on episode a couple of weeks ago and he was talking about a project called Bird Park.

48:17 [SPEAKER_00]: I think it was a little bird net where it can identify the birds based on the [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think I remember seeing something on there. [SPEAKER_00]: One of the, if there is like a video version of that, where it could identify animals detected by your camera, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So the real link camera has an animal detection feature in the AI.

48:38 [SPEAKER_00]: If you could then trigger on that binary sense of going off, pump a video over to X service, identify the animal, and get a look at it, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And then once a month you could go, [SPEAKER_00]: Right. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: And you got to see. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, there was a deer on this day.

48:57 [SPEAKER_00]: What was it doing? [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, maybe could get to know that you could come by and yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, whether you send her to jet to be here when it miscategorizes something else is something else that's something health and it's just funny, right? [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, yeah, hey, we found a move and it's just your dog, right?

49:14 [SPEAKER_02]: My dog looks nothing like a bird. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Dan, thank you so much for joining us today and taking the time to talk about your smartphone. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're interested Dan, you would mention before one of the AMOLED episodes talking about the senses, my senses.

49:32 [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was episode 0-96 on the website. [SPEAKER_00]: It was in October 2021. [SPEAKER_00]: So that was a bit few episodes ago. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, that was well. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so thank you for for listening. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we'll leave links of course as usual. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just not a fan.

49:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for everyone supporting us. [SPEAKER_00]: If you appreciate a lot, we'll come in as you do wherever you're listening. [SPEAKER_00]: But, Dan, thank you for reaching out and joining us today. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it was great being with you guys. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, likewise. [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.

50:01 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, cheers. [SPEAKER_01]: Cheers.