Posts made by Dwalt

@martinhjelmare

Thank you for responding to this. I finally had time to look at the HA log and found a number of other issues. I think I had a conflict with HA Bridge (originally setup to work with Vera) so I shut down that device but I am still seeing errors in the HA log but cannot identify the source.

Here is the current home-assistant.log output:

17-02-17 15:56:56 homeassistant.core: Error doing job: Future exception was never retrieved
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/concurrent/futures/thread.py", line 54, in run
    result = self.fn(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/components/notify/__init__.py", line 149, in platform_discovered
    setup_notify_platform(platform, discovery_info=info)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/components/notify/__init__.py", line 89, in setup_notify_platform
    hass, p_config, discovery_info)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/components/notify/mysensors.py", line 25, in get_service
    pres.S_INFO: [set_req.V_TEXT],
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/enum.py", line 255, in __getattr__
    raise AttributeError(name) from None
AttributeError: V_TEXT
17-02-17 15:57:25 homeassistant.core: Error doing job: Task exception was never retrieved
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/tasks.py", line 233, in _step
    result = coro.throw(exc)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/helpers/entity_component.py", line 387, in _update_entity_states
    yield from update_coro
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py", line 216, in async_update_ha_state
    yield from self.hass.loop.run_in_executor(None, self.update)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/futures.py", line 388, in __iter__
    yield self  # This tells Task to wait for completion.
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/tasks.py", line 286, in _wakeup
    value = future.result()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/futures.py", line 277, in result
    raise self._exception
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/concurrent/futures/thread.py", line 54, in run
    result = self.fn(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/components/light/hue.py", line 397, in update
    self.update_lights(no_throttle=True)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/util/__init__.py", line 296, in wrapper
    result = method(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/util/__init__.py", line 296, in wrapper
    result = method(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/components/light/hue.py", line 207, in update_lights
    lightgroups[lightgroup_id].schedule_update_ha_state()
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py", line 290, in schedule_update_ha_state
    self.hass.add_job(self.async_update_ha_state(force_refresh))
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'add_job'
17-02-17 15:57:56 homeassistant.core: Error doing job: Task exception was never retrieved
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/tasks.py", line 233, in _step
    result = coro.throw(exc)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/helpers/entity_component.py", line 387, in _update_entity_states
    yield from update_coro
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py", line 216, in async_update_ha_state
    yield from self.hass.loop.run_in_executor(None, self.update)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/futures.py", line 388, in __iter__
    yield self  # This tells Task to wait for completion.
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/tasks.py", line 286, in _wakeup
    value = future.result()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/futures.py", line 277, in result
    raise self._exception
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/concurrent/futures/thread.py", line 54, in run
    result = self.fn(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/components/light/hue.py", line 397, in update
    self.update_lights(no_throttle=True)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/util/__init__.py", line 296, in wrapper
    result = method(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/util/__init__.py", line 296, in wrapper
    result = method(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/components/light/hue.py", line 207, in update_lights
    lightgroups[lightgroup_id].schedule_update_ha_state()
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py", line 290, in schedule_update_ha_state
    self.hass.add_job(self.async_update_ha_state(force_refresh))
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'add_job'
17-02-17 15:58:27 homeassistant.core: Error doing job: Task exception was never retrieved
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/tasks.py", line 233, in _step
    result = coro.throw(exc)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/helpers/entity_component.py", line 387, in _update_entity_states
    yield from update_coro
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py", line 216, in async_update_ha_state
    yield from self.hass.loop.run_in_executor(None, self.update)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/futures.py", line 388, in __iter__
    yield self  # This tells Task to wait for completion.
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/tasks.py", line 286, in _wakeup
    value = future.result()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/asyncio/futures.py", line 277, in result
    raise self._exception
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/concurrent/futures/thread.py", line 54, in run
    result = self.fn(*self.args, **self.kwargs)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/components/light/hue.py", line 397, in update
    self.update_lights(no_throttle=True)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/util/__init__.py", line 296, in wrapper
    result = method(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/util/__init__.py", line 296, in wrapper
    result = method(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/components/light/hue.py", line 207, in update_lights
    lightgroups[lightgroup_id].schedule_update_ha_state()
  File "/srv/homeassistant/homeassistant_venv/lib/python3.4/site-packages/homeassistant/helpers/entity.py", line 290, in schedule_update_ha_state
    self.hass.add_job(self.async_update_ha_state(force_refresh))
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'add_job'

The second error repeats every 31 seconds. If you know of any solutions for these errors, I would appreciate any help.

As for the issue with MySensors nodes, I was wrong about the repeaters in that they are not the source of my problems, I think my GW is causing HA to lock up the MySensors component of HA. Whenever a node is restarted, repeater or non-repeater, my GW restarts (see below) and for some reason this freezes the MyS component in HA. I never noticed it before with Vera because these restarts doesn't appear to affect the stability of Vera plugin.

This is from MYSController logging GW traffic:

[2017-02-17 16:04:39.953 Info] RX	4;1;1;0;0;74.6
 [2017-02-17 16:04:40.041 Info] RX	4;2;1;0;1;29
 [2017-02-17 16:05:21.964 Info] RX	2;1;1;0;0;74.9
 [2017-02-17 16:05:38.689 Info] RX	2;1;1;0;0;74.8
 [2017-02-17 16:05:43.434 Info] RX	4;1;1;0;0;74.6
 [2017-02-17 16:05:43.534 Info] RX	4;2;1;0;1;29
 [2017-02-17 16:06:23.535 Info] RX	2;2;1;0;16;1
 [2017-02-17 16:06:24.462 Info] RX	2;1;1;0;0;74.9
 [2017-02-17 16:06:27.717 Info] RX	7;3;1;0;16;1
 [2017-02-17 16:06:41.173 Info] RX	2;1;1;0;0;74.8
 [2017-02-17 16:06:46.863 Info] RX	4;255;3;0;0;69
 [2017-02-17 16:06:47.032 Info] RX	4;1;1;0;0;74.6
 [2017-02-17 16:06:47.147 Info] RX	4;2;1;0;1;29
 [2017-02-17 16:06:53.637 Info] RX	2;2;1;0;16;0
 [2017-02-17 16:06:55.238 Info] CHILD	New child discovered, node id=6, child id=internal
 [2017-02-17 16:06:55.269 Info] RX	6;255;3;0;0;96
 [2017-02-17 16:06:57.727 Info] RX	6;3;1;0;16;1
 [2017-02-17 16:06:58.478 Info] RX	7;4;1;0;23;4
 [2017-02-17 16:06:58.493 Info] RX	7;3;1;0;16;0
 [2017-02-17 16:07:01.595 Info] DEBUG	Update child id=255, type=ARDUINO_NODE
 [2017-02-17 16:07:01.632 Info] RX	5;255;0;0;17;1.4
 [2017-02-17 16:07:01.632 Info] TX	5;255;3;0;6;
 [2017-02-17 16:07:01.663 Info] RX	5;255;3;0;6;0
 [2017-02-17 16:07:01.670 Info] RX	0;0;3;0;14;Gateway startup complete.
 [2017-02-17 16:07:02.682 Info] RX	0;0;3;0;14;Gateway startup complete.
 [2017-02-17 16:07:03.617 Info] DEBUG	Update child id=0, type=DIMMER
 [2017-02-17 16:07:03.655 Info] RX	5;0;0;0;4;1.4
 [2017-02-17 16:07:03.655 Info] RX	5;255;3;0;11;DimmableLED
 [2017-02-17 16:07:03.671 Info] RX	5;255;3;0;12;1.1
 [2017-02-17 16:07:03.702 Info] RX	5;0;2;0;3;1.1
 [2017-02-17 16:07:13.318 Info] RX	2;2;1;0;16;1
 [2017-02-17 16:07:14.272 Info] RX	2;1;1;0;0;74.9
 [2017-02-17 16:07:17.043 Info] RX	7;3;1;0;16;1
 [2017-02-17 16:07:29.377 Info] RX	6;3;1;0;16;0
 [2017-02-17 16:07:43.381 Info] RX	2;2;1;0;16;0
 [2017-02-17 16:07:47.838 Info] RX	7;3;1;0;16;0

At 16:06:55, node 6 sent battery info for the first time and this did not upset the MYS component. At 16:07:01, I powered up a repeater node (node 5), it starts to present itself (sketch info, etc) and then suddenly it throws "0;0;3;0;14;Gateway startup complete", which I interpret as the GW resetting or re-initializing?!? This is also when HA stops updating MYS data, regardless of whether I restart a repeater node or normal node.

My GW is somewhat inaccessible for direct serial connection so I have been monitoring it with MYSController which shows message traffic but not verbose debug info. I will try this weekend to hook up serial directly. To reestablish MySensors updating in HA, I have to restart HA. The repeaters are all actuators and do not transmit an initial state value to HA and thus are not discovered and never show up in HA. I assume I need to update their sketches for them to work with HA.

Any thoughts on this problem? My gateway is MYS 1.4 (or 1.4.1) and MYS 2.0 may be more stable so perhaps it is time to upgrade. The GW has been working undisturbed for over two years with zero issues before this.

I am on the process of migrating from Vera to HA and have encountered problems with data sent from HA recognized (not sure of the proper term) sensors to the GW through repeaters. If the data is sent directly to my ethernet gateway, HA updates the sensors appropriately. If the data is routed through one of my repeating nodes (which are not yet recognized by HA, more on this below), HA does not update the sensor. I can verify that the data is arriving at the GW by MYSController (and Vera still updates the sensor). If I power down my repeaters, the sensors send the messages directly to the GW and HA resumes updating the sensors.

Most of my nodes are still on MyS 1.4 and many of the repeaters are installed in hard to reach areas (e.g. inside of walls) so updating their sketches is difficult. To properly present these repeaters (which are all mains powered actuators) to HA, apparently an initial-state message needs to be sent at presentation for HA to recognize them and that would require updating their sketches (~Catch 22).

Has anyone encountered anything similar with HA and MyS repeaters? I am trying to decide on path forward...

@pndgt0

Post your sketch using the </> tool.

@nsom67

Yes, that is the serialGW sketch. In the development branch, the setup and loop are blank because everything is handled by the libraries in the background. To make a serialGW with sensors, you add the sensor specific code from the applicable sensor sketch to the defines, setup, presentation and loop sections of the GW sketch. In your case, you can even comment out the rf24 bits of the GW sketch and not attach the radio as you don't have anything for the gw to talk to.

Upload the modified sketch and connect by serial adapter to your controller and test it out. Personally, I would wait and use a nano as a serial gateway and stick with the master branch until you get comfortable with MySensors.

@nsom67

Are you interested in using a sensebender as a serial gateway or just interested in adding temp and humidity sensors to your gateway? The latter option is possible under the development branch by adding the coding bits regarding the temp/hum sensor to the Serial GW sketch. I would recommend against, however, as it could interfere with the gateway's primary function (e.g. missing messages) while processing sensor routines.

The sensebender was designed for battery operation and it's use as a powered gateway would nullify the design innovations and would most likely require additional power regulation for stable operation. The only benefit, as I can see, would be the built-in ATSHA204 for security.

@Samuel235 said:

...does this count as the conductive mat

Conductive foam is impregnated with carbon and is generally black in color and denser than styrofoam. The pink foam common in packaging is 'anti-static' but not conductive. Methinks that is simple packaging styrofoam. As a side note, conductive foam is very useful for making pressure sensors, never throw it away.

@Mark-Swift

What version of MySensors are you using? You are using the development branch syntax:

sendSketchInfo("MowerGarage", "1.8");

instead of the traditional:

gw.sendSketchInfo("MowerGarage", "1.8");

but do not use the development ordering of:

void setup()
void presentation()
void loop()

@Samuel235 Did you source a breakout version of the OPT3001? It is hard to find.

@Cliff-Karlsson

No sure on the button force sensors, I have not used them.

To test the force sensors under a mattress, I would wire them up to an Arduino with a sketch that simple reads the analog pin and serial prints the result. Place the sensor under the mattress and see what the serial monitor readings are when the bed is unoccupied and occupied. This would give you the unique range for you particular need. Might be tricky if your computer and bed are in different rooms. After you have the range, you could write a sketch with S_BINARY to trigger V_STATUS whenever the reading approached the high end of your tested range.

If you cannot reach you bed while connected to serial, you could write a sample mySensors sketch to send the analog reading every few seconds to your controller as V_LEVEL. This video helps explain how to wire up the sensor and select the static resistor for the voltage divider. video

@Cliff-Karlsson

It might be easier if you explained your intended application.

The code can be written to read the sensors continuously and only send when a significant change is detected, or it can read the sensors on a time interval and send the value as a percentage or custom value. If you want to continuously read the value at your controller, you will flood your wireless network with messages.

I would suggest first hooking the sensor up to a Arduino and read the analog values of your sensor through the serial monitor to see what range and fluctuation your application generates.

@Cliff-Karlsson

A flex sensor is like an LDR, you would connect to an analog pin as part of a voltage divider. The senjor will give analog readings dependent on the voltage supplied and the range of flex in your application. How you code it would depend on what you are trying to sense. If you want to get an incremental measurement along the entire range of flex, you could use the map function to convert it from the analog read to a 1-100 scale as V_PERCENTAGE. If you were just looking for it to provide an alert when the sensor flexed past a certain level, you could set the level in your code and send it as a V_STATUS using S_BINARY or S_LIGHT. Either way, you need to determine the analog values of your sensor within the working environment of your application before you can finalize your code. E.g. What is the analog read when nothing is happening to the sensor and what is the reading when the sensor is at maximum expected flex.

@Muxje

It sounds like the device ID got mangled in upgrade to UI7. Check the ID#s for each device within Vera and look for duplicates between your 3 nodes. If this is the case, you may need to delete the confused node and reincluded it.

@giansiro

Not sure how this is related to MySensors. I have a few of these and they work well and are stupid simple to install. I also have the model with the 5V USB charging port, keeps the kids from stealing relocating the phone charging bricks.

Nice to see ATSHA204A included. Could this be used as a gateway on a USB port? I am not familiar within SAMD, but how does this work without USB to serial chip?

I have the two spares from my order. If anyone wants one, send me a private chat message with your postal address. I am in the US, so it could take a few extra days to arrive if you are unfortunate enough to live on the wrong side of the pond.

If they are using another appliance in the home which trips the outlet, why would they need email?

Power outage alarm?

Does anyone have any experience with this sensor?

I exhausted my stock of panasonic PIRs and was looking for a replacement which was low powered and self contained (all components within the can) similar to the panasonics and ran across the am/hm PIR series from Senba Optics. The am312 is the only one I have seen in the wild - $13 on aliexpress but ~$2 from Banggood. I cannot find a non-chinese datasheet anywhere but some wholesalers have listed specs which look promising, specifically detection range and current.

Any thoughts?

@Guilhem-Brouat

I do not have direct experience with solar powered nodes but there are a few threads in the forum on this subject.

Here
And here
And hardware designed for this

@Lee-Groom

Have you read this thread?

@Guilhem-Brouat said:

OK now I just have to order some boosters...

For battery powered sensors, it might be better to invest in low power sensors such as the BMP280 and/or SI7021 which can be run below 2V. Save the DHT22 for a mains powered node.

@SuperKris

Have you read through the project thread on the irrigation controller? It is a long thread but there was some discussion on sending 'sprinkler on' times from Domoticz.

@Samuel235
I was under the assumption you intended this module to be always 'listening' to allow a controller to set it to night mode or 'disarm'. If so, battery power will be tricky. In addition, PIRs require a period of stabilization when powered on, often up to 30 seconds to calibrate sensor field of view background.

@Samuel235 said:

Motion Detection

Would you guys rather the motion detection be connected via a transistor so we can send messages to the node to enable and disable the motion side of the module rather than having motion being detected at all times?.

If not to save power, would not a software solution be easier and less complicated solution?

I don't know how other controllers handle arming security devices, but this is already possible with Vera. There was some discussion about it here.

@Elfnoir There are a various tutorials for using the Arduino IDE for flashing sketches onto ESP8266 on the internet. I don't remember which I used originally. Firstly, you need to add the ESP8266 to the IDE through the board manager. Secondly, Unlike the Arduino, the ESP needs to be set into bootloader mode to load a sketch. Whereas the Arduino bootloader looks for an incoming upload when the chip is reset (For most boards, the IDE automatically resets the chip when you begin an upload). The ESP needs its GPIO-0 drawn to ground when it is reset to enter bootloader mode so it can be a little trickier to wire up

I used the development branch of MySensors to create ESP nodes using the GatewayESP8266.ino sketch. I just remove the

#define MY_RADIO_NRF24

and any bits about inclusion buttons and then add my particular parts to the setup, presentation and loop parts of the sketch depending on my attached sensors. There are more tricky details to the process but it isn't much different than creating a Arduino/nRf sensor node. I agree a tutorial is in order but the process is still evolving that is why it is the "development " branch.

I use some of the ESP-12, the Huzzah from adafruit and i have several commercial products with imbedded ESP8266 which i reflashed and MySensorized. I will try this weekend to document a project in detail. Too busy today.

@mvbarcus

Did you configure the serial port through Vera?

Apps>>Develop Apps>>Serial Port Configuration

Are you using the UI7 branch?

@Elfnoir

I don't know about the limitations of the ESP01 as I don't have any, but I use several other ESP8266 models as stand alone sensor or actuator nodes by flashing MySensors sketches on them, and join them to my network like any other Arduino/Nrf24L01 based node. I use Vera and for a single sensor node, Vera creates two devices - one for the node and one for the sensor or actuator. One difference between a regular MySensors device and the ESP is that the node device is esentially its own gateway as it uses WiFi to communicate straight to the controller and does not communicate thru my Ethernet GW like the NRf nodes. It shows up in Vera like the original plugin.

There are other ways to join ESP8266s to a controller but I prefer MySensors as the protocols and device types are already established through the plugin so there is no extra lua or http coding required.

@sgripon
Nice project! You are using an Arduino (with rf433 rx) directly connected to USB on your RPi. If your used MySensors, you could transmit the temperature data from your Arduino with a Nrf24L01 to a gateway Arduino connected to your RPi by USB, Ethernet or WiFi. You would achieve the same result as your project but can expand it to multiple sensors (nodes) located at various locations away from your RPi. For example, I have a 433mhz sensor node which listens for commercial temperature sensors (similar to your example) but it also recieves signals from a 433mhz scene controller (keyfob) and can send signals to multiple 433mhz outlet switches. This is just one of 20 different nodes on my network.

If your are looking to expand your system, you just need some Nrf24L01 radios and another Arduino. The code on this site is easy to adapt to your sketch.

@Apocrathia
I have bought two batches of ten radios from the prior vendor listed in the store (alice1101983) and all twenty radios were clones using conterfeit nrf24 chips. The serial numbers on the chips were identified elsewhere on the internet as known fakes. However, all but one of these fakes have worked flawlessly in my setup. Actually, I shouldn't say 'flawlessly' because I can't determine if they perform better or worse than true Nordic chip radios. I get decent indoor range, few transmission 'fails', and no battery drain issues. No complaints for the price.

That being said, I don't know if anyone can identify a true Nordic radio vendor in the Chinese marketplace and the Amazon vendors are just Chinese product resellers. If you pay less than $5 per radio, it is likely a counterfeit. If you pay more than $5 per radio, it is likely a marked-up counterfeit. The best recourse IMHO, is to use well rated vendors with a long seller history, they have reputations to protect. They will usually only sell truly authentic counterfeits.
If y

@hdrider465

Are you using the ESP8266 gateway? If so, the problem may be with the gateway, not the sensebender. Something about 8bit to 32bit conversion. See here.

@petewill
I may have missed this in the video, but exactly where are the sensor tapes placed? Under the mattress or under the sheets?

Great project! I have been experimenting with velostat to build binary sensors to accomplish something similar but it is still buggy.

@TD22057 said:

..., 3) several Acurite wireless weather sensors. All of those get converted to a single, standard format MQTT temperature messages.

How are you converting the Acurite sensors to MQTT?

@Ironbar
Nice design! Can you post the files or link to a depository?

@Yveaux
I used panasonic PIRs, they are hard to find and price ranges widely. I submitted the build last summer.

It has been 9 months since the first shipment of sensebenders started appearing in post boxes around the world. Has anyone managed to kill a battery with this thing? I have three (with added PIR & LDR) which have been running since June off single CR123 batteries and all three are still reporting 90%+ battery level. Just wondering how others have performed...

Ahh, I see now. The side facing pins are mapped as follows:

@dakipro
I got three boards from OshPark and pin 8 is connected to ground on all three.

@rnollen

From the arduino.cc website:
Power:
The Arduino Nano can be powered via the Mini-B USB connection, 6-20V unregulated external power supply (pin 30/VIN), or 5V regulated external power supply (pin 27/5V). The power source is automatically selected to the highest voltage source.

If you can't find a 5V phone charger with a USB mini jack, you can feed the power to VIN/GND and it will run through the voltage regulator on the bottom of the board. Unfortunately, the 3v3 pin is fed from the FTDI chip and won't work to directly supply the radio. You will need to separately regulate the voltage down to 3.3V for the radio.

@Kukulin said:

Hi, it is fixed, I'm just blind. I did not see how to initialize mysensors in development branch example. I switched to master branch and can set gw.begin(NULL,nodeID);
Can someone explain me how to do same for humidity sketch in development branch?
Thanks

#define MY_NODE_ID xx

@barduino I stumbled across this project a year or so ago while researching something similar to your project. There are some good resources there. I never got around to following up on it but your project is tempting me...mixing water with electronics, what's not to love.

I am confused as to why this board would be powered by both 12V and 230V. Seems a bit redundant. What use case am I missing?

@benalsop I am not familiar with UI7 but it should be much different than UI5. Try re-'creating the device' first.

@benalsop This happened to me once with Veralite (UI5) and serial gateway. Check the serial port configuration settings within Vera. My settings (baud, plugin device, etc) were blank and i re-entered them and the GW started back up.

@mrcage Do your temp sensors show up at all (as child devices) to your controller or are they just not sending data?

You changed one define:

int numSensors=3; 

I don't know if it is necessary, you call for a device count later in setup.

What hardware are you using? Mega? You have typical 'interrupt' driven devices, door and motion...but you have your one wire bus on pin3 (interrupt 1) and define your motion interrupt as interrupt 2 (pin 4 minus 2 is 2)? I would suggest putting door and motion on pins 2 & 3, set up as interrupt functions and don't poll them continuously in the loop. I would also remove the sleep function since you are expecting incoming messages for your RGB strip and use millis to establish how often you check the Dallas sensors.

@mfalkvidd I am curious to try this. Would I need to update my existing GW to 1.6 or just a new GW?

@5546dug It sounds like everything is working correctly with the iBoard itself, did you configure the MySensors plugin for the IP of the GW? When I switched from serial GW to iBoard, I did not delete the plugin, I just entered the IP Addy in the plugin settings and boom, everything worked, and zero hiccups with the GW ever since.

@Simon-Marshall

How did you wire your radio? Mega is different than UNO, see this thread.

@ToniA This thread is veering off topic but to clarify my comment, powering the Sensebender off of mains runs contrary to the design of the board. For your example, this board would be a more efficient design - a compact relay board designed for mains powering, ~$9.50 US. It still requires a 5V power supply .

@leovz

Are you using a nano clone? Check if it has a FTDI branded USB chip on the bottom or a CH340 chip for usb/serial communications. Veras do not have the drivers for the CH chip and unfortunately I do not think you can install the drivers within Vera.

Chinese New Year is coming up (February 8?) and most vendors take 1-2 week vacations around this time and shipments can be delayed. Keep this in mind if you wish to order from Ali or eBay, do it soon or your order may wait until after the holiday.

@ToniA The Sensebender was designed with battery power in mind. I have several with attached PIR and LDR running near to 7 months off a single CR123 and they all report battery near 90%. Powering off AC would be possible with addition of voltage regulator but would be a waste of a beautiful low powered design.

@Tronix The construction of your home will alter the radios performance. I have concrete floors and the radio signal does not travel well through the concrete. Interior walls made of wallboard and wood do not interfere as much. 20-60 meters is possible with clear line of sight.

Any sensor that is mains powered is a potential repeater.

@Tronix
I put a repeater in a stairwell and it worked well to connect sensors from two floors.

@yellowmonster The Veralite does not have the drivers to support the CH340 USB serial chip so you cannot use that nano as a serial gateway. It can be used for a sensor node. What hardware are you using for the Ethernet GW? Did you configure the MySensors plugin with the IP of the GW?

@timota Try removing the nRf define:

#define MY_RADIO_NRF24 

I do not have any experience with MyS 1.6 so I am not sure what else could be preventing the child sensor from being 'presented' to the controller.

@timota Can you post your entire sketch?

@doblanch

Is your repeater using MyS 1.5? I had similar problems with a nano as repeater using MyS 1.4 and after upgrading the repeater node to 1.5, everything worked without lockup or 'lost' nodes.

@humblehacker

Does the rgb LED in the rotary knob react automatically to the knob turning or does it respond to software direction for color change? If the latter, could the knob be used for dimming as well as color setting? I could envision turning the knob to desired color per the rgb LED, push to set color (send to controller) which would also toggle the knob function to a dimmer control, possibly by using the LED brightness (without color change) as feedback and pushing the knob to set dim state and toggle back knob function to color control. Just thinking aloud...

@cleight
This issue came up with the iBoard under MyS 1.4 and could be fixed by uncommenting a line which expanded all the variables in the gw constructor.

From:

MyGateway gw(RADIO_CE_PIN, RADIO_SPI_SS_PIN, INCLUSION_MODE_TIME); 

to this:

MyGateway gw(RADIO_CE_PIN, RADIO_SPI_SS_PIN, INCLUSION_MODE_TIME, INCLUSION_MODE_PIN, RADIO_RX_LED_PIN, RADIO_TX_LED_PIN, RADIO_ERROR_LED_PIN); 

This made the pin changes in the sketch stick. I do not know how it is constructed in MyS 1.5. Perhaps you can change line 11 in GatewayUtil.h to map the inclusion pin from pin 3 to pin 14 and recompile.

@cleight Did you use the hardware modification for your iBoard or go the software route? FYI - Pin 14 isn't fictitious, it is pin A0.

@LastSamurai To free up an additional pin for PWM, I believe you can change the CE and CS pins in the GW constructor. Use pin 4 for for CE to the radio and reroute the MOSFET to pin 9. And then designate the change in the GW constructor:

MyTransportNRF24 transport(4, 10);
MySensor gw(transport);

@nivoc I setup several sensebenders on battery last summer and noticed they were a few % below two dht22 I had been running for months. I did the saturated salt test on three sensebenders with one dht22 and one mechanical hygrometer and the sensebenders all read 74-75% while the DHT and hygrometer read 78-80%. Not a perfect test and i dont know which devices were correct but one thing I noticed was the sensebenders consistently provided the same result across different devices. Relative humidity is relative.

I had the serial GW running on my veralite for about a year but encountered a few hiccups where Vera would 'lose' the serial port configuration and I would have to reconfigure the serial port for the Vera to see the GW again. I switched to the iBoard Ethernet GW and have had zero issues since.

This shield has a socket for nano and nRf (wired the MyS way) and has pin headers for all the remaining pins. It also has a separate power jack (7-12V) to provide regulated power to the exposed pins. $5 is a good deal for those wary of soldering.

@icebob Where did you change the CE and CS pin designations?

@LastSamurai

Nice work! Do you have a BOM for the RGBW board?

@BigDog What kind of door sensor do you have? Normally Open (NO) or Normally Closed(NC)? Adding a Reed Switch is fairly straightforward using the available interrupt on D3 and folding in the code from the binary switch example. Keeping it low power, however depends on your hardware.

Most reed switches sold as window/door sensors are NO, which means the circuit is closed when the magnet is present. In the case of a door or window, this means the circuit is closed when the door or window are in their secure state, closed, and current is flowing. This is because window/door sensors were developed for wired alarm systems and having the current constant provided a additional level of security to detect tampering or wire breaks. For battery powered sensors, you cannot afford this constant current. A NC reed switch is preferable which means no current is flowing when the magnet is nearby (actually a little current flows with most NC switches but still acceptable for battery sensors, most off the shelf zwave wireless window/door sensors are NC).

One problem with this system is most Asian vendors randomly switch the NC and NO terminology and you never know what you are buying. I can't speak for European vendors, they use that silly metric system.

@TEStevens This is two separate nodes, correct? As I understand what you described: you have a 4-relay node and you have a node with four buttons and four lights, are these LEDs on the node or switched lights?

If this is a separate node from the relays, I would use S_SCENE_CONTROLLER for the buttons and S_LIGHT for the LEDs and use logic on your controller to send V_LIGHT commands to both the LEDs on the button node and to the relay node when a scene is switched 'on' or 'off' from any of your proposed "button controllers".

@johnr What version of MySensors is running on your repeater? I had a problem a few months ago where my nodes lost communications with the GW and redirected automatically through the repeater but the repeater did not forward data to the GW. In Vera, in looked as if all my nodes died. I upgraded the repeater to 1.5 and everything worked again and has ever since. Just a thought.

@pete1450 Something like this?. http://forum.mysensors.org/topic/2413/ir-record-and-playback-module

@macieiks I think the number of interrupts is dictated by the particular board (chip), not the MySensors library. Using gw(sleep) may not be applicable for your project. It is meant for low power applications and your list of sensors, in particular the gas sensors, may not be suitable for battery power. A mega with mains power would certainly work.

@andrimar I did not see any mention of controller, are you using a certain controller on your RPi? The sensor node is looking for a ID to be assigned by a controller, the GW does not assign the ID. You can also hardcode the ID in your sensor sketch.

@Alphalove
I highly recommend itead products, especially for those just getting into MySensors. They remove alot of the pitfalls that electronic noobs (such as myself) encounter when building their first sensor nodes. I used the RMini to build my first relay and it could not have been easier. Many of the troubleshooting problems posted on the forum have to do with setting up relays and these boards eliminate many of those issues.

I also recommend the nano shield from itead to any entry level electronics noobs for setting up early sensor nodes who are not ready for intricate soldering. It provides a nRf socket and a power jack and breaks out all of the nano pins with individual power and ground headers. Just plug in a nano and nRf and program from USB and power the entire setup through a single jack - perfect for beginners.

@barduino If you are going to automate water pumping, you need to include leak sensors to shut down pumps. Source - personal experience .

@bigjimjeedom

The sketch I posted above should be able to be adapted for your needs. The sketch controls four rf433 wall plugs and listens for codes from a rf433 remote and sends them to my controller as a scene controller. My controller is Vera. I am not familiar with jeedom but if it can handle a S_SCENE_CONTROLLER type sensor, then the sketch should work with little modification.

What type of rf433 remote are you using? and what library (if any) are you using to sniff the codes?

@gregl The superheterodyne receiver made all the difference for me.

@MikeF Is the display on all the time?

@Marco-van-Noord Are you using a controller? 'Find parent' is the Arduino looking for an ID from a controller.

@tbully

I vaguely remember getting the 'radio inti fail' error when i first setup my iBoard (with hardware mod) and the only difference i see between my sketch and yours is mapping the inclusion button and led pins to analog pin numbers.

#define INCLUSION_MODE_TIME 1 // Number of minutes inclusion mode is enabled
#define INCLUSION_MODE_PIN  14 // Digital pin used for inclusion mode button A0

#define RADIO_CE_PIN        3  // radio chip enable
#define RADIO_SPI_SS_PIN    8  // radio SPI serial select

#define RADIO_ERROR_LED_PIN 15  // Error led pin A1
#define RADIO_RX_LED_PIN    16  // Receive led pin A2
#define RADIO_TX_LED_PIN    17  // the PCB, on board LED A3

@lrtsenar

The MySensors Libraries were designed around the nrf24l01 transceivers which have much more built in capability than a simple 433Mhz Tx/Rx pair. You can make a node which contains a nrf and 433 Rx/Tx and it can transfer messages between the MySensors architecture and common 433Mhz devices. If you are only interested in 433Mhz devices with Domoticz, see the RFLink project for more info. I believe it requires a mega to fit their libraries.

@gmccarthy said:

Could the issue be from the gateway to domoticz?

Something similar was discussed in this thread regarding integers passing from arduino to ESP. I don't know if it was resolved. I do not use ESP myself.

@insomnia

Your sketch has the motion sensor sending its status every time through the loop, add a qualifier to only send when the status changes:

boolean tripped = digitalRead(DIGITAL_INPUT_SENSOR) == HIGH; 
  if (tripped != lastTrippedState)
  {  
    Serial.println(tripped? "tripped" : "not tripped");
    gw.send(msg.set(tripped?"1":"0"));// Send tripped value to gw//
    lastTrippedState = tripped
  }

HomeLink is supposed to be able to 'learn' any code from 300-433mhz and then repeat it. It can even learn rolling codes. It could easily be used as a scene controller if you have a MySensors node with a 433mhz RX just following the same methodology used here.

@insomnia

You need to declare your interrupts to use the interrupt-from-sleep function. Right now it looks like your sketch is sleeping 15 minutes and then checking your door sensors and going back to sleep..

@mvader said:

@Dwalt Just curious if you added an antenna to your original transmitter.
they helped my range a great deal.
I used 17cm straight wire to make homemade antennae on all my Rx/Tx modules. Those that you posted are nice (very compact) and are probably much better than my homemade fix. My original Tx range was pretty good and I don't know if the new module has significantly improved range, but I have not noticed as many missed transmissions as the older, cheaper module. The big improvement is the Rx module. Previously the signal was so noisy, the libraries could not decipher the signals on their own and I had to sniff the signals 'manually'.

@TheoL said:

Even though I really like the 433mhz equipment I wouldn't use it for the more delicate sensors. Just because they can be sniffed really easy. But great work!

I agree, I am replacing one 433mhz outlet at a time from my setup as finances allow. It is just hard to resist hacking the cheap stuff.

I originally found MySensors while looking for a way to control 433mhz outlets with my Vera. Being frugal, I did not want to spend money on RFXtrx or similar device to control cheap outlets. My first sensor node was a nano with a 433mhz transmitter which controls several plugin outlets around my house. I later modified it to include the receiver which I used to intercept my neighbors weather station data. Unexpectedly, his weather station disappeared a few months ago and I stopped getting his data. I don't know if he took it down or it fell off his roof or was stolen. I waited a week and then sadly deleted the child devices on my Vera. Recently I decided to move on and find more uses for the 433mhz node, especially the reciever and stumbled upon some really cheap Chinese gadgets on Ebay/Ali and thought I would share some of what I found out.

First of all, the cheap Rx/Tx pair listed in the MySensors store is really cheap ($0.69?) but are not very good. The transmitter operates fine but the receiver is terrible. Both have acceptable range but I found I could not use the receiver with most of the available libraries due to the very poor signal/noise ratio. I had to 'sniff' most signals down to their binary level and re-encode this mess into a sketch for retransmission. Reception was also hit or miss. I recently upgraded to the superheterodyne Tx/Rx modules and like magic, all the libraries suddenly work, range seems slightly better but most noticeably, missed transmissions are gone.

I also recently bought this cheap rf LED strip controller for ~$1.80.

Surprisingly it actually works but the included remote has a range of only a few meters. So I sniffed the codes with the RCSwitch Library and wrote a sketch to test it with MySensors. Primarily I wanted to explore the dimming functionality and ran into a few problems. The unit dims the LED strip in very noticeable steps which cause the light to blink slightly as it dims, not very elegant but not a deal breaker (19 steps from 5-100%). The device is not individually addressable so if you have multiples, they will all follow the same commands. The fatal flaw of this device is the power on/off command is toggled which means the same code turns it off as turns it back on. I ran this for about 2 days and it missed a power on command (or a power off, I don't know). Once it got out of phase, it had to be manually corrected with the remote or remain out of phase until another missed command.

Another cheap chinese gadget I tested was this learning remote.

It has four buttons which can each be programed with any 433mhz code you want and store the code in memory to retransmit. I made up some codes which were similar in structure and pulse length as my 433mhz outlets use, made a simple sketch to broadcast the codes so I could 'program' the keychain remote. With 4 unique codes in the keychain, I modified my 433mhz sensor node sketch to include a scene controller sketch which toggles 4 scenes on and off (I used AWI's toggle scene controller sketch for the pertinent code-fu.). Unlike the rf LED controller, the scene state is stored in the arduino which makes it more dependable. Perhaps not as reliable as nrf , z-wave or zigbee, but for a $2 portable scene controller....not bad.

Attached is my sketch for toggling on an off four 433mhz outlets and a scene controller. The hardware is simple. I have a nano on mains power with the superheterodyne Rx on pin #2 and the Tx on pin #3. Both are power by 5V separately from the nano and have 17cm antenna soldered on.

#include <MySensor.h>
#include <SPI.h>
#include <EEPROM.h>  
#include <MyTransportNRF24.h>
#include <MyHwATMega328.h>
#include <RemoteReceiver.h>
#include <RemoteTransmitter.h>
#include <InterruptChain.h>


#define NUMBER_OF_OUTLETS 4
#define SN "433mhz Bridge"
#define SV "1.3"

const byte SC_CHILD_ID = 0 ;
unsigned long receivedCode = 0 ;
int key=0;

// Setup arrays with the unique button codes sniffed using ShowReceivedCode.ino from the RemoteSwitch library 
// These are outgoing codes, one array for 'switch on' and one for 'switch off'
long rfCodeON [] = {492004, 492022, 491914, 491752};
long rfCodeOFF [] = {492006, 492024, 491916, 491754};

int pulse = 185;  //The average pulse length of the codes, needed for the RemoteTransmitter sendCode function

// Setup an array of the expected incoming codes from the KeyFob transmitter
unsigned long sceneCode [] = {491266, 491268, 491275, 491277}; 
byte keyState[4]  ;

MySensor gw;
MyMessage scene_on(SC_CHILD_ID, V_SCENE_ON);
MyMessage scene_off(SC_CHILD_ID, V_SCENE_OFF);


void setup() { 
  
 Serial.begin(115200); 
   
 gw.begin(incomingMessage, 15, true);
 gw.sendSketchInfo(SN, SV);

 //  Create a child device for each outlet
 for (int sensor=1; sensor<=NUMBER_OF_OUTLETS; sensor++){
 gw.present(sensor, S_LIGHT);
 delay(2);
 }
 
 //  Create a child device for the scene controller and load last Scenestates from EEPROM
 gw.present(SC_CHILD_ID, S_SCENE_CONTROLLER);
 for (int i=0 ; i < sizeof(sceneCode); i++){
        keyState[i] = gw.loadState(i) ;         
        }

// Initialize receiver on interrupt 0 (= digital pin 2), calls the function "incomingCode"
RemoteReceiver::init(0, 2, incomingCode);
InterruptChain::addInterruptCallback(0, RemoteReceiver::interruptHandler);
}

void loop() {
 gw.process();
 
}

// Function for when a code has been received from rF KeyFob transmitter
  void incomingCode(unsigned long receivedCode, unsigned int period) {
//Disable the 433mhz Reciever to prevent additional interupts from incoming signals 
  RemoteReceiver::disable();
//Enable interupts to allow gw.wait  
  interrupts();
// Print the received code.
  Serial.print("Code: ");
  Serial.print(receivedCode);
  Serial.print(", period: ");
  Serial.print(period);
  Serial.println("us.");

// check the recieved code against the array of expected codes
    for (byte i = 0 ; i < 4 ; i++){    
        if(receivedCode == (sceneCode[i])) key=i+1;// set key if a valid code is recieved
        }
// Print the scene number        
  Serial.print("Scene #: ");
  Serial.println(key);   
    
    if (key > 0){                                   
        boolean keyVal = !gw.loadState(key-1);      // use lastState from EEPROM and toggle
        gw.saveState(key-1, keyVal);                // save new state to EEPROM
        if (keyVal) gw.send(scene_on.set(key-1));   // set the Scene On or Off
        else gw.send(scene_off.set(key-1));
       gw.wait(500);
        key = 0;                                    // reset key
        receivedCode = 0 ;                          // reset code
        RemoteReceiver::enable();                   // turn 433mhz receiver back on
   }
}


// Function for when a command has been received from gateway
  void incomingMessage(const MyMessage &message) 
{
 {
  if (message.type==V_LIGHT) 
  {
    Serial.print("Outlet #: ");
    Serial.println(message.sensor);
    Serial.print("Command: ");
    Serial.println(message.getBool());
// Turn off 433mhz receiver to prevent reception of outgoing 433mhz broadcast   
    RemoteReceiver::disable();
//  Send out the code stored in the arrays based on which child id and command is recieved.  
//  Syntax is (pin 3, code to be transmitted, pulse length, transmit repetitions ~2^3 or 8 times)
    RemoteTransmitter::sendCode(3,message.getBool()? rfCodeON[message.sensor - 1]: rfCodeOFF[message.sensor - 1], pulse, 3);
  }
  delay(50);
 }
// Turn the 433mhz Receiver back on 
RemoteReceiver::enable();
}    
  

@Cliff-Karlsson Skip the Arduino and just go with red LEDs taped to coincell batteries. Should last thru Halloween. See this...

@xefil Notifications can be setup under your profile settings.

@mvader No, it is not 30 minutes, the FORCE_TRANSMIT_INTERVAL counts the number of 'wakeup and take a reading' events, which in the original sketch is every 60 seconds. After 30 wakeup-and-read without a transmit, force a transmit. If you change your FORCE_TRANSMIT_INTERVAL to 2, it will transmit every 30 minutes if the readings do not change more than 0.5.

The MEASURE_INTERVAL is based upon time (millis) and the FORCE_TRANSMIT_INTERVAL is based upon counting events (wakeup cycles).

@mvader If your interval between readings is 15 minutes and the force transmit interval is 30, your actual interval is 15minutes * 30 = 7.5hours. Also, see this thread for sleep time accuracy. 15 minutes of sleep can last 16-17 minutes...

@HenryWhite You do not need to use MQTT for your gateway, you can use the serial or ethernet gateways as well. You may find them easier to get started with MySensors.

@joaopaulo
There has been some success using the ATtiny85 which also has 8kbytes flash. Search the forum for ATtiny.

@punter9
You could try powering it from a digital pin, turn the pin high, wait 50ms, take analog reading, turn digital pin low.

@Reza
The nano will not last very long on battery. Use pro mini for battery sensors.

From www.arduino.cc ->

The Arduino Nano can be powered via the Mini-B USB connection, 6-20V unregulated external power supply (pin 30 or VIN), or 5V regulated external power supply (pin 27 or 5V). If you use the 5V pin for power input, it must be 5V regulated power.

You do not need separate ground pins for every component, splice them together and connect to ground.

Have you already built a gateway and connected it to Vera?

I have five battery powered MySensors nodes powered with CR123 lithium batteries. I set the limits at 100% at 3.0v and 0% at 1.9v. Now I just need a method for Vera to generate an alert when they drop near 0%.

@Magnus-Pernemark You do not need a special bootloader to run MYSController. The MYSBootlader is to provide over-the-air programming for the nodes, you do not need to worry about that at this point. You do, however, need to hardcode a node ID into your arduino sketch as MYSController does not assign them (as Vera and other controllers generally do this when the sensor node is included into your network). After that, MYSController should see your node and you can read sensor data and send commands to the node. It isn't a permanent substitute for a controller but it is a useful diagnostic tool for troubleshooting your setup. Read through the thread on MYSController.

@tomm277

Here is an example project along those lines.

@Magnus-Pernemark

The component you are missing is the Controller (Vera, OpenHab, etc.). That is where the automation logic occurs and commands are issued. In the interim, you can use MYSController on a Windows machine to test your gateway and nodes.

@RoBra81

Which Arduino model are you using? Pro-mini? You mentioned cutting the LED, did you also remove the power regulator?