Stand alone lighting control system
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very good points @TheoL , I am all for easy AND very reliable solutions.
Honestly, I didn't find much info about MQTT, on build pages it says that "The MQTT gateway is basically a Ethernet Gateway with modified software which makes it act as a MQTT broker", and first comment says there are bunch of errors, and for me as a beginner in mysensors/HA it is probably another "complicated" term and technology I need to get my hands on.
I will try to find more info about benefits of the MQTT protocol, but if it would be possible to have a "backup" controller as you describe it or something else that would be dedicated to the "lighting control" logic, then I would definitely like to try it. Please do tell more :)C: OpenHAB2 with node-red on linux laptop
GW: Arduino Nano - W5100 Ethernet, Nrf24l01+ 2,4Ghz mqtt
GW: Arduino Mega, RFLink 433Mhz -
very good points @TheoL , I am all for easy AND very reliable solutions.
Honestly, I didn't find much info about MQTT, on build pages it says that "The MQTT gateway is basically a Ethernet Gateway with modified software which makes it act as a MQTT broker", and first comment says there are bunch of errors, and for me as a beginner in mysensors/HA it is probably another "complicated" term and technology I need to get my hands on.
I will try to find more info about benefits of the MQTT protocol, but if it would be possible to have a "backup" controller as you describe it or something else that would be dedicated to the "lighting control" logic, then I would definitely like to try it. Please do tell more :)@dakipro I'll try to add an MQTT tutorial within a couple of weeks. I want to do an MQTT presentation for my colleagues so why not combine it with a tutorial for the MySensors community. It's a bit hard to understand in the beginning, but once you understand the basics, you wonder why you not have used it before.
But again, there should be no need for an master/slave controller implementation. The only thing I can't prevent is an power outage. Everything else runs very stable in my house at least. And if I don't want to control my lighting with my Home Automation controller, I'm still able to use manually operated switches, which is one of my main design principles when designing new MySensors actuators.
Most important for each Node is that you simply don't used the Arduino as a power supply. I found that out the hard way. I now power everything from an power adapter, incl. the Antenna.
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@dakipro I'll try to add an MQTT tutorial within a couple of weeks. I want to do an MQTT presentation for my colleagues so why not combine it with a tutorial for the MySensors community. It's a bit hard to understand in the beginning, but once you understand the basics, you wonder why you not have used it before.
But again, there should be no need for an master/slave controller implementation. The only thing I can't prevent is an power outage. Everything else runs very stable in my house at least. And if I don't want to control my lighting with my Home Automation controller, I'm still able to use manually operated switches, which is one of my main design principles when designing new MySensors actuators.
Most important for each Node is that you simply don't used the Arduino as a power supply. I found that out the hard way. I now power everything from an power adapter, incl. the Antenna.
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I agree with @TheoL - I run Domoticz and Ethernet GW without major issues for 1.5 years now... offcourse there was some initial setup problems. You need to be able to run everything on a smaller arduino. Lightswitches and spaces you are going to work in are most of the times very tight so dont forget about that.
I also run a arduino + relay with the switch connected to this relay through D3 for example. If MySensors fail (untested in real enviroment so far) the switch should still work by hitting the switch.
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For me personally the main focus is not fallback as is independency from the controller/domoticz.
Also there is delay when you use domoticz as controller, which annoys me so much. I click on the switch, sometims it is 2s before the light comes on. And there is always "stress" of switch not working, rebooting or what not.
Also there is convenience on only programming one single node when new lights are added (or existing changed). And when we talk 25-30 lights and 15-20 light switch nodes as mentioned in the first topic, I would like to avoid ever touching those 40-50 nodes and edit logic in one place.
There is always a balance between convenience / reliability, but one can have clone of the "controller" node as a backup, just in case main dies, you just plug inn the backup :)@dakipro said:
For me personally the main focus is not fallback as is independency from the controller/domoticz.
Also there is delay when you use domoticz as controller, which annoys me so much. I click on the switch, sometims it is 2s before the light comes on. And there is always "stress" of switch not working, rebooting or what not.This might help if someone could make it as configurable value and will merge it to codebase: https://www.domoticz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=93701#p92910
I've designed my setup another way: The house is divided in 5 areas. Every area has its own relay box where all the actuators of that area are living. So in normal wall boxes I have only weak current. I'll try to implement everything based on rs485. Most of the buttons will be directly tied to actuator and some are action buttons for HA controller. Mainly for scenes I think.
Another solution I was thinking is that as fall back I could use nexa remote to control those actuator-boxes directly since it has ability to control 4x4 devices or 4x8 if you use it for toggle... but the problem might be that the remotes are always lost..
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For me personally the main focus is not fallback as is independency from the controller/domoticz.
Also there is delay when you use domoticz as controller, which annoys me so much. I click on the switch, sometims it is 2s before the light comes on. And there is always "stress" of switch not working, rebooting or what not.
Also there is convenience on only programming one single node when new lights are added (or existing changed). And when we talk 25-30 lights and 15-20 light switch nodes as mentioned in the first topic, I would like to avoid ever touching those 40-50 nodes and edit logic in one place.
There is always a balance between convenience / reliability, but one can have clone of the "controller" node as a backup, just in case main dies, you just plug inn the backup :) -
are you using domoticz as well?
I've read that mqtt is "officially" not supported, but it could work. Anyway, I am looking forward to your presentation :)C: OpenHAB2 with node-red on linux laptop
GW: Arduino Nano - W5100 Ethernet, Nrf24l01+ 2,4Ghz mqtt
GW: Arduino Mega, RFLink 433Mhz -
are you using domoticz as well?
I've read that mqtt is "officially" not supported, but it could work. Anyway, I am looking forward to your presentation :)@dakipro I'm using Domoticz as controller as well. I mainly use it as a gateway to all the devices I want to control and defining the scenes I use.
I have for instance one scene in my living room for normal lightning. This means there's an additional lamp on which is standing next to the tv (It's actually my gesture controlled MySensors lamp).
When I want to watch TV I don't want that additional light to be on. So in my watch tv scene I turn that one off.
And I have an additional Scene for turning all lamps in my living room off.
Now when I use the domoticz GUI it's some times really slow. Especially when I use my mobile because, I have crappy WiFi. So I just have a MySensors scene controller talking to Domoticz (not MQTT) for controlling the light scenes. Even that one causes instant responses from my lamps in the living room.
When I send MQTT commands to Domoticz it's acts instantly. Meaning really fast. Which is the same when I send rest calls to Domoticz.
I'm not sure where you've read that MQTT is not supported by Domoticz. I've been using it for more than a half year. But I'm one Domoticz release behind. And it works like a charm. I let Domoticz do the Home Automation and do my IoT stuff through MQTT.
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Hi @TheoL how is life and hacking? :)
I got reminded on this topic when I saw that Domoticz now officially supports the MySensors MQTT Gateway
So I was thinking maybe you have some time and material to contribute to the subject, I see there is a lot of people (me first) not really understanding how they could benefit from MQTT protocol. Since you mentioned the presentation/tutorial last time :)
Cheers!
