My rule for smarthome stuff is that it’s self-hosted, and it has to have a low-tech way to use it. A light switch can be on Zigbee attached to my Home Assistant server, but it needs to function as just a light switch when the network is down.
Have some old stuff that doesn’t follow these rules, but I’m slowly replacing them.
Yeahh probably the smart move, I went ham acquiring some overkill hardware for relatively cheap, and now the power bill is making that evident 🫠
It has been fun playing with a setup like this, but you definitely don’t need 128gb RAM to run the measly services I’ve got, though game servers would be a blast… if I ever had time
I’m slowly converting everything to run on these little 1 liter PCs. I have three so far (four if you count the Mac Mini NAS), and an Optiplex 7050 SFF that’s been a bit hotrodded with a 300W XE3 PSU, Precision 3420 CPU cooler, & Noctua fans w/extra intake fan.
I like the Optiplex for obvious reasons, but it’s a bit of a power hog with the i7-7700 and 48GB RAM. I haven’t measured them individually, but if I had to guess, the Optiplex probably accounts for a solid 1/3 of the power usage in my entire homelab.
I got a frankensteined mini PC with an old 2-core CPU, 8GB DDR3 RAM and 24TB HDD +500GB SSD(cache), running my entire homelab (HAss, Jellyfin+arr suite, Adguard-home, …), works really well. Recently put an old 1060GTX GPU in there, when my flatmate upgraded her PC. I really don’t see why I would need more (unless I planned to run LLMs in any reasonable fashion)
All fun and games when a grey hat hacker “hacks” his way into your living room through your window and starts turning on your lights without your permission.
And someone could throw a brick through my window and take all my stuff. There are some threats that we take care of by having a society where people don’t break other peoples things just because they can.
Usually it’s due to fear of repetcussions, but now anyone in a MAGA hat can throw bricks through your window and take all your stuff whenever they want
I recently bought a zigbee dongle to use with a home assistant VM. Do you have any advice on products? There is alot of stuff out there and I am trying to make sure I get good stuff.
My current plan is that id buy assorted types of lights to fill the roles of actual lighting and mood lighting, and I would pair that with a 4 button switch to toggle between some different presets. Been looking at Moes for the scene switch buttons and Sengled bulbs, and still need to find a solution for having home assistant to turn on or off non-smart items by delivering power or withholding, but i feel like i am flying blind.
IKEA has a lot of cheap, yet quality stuff you can use. The best thing for me is that they are nearby, and things like switches and buttons are super cheap.
I mostly use the Enbrighten Zigbee Dimmer. Its dimming function sucks–you have to hold the paddle down until it’s around the setting you want–but otherwise it works pretty well.
There’s the Sonoff ZBMINIR2 device. You install it between a physical switch and the wiring, and then tuck it into the electrical box. It has three different modes:
As a relay, so that you can control the light either with the physical switch or by ZigBee. Works just like normal when the server is down.
Detached mode, so toggling the physical switch sends a ZigBee message to trigger an action on the server, and the server controls the light.
Like 2, but the light socket is always powered so it supports a smart bulb.
I have a couple, and they’re great. They just don’t support dimming.
My rule for smarthome stuff is that it’s self-hosted, and it has to have a low-tech way to use it. A light switch can be on Zigbee attached to my Home Assistant server, but it needs to function as just a light switch when the network is down.
Have some old stuff that doesn’t follow these rules, but I’m slowly replacing them.
All fun and games until you get a power outage and one of your nodes doesn’t boot properly which means no quorum to start HAOS which means no lights
But that’s what flashlights are for :p
That’s why my HAOS instance runs on bare metal 😁 (Lenovo M710q, G4560T, 4GB RAM)
Yeahh probably the smart move, I went ham acquiring some overkill hardware for relatively cheap, and now the power bill is making that evident 🫠
It has been fun playing with a setup like this, but you definitely don’t need 128gb RAM to run the measly services I’ve got, though game servers would be a blast… if I ever had time
I’m slowly converting everything to run on these little 1 liter PCs. I have three so far (four if you count the Mac Mini NAS), and an Optiplex 7050 SFF that’s been a bit hotrodded with a 300W XE3 PSU, Precision 3420 CPU cooler, & Noctua fans w/extra intake fan.
I like the Optiplex for obvious reasons, but it’s a bit of a power hog with the i7-7700 and 48GB RAM. I haven’t measured them individually, but if I had to guess, the Optiplex probably accounts for a solid 1/3 of the power usage in my entire homelab.
What would you even run on that beast?
I got a frankensteined mini PC with an old 2-core CPU, 8GB DDR3 RAM and 24TB HDD +500GB SSD(cache), running my entire homelab (HAss, Jellyfin+arr suite, Adguard-home, …), works really well. Recently put an old 1060GTX GPU in there, when my flatmate upgraded her PC. I really don’t see why I would need more (unless I planned to run LLMs in any reasonable fashion)
All fun and games when a grey hat hacker “hacks” his way into your living room through your window and starts turning on your lights without your permission.
And someone could throw a brick through my window and take all my stuff. There are some threats that we take care of by having a society where people don’t break other peoples things just because they can.
Usually it’s due to fear of repetcussions, but now anyone in a MAGA hat can throw bricks through your window and take all your stuff whenever they want
Can I program my light bulb to recite the bill of rights, so it will play at max volume once stolen?
I recently bought a zigbee dongle to use with a home assistant VM. Do you have any advice on products? There is alot of stuff out there and I am trying to make sure I get good stuff.
My current plan is that id buy assorted types of lights to fill the roles of actual lighting and mood lighting, and I would pair that with a 4 button switch to toggle between some different presets. Been looking at Moes for the scene switch buttons and Sengled bulbs, and still need to find a solution for having home assistant to turn on or off non-smart items by delivering power or withholding, but i feel like i am flying blind.
IKEA has a lot of cheap, yet quality stuff you can use. The best thing for me is that they are nearby, and things like switches and buttons are super cheap.
Are you using home assistant? Their website says ikea switches arnt compatible with it.
All ZigBee devices, including IKEA and Philips, work with Home Assistant with zero issues.
I mostly use the Enbrighten Zigbee Dimmer. Its dimming function sucks–you have to hold the paddle down until it’s around the setting you want–but otherwise it works pretty well.
There’s the Sonoff ZBMINIR2 device. You install it between a physical switch and the wiring, and then tuck it into the electrical box. It has three different modes:
I have a couple, and they’re great. They just don’t support dimming.