Best choise for a controller
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@zboblamont thank you for your response
To be honest, a "Fake" SD card is very possible, just think that the card I used came from Action Store, which is very well known in the Netherlands, and which is not known as the most expensive store ....
I have now ordered a new Sandisk Micro SD card, but I am definitely considering your option for an SSD.
I had seen the DC/DC (Meanwell) UPS before (in a post from you?), But I already bought the APC UPS, which can also be an advantage given that my entire network continues to run for about 30 minutes at a (rare) power failure.
@dzjr It was Sandisk I bought too, the reputable supplier was furious to discover fakes made it onto their inventory, after all they purchase in thousands of units. I suspect they are a lot more careful these days.
Infuriatingly local powercuts are common here, deadly to a Pi3 SD card, but what was curious on the ultimate failure with a portable HDD in place, was that the database could be recovered from the HDD, unsuccessful with the SD card. And yes, backups were still on my to-do list... :face_with_rolling_eyes:
Your UPS was the reason I queried SD card corruption, but cannot see the connection between corruption and Domoticz restarts.
Thought initially on a commercial UPS, but ultimately it was the standby capacity which swung it on DC-DC conversion, easily standing an outage exceeding 12 hours, or can provide additional outputs up to 12v (router).
Have not yet delved into the mysteries of Node-Red or MQTT unlike @electrik, but it certainly appears to offer flexibility, and remain curious..
Good luck in any case. -
@dzjr It was Sandisk I bought too, the reputable supplier was furious to discover fakes made it onto their inventory, after all they purchase in thousands of units. I suspect they are a lot more careful these days.
Infuriatingly local powercuts are common here, deadly to a Pi3 SD card, but what was curious on the ultimate failure with a portable HDD in place, was that the database could be recovered from the HDD, unsuccessful with the SD card. And yes, backups were still on my to-do list... :face_with_rolling_eyes:
Your UPS was the reason I queried SD card corruption, but cannot see the connection between corruption and Domoticz restarts.
Thought initially on a commercial UPS, but ultimately it was the standby capacity which swung it on DC-DC conversion, easily standing an outage exceeding 12 hours, or can provide additional outputs up to 12v (router).
Have not yet delved into the mysteries of Node-Red or MQTT unlike @electrik, but it certainly appears to offer flexibility, and remain curious..
Good luck in any case.Do you use the SSD / HDD instead of the SD card, or only as storage?
Did you use a separate USB drive or a Rasp-Pi SSD sheild like for example this one ?For the Pi4 I read that it is not (yet) supported to boot from SSD, namely ...
What strikes me is that if domoticz has to process more measurement data that monit sees a problem sooner, or that Domoticz is fixed ....
it seems like a buffer is full or something like that.And do you use a Meanwell ADD-155 series for the UPS Power supply?
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Do you use the SSD / HDD instead of the SD card, or only as storage?
Did you use a separate USB drive or a Rasp-Pi SSD sheild like for example this one ?For the Pi4 I read that it is not (yet) supported to boot from SSD, namely ...
What strikes me is that if domoticz has to process more measurement data that monit sees a problem sooner, or that Domoticz is fixed ....
it seems like a buffer is full or something like that.And do you use a Meanwell ADD-155 series for the UPS Power supply?
@dzjr The microSD acts only to redirect the Pi3 boot to the HDD, hence it's effectively RO. It can be reverted to full SD boot using a backup card if needed, the Pi4 is likely no different.
HDD is a simple slim Seagate laptop type running off a single USB port on the Pi3, the modern versions are light with a plastic case.
No issues for the original Pi3 PSU, had two coupled at one point, so they're very efficient. No need of a shield, only something to hold the drive to the wall.The Meanwell from memory is AD55, a dedicated UPS type charging a 7.2Ah 12v battery to which it reverts on power failure. Power out is via a high efficiency buck converter with integrated USB, so plenty of headroom.
At below 50 euro built, very pleased, only mains detection to sort out as this PSU came without a breakout panel on the back for that purpose. -
Hello MySensors friends,
I plan to completely rebuild my controller, probably with a RaspberryPi 4, the current configuration crashes regularly, I have already set up a second controller to be able to read one of my MySensors gateways, that helped for a while, but now domoticz restarts every 1.5 days on average, I have installed "Monit" on the Pi to monitor the controller.
Now I was wondering if domoticz is the right choice for my situation, or if you might recommend a better choice?
My setup is:
2x MySensors Ethernet gateways (both RS485) where I collect sensor data and control dimmers. relays, valves etc.
option for a 3rd MySensors gateway (RF Gateway).
DMX Garden lighting control (via MySensors with its own Ethernet gateway)
Z-Wave for the smoke detectors in my house.
IKEA Tradfri gateway, possibly with a ConBee-II Zigbee stick instead of the IKEA Gateway.
P1 Smart energy meter (Dutch energy meter)
APC UPS (via USB)
RF Link (for 433mhz components)
Sonos control
Modbus readout (possibly I can read through Mysensors?)
Read out Luftdaten sensor (via Json)
Push notification via PushOverI now use a Raspberry Pi 3 with Domoticz Beta, but prefer to run stable
And a Raspberry Pi 2 with Domoticz Stable where I read one of my MySensors gateway's.
But I prefer to use one controller.I am curious about your experiences and tips.
thank you in advance
dzjr -
@dzjr The microSD acts only to redirect the Pi3 boot to the HDD, hence it's effectively RO. It can be reverted to full SD boot using a backup card if needed, the Pi4 is likely no different.
HDD is a simple slim Seagate laptop type running off a single USB port on the Pi3, the modern versions are light with a plastic case.
No issues for the original Pi3 PSU, had two coupled at one point, so they're very efficient. No need of a shield, only something to hold the drive to the wall.The Meanwell from memory is AD55, a dedicated UPS type charging a 7.2Ah 12v battery to which it reverts on power failure. Power out is via a high efficiency buck converter with integrated USB, so plenty of headroom.
At below 50 euro built, very pleased, only mains detection to sort out as this PSU came without a breakout panel on the back for that purpose.@zboblamont
Thank you for the information, i will look for a good SSD, that is not so difficult i think.Also i will think of ordering a AD55 for powering the pi instead of the 5V 5A psu i use now.
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If you want stability, then for the price of a new Raspberry Pi 4 (or even less) you can buy yourself a combo motherboard + intel CPU. Then you can bypass SD cards altogether. Load it with Debian and you'll have practically the same user experience, except that it will run noticeably faster than a raspberry pi.
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Or, better yet, $39 gets you a refurbished mini PC with everything but the operating system all neatly packaged and ready to plug in and turn on: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Zotac-ZBOX-BI319-Mini-PC-Celeron-2807U-1-5Ghz-Plus-2GB-RAM-500G-HD-HDMI-NO-OS/173925495203?hash=item287ec471a3:g:zI4AAOSwBPZc-WiS
i have one of these running Windows that I had purchased new a couple years ago, and it's a nice little box. Very quiet.
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Or, better yet, $39 gets you a refurbished mini PC with everything but the operating system all neatly packaged and ready to plug in and turn on: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Zotac-ZBOX-BI319-Mini-PC-Celeron-2807U-1-5Ghz-Plus-2GB-RAM-500G-HD-HDMI-NO-OS/173925495203?hash=item287ec471a3:g:zI4AAOSwBPZc-WiS
i have one of these running Windows that I had purchased new a couple years ago, and it's a nice little box. Very quiet.
Thank you for your tip, unfortunately there are quite a few costs such as import duties .....
In the end I want to switch to a complete system, but after an afternoon of serving around I no longer know what I should and should not take .......
There is just a little too much choice in everything, and I don't want to take a risk with a second hand from a private person who might be broken or something.I think I'll start with the Pi4 for the time being, and add an SSD once.
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Thank you for your tip, unfortunately there are quite a few costs such as import duties .....
In the end I want to switch to a complete system, but after an afternoon of serving around I no longer know what I should and should not take .......
There is just a little too much choice in everything, and I don't want to take a risk with a second hand from a private person who might be broken or something.I think I'll start with the Pi4 for the time being, and add an SSD once.
@dzjr Perhaps SSD has moved on in $ and reliability since last I looked, but don't dismiss HDD so lightly, they may be old gen technology but are cheap and WAY faster than anything you'll ever need..
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I myself never got any problems with SD cards in my Pi's, but to ensure none of such will happen I've bought high endurance microSD from Samsung that costs about 3 times the price of a normal microSD card of the same brand and speed. They are designed to withstand continuous write for a warranty period. They are often used for onboard cameras and other surveillance equipment.
As for controller I highly recommend Home Assistant. It seems to be the most developed and highly supported platform with the biggest community and the widest customizability. I still use Domoticz at home, but currently finishing install of a system based on Home Assistant at my friend's home. After I've looked deeper into HA I am going to migrate my own home automation to it too.
If you have any network storage at home I would suggest you set up rsync to backup your config daily. HA can be installed like a Docker image, and it keeps all your config and custom installed modules/scripts/themes/etc in one folder, so it can be easily backed up and/or migrated to another system if needed.
In the latest versions they added ability to make most of the configs within web UI, though configuring with config YAML files is pretty straight forward and almost every option you would need is described in a vast and well organized documentation. -
@rejoe2 I had never looked at FHEM myself, I will certainly do so.
As a server, I also received a tip to use an Intel nuc instead of a Pi.
@dzjr said in Best choise for a controller:
@rejoe2 I had never looked at FHEM myself, I will certainly do so.
As a server, I also received a tip to use an Intel nuc instead of a Pi.
Have a look at Linux compability first when looking for Intel NUC. My HA system runs on a ThinClient platform from hp. Consumes slightly more than a Pi or newer NUC, but only costs around the same as a new Pi.
Wrt. to what @monte said about Home Assistant: Comparing is not really easy, as one can focus on different things, but most likely FHEM might stand the test, especially if you focus on hardware integration and automation (but to be honest: Perl on which FHEM is based is "special" and seems to be no longer "a la mode").
If you are able to read German, you can find some infos on FHEM compared to OpenHAB and IOBroker here - there's also some few remarks from users with HASS experience (most of them highlight the shiny UI of HASS, and there are also some FHEM users going for FHEM for automation tasks and hardware interfacing and HASS as UI).Controller: FHEM; MySensors: 2.3.1, RS485,nRF24,RFM69, serial Gateways
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@dzjr said in Best choise for a controller:
@rejoe2 I had never looked at FHEM myself, I will certainly do so.
As a server, I also received a tip to use an Intel nuc instead of a Pi.
Have a look at Linux compability first when looking for Intel NUC. My HA system runs on a ThinClient platform from hp. Consumes slightly more than a Pi or newer NUC, but only costs around the same as a new Pi.
Wrt. to what @monte said about Home Assistant: Comparing is not really easy, as one can focus on different things, but most likely FHEM might stand the test, especially if you focus on hardware integration and automation (but to be honest: Perl on which FHEM is based is "special" and seems to be no longer "a la mode").
If you are able to read German, you can find some infos on FHEM compared to OpenHAB and IOBroker here - there's also some few remarks from users with HASS experience (most of them highlight the shiny UI of HASS, and there are also some FHEM users going for FHEM for automation tasks and hardware interfacing and HASS as UI).@rejoe2 but is there anything that FHEM supports and HA doesn't?
Also keep in mind ongoing development in contrary to others (over 70 releases on github this year alone). For example google pulled off "works with nest" API, so many users can't use their thermostats with 3rd party software, but one of HA users made a simple dirty hack which makes it possible to integrate your nest thermostat for now, until google will release their new API for users.
Also HA is written in python which makes it pretty easy to fix any issues or add new features. -
Friends,
I ordered a mini PC anyway, and am going to try both HA and FHEM (maybe with a virtual OS), in addition to my current Domoticz system for the time being, and then see what works best for my situation.
What I had forgotten to say is that I will also use the controller to control the garden irrigation, of which I control the water valves and read the sensors with Mysensors, so I will certainly include the ease of scripting.
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I have been using Domoticz (currently 4.10717) for a few years and it has always very stable except sometimes when the trouble is introduced by my mistakes. If you are satisfied with Domoticz, except for the current stability, I suggest it is something you can correct. Changing to another controller will be a lot of work.
I have had very good stability with Domoticz on rPI first, now on a basic Intel NUC running Ubuntu with SDD drive which is of course much faster.
Of course hardware trouble on the device running Domoticz is possible. I suggest using fastest, best quality hardware & SD card for your controller. Other software running on the same Pi might be causing your problem rather than Domoticz.
You can probably get better help debugging Domoticz on their forum.
A few ideas:
- Have you reviewed the Domoticz logs to identify any issues?
- I wonder why you are running two separate Domoticz controllers, and if a conflict could be causing problems? It may be easy for you to test by removing your second controller for a while.
Good luck!
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Another option would be to run the controller on a virtual machine, which gives you a lot of conveniences. The usual scenario would be if you have, say, a vmware capable fileserver that's always on anyway, then adding a separate vm on it for your mysensors controller costs you nothing.
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@grubstake Yes I know that building a new controller is a lot of work, but yes I prefer not to run beta anymore, and I understood that from stable to beta would not be a problem, but from beta to stable is very complicated, that's why I want to start again ...
The only thing I would like to take with me is the historical sensor data of certain (weather) sensors.
I have the second controller running because if I also run the second mysensors gateway on the first controller the controller crashes very quickly (every 3 to 4 hours), and then I have already completely disabled the modbus plugin.
I have searched on the domoticz forum, there is a call that the database is corrupt, but the SD card issue sounds more plausible to me afterwards.I'm going to try if I can run multiple virtual controllers on the new controller PC so that I can test it next to each other.
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Another option would be to run the controller on a virtual machine, which gives you a lot of conveniences. The usual scenario would be if you have, say, a vmware capable fileserver that's always on anyway, then adding a separate vm on it for your mysensors controller costs you nothing.
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@neverdie
Thank you for thinking along, I appreciate that!I already planned to build a virtual machine so that I could test / try several controllers next to each other.
@dzjr The ideal scenario, which may not fit your budget, would be a supermicro motherboard and an intel CPU that specifically supports virtual machines. Marry that to a capable UPS, and you'd have a commercial grade solution that would be rock solid and yet easy to maintain, even remotely. This way you have only one machine that needs backups, you need only one UPS, and the speed will likely be lightning fast. It probably only makes sense though in a scenario where you have other programs (file server, security cameras, or whatever) running 24/7 anyway. But if that's you, it's worth looking into.
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@dzjr The ideal scenario, which may not fit your budget, would be a supermicro motherboard and an intel CPU that specifically supports virtual machines. Marry that to a capable UPS, and you'd have a commercial grade solution that would be rock solid and yet easy to maintain, even remotely. This way you have only one machine that needs backups, you need only one UPS, and the speed will likely be lightning fast. It probably only makes sense though in a scenario where you have other programs (file server, security cameras, or whatever) running 24/7 anyway. But if that's you, it's worth looking into.
@neverdie but isn't Docker more efficient and simple solution compared to a VM? Considering it will be used for single process anyway.
I have a combination of VM's, Docker and dedicated RPi's in my system and I learned that Docker has very little overhead compared to VM and has greater flexibility when it comes to backups, restores especially if there is ready to use image in the repository.
