New to MySensors - how to get started

[mr.eskildsen]

I am using openHAB Home Automation, and there I saw a binding to MySensors. I decided to look closer into how I could benefit from MySensors. My first idea was to use a ESP8266,a nd I have played around with that. The problem is that I have some PIR sensors, and there seems to be a problem when they ar only supplied with 3.3V. Else it seems that MySensors as concept is great! To get the PIR sensor up and running I turned towards amy Raspberry Pi's acting as ZoneMinder cameras, they are Raspberry Pi 3 and Raspberry Pi 2 (with an EdiMax Wifi dongle).
I have tried to get a gateway up and runnign, both Ethernet and MQTT, with no luck. It seems to fail on radio initialisation (becasue it is just a plain Raspberry Pi, with no custom RF module attached). I have thus been looking for a guide on how to use the plain wifi to connect to the controller in openHAB, with no luck.

Is there any possibility to configure a Raspberry Pi 3 as a gateway that connects to a openHAB controller, without attaching an extra radio? I just want to monitor a couple of GPIO pins in my Raspberry Pi. Is it possible or have I misunderstood the concept?

[gohan]

There is another thread open about 5V pir sensor problems: you need to supply voltage with 3 AA batteries if you removed the voltage regulator

[mr.eskildsen]

I am interested to know if I can use a Raspberry Pi 3 as gateway, without adding any extra hardware to communicate to the controller (eg. can I use either LAN connection or WiFi)?

[gohan]

I think you are mixing things. If you want to read gpio from raspberry where openhab is installed, you don't need mysensors. If you have wireless pir sensors then you need a radio also for raspberry

[mr.eskildsen]

@gohan said in New to MySensors - how to get started:

I think you are mixing things. If you want to read gpio from raspberry where openhab is installed, you don't need mysensors. If you have wireless pir sensors then you need a radio also for raspberry

I don't want to read GPIO from the Raspberry where openHAB is installed. My question is more to understand if MySensors framework can help me. As an example I have some Raspberry Pi's (they are used as ZoneMinder cameras), they are connected to my network via either LAN cable or Wifi.
If I attach a sensor to that Raspberry, is it then possible to install a MySensor Gateway on that particular Raspberry Pi and via existing network connection connect to the MySensor Controller hosted in my openHAB instance?

[gohan]

I don't think you would benefit much from mysensors in this situation. This framework is more focused on small Arduino based sensors nodes that talk to a gateway and the gateway talks to a home automation controller. But maybe developers know some hack on the code

[mr.eskildsen]

I things is starting to get a little more clear to me. So in MySensors world we have:

• Controller
• Gateway(s)
• Sensors

So I guess the purpose of the radio on the Gateway (in my example the Raspberry Pi), is to communicate with the Sensor nodes? Where a Sensor node is a Arduino, ESP8622?
I still think that I can have some beneft from this great framework, I just have to understand it :-)
Is there some explanation / overview of how things is put together ?

[gohan]

Esp8266 has to be considered as a gateway on its own that you can use together with supported radios

[mr.eskildsen]

Ok, but I think I am lacking the basic understanding of Gateways, Sensor node etc.
Is there somewhere where I can read about the different objects (eg. Gateway, Sensor Nodes)?
I think MySensors has a big potential in my setup, but I am unsure how to get started. If I buy a radio to the Raspberry Pi's where I want to attach my PIR sensors would it then work?

[gohan]

Start reading around the site https://www.mysensors.org/build
PIR Sensor would need to be connected to another arduino board with another radio; the arduino node will be talking to raspberry via the radio modules.

[mr.eskildsen]

@gohan said in New to MySensors - how to get started:

Start reading around the site https://www.mysensors.org/build

Thx, seems like there is some help there :-)