Ventbot fans with 3D printed brackets and control circuit board with ESP32 breakout and multicolored 3D printed cases

Ventbots Are Fans Of HVAC And Home Automation

June 24, 2023 by Michael Shaub 21 Comments

[WJCarpenter] had a common HVAC problem; not all the rooms got to a comfortable temperature when the heater was working to warm up their home. As often happens with HVAC systems, the rooms farthest from the heat source and/or with less insulation needed a boost of heat in the winter and cooling in the summer too. While [WJCarpenter] is a self-reported software person, not a hardware person, you will enjoy going along on the journey to build some very capable vent boosters that require a mix of each.

There’s a great build log on hackaday.io here, but for those who need more of a proper set of instructions, there’s a step-by-step guide that should allow even a beginner hardware hacker to complete the project over on Instructables. There you’ll find everything you need to build ESPHome controlled, 3D printed, PC fan powered vent boosters. While they can be integrated into Home Assistant, we were interested to learn that ESPHome allows these to run stand-alone too, each using its own temperature and pressure sensor.

The many iterations of hardware and software show, resulting in thoughtful touches like a startup sequence that checks for several compatible temperature sensors and a board layout that accommodates different capacitor lead spacings. Along the way, [WJCarpenter] also graphed the noise level of different fans running at multiple speeds and the pressure sensor readings against the temperatures to see if they could be used as more reliable triggers for the fans. (spoiler, they weren’t) There are a bunch of other tips to find along the way, so we highly recommend going through all that [WJCarpenter] has shared if you want to build your own or just want some tips on how to convert a one-off project to something that a wider audience can adapt to their own needs.

See a video after the break that doesn’t show the whole project but includes footage of the start-up sequence that tests each fan’s tachometer and the customizable ramp-up and ramp-down settings. Continue reading “Ventbots Are Fans Of HVAC And Home Automation” →

Ultimate Garage Door Control Does The Job Brilliantly

May 30, 2023 by Lewin Day 21 Comments

[Stephen Carey] had previously relied on an Insteon garage door controller, only to have it perform poorly and fail at integrating with Alexa properly. Thus, he did what any good hacker would do, and built his own system instead.

The garage door was first outfitted with a pair of reed switches to sense when it was fully open or fully closed. The drive sprocket of the garage door was also set up to be monitored with magnets and Hall effect sensors, essentially creating a rotary encoder. This allows a ESP32 to monitor the door’s direction of travel, it’s position, and when it has hit the end stop in either direction. Using Micropython, [Stephen] whipped up some code to tie the garage door controls in with Home Assistant, complete with a neat visual display of the current door position.

There are millions of home automation products out there, many of which make annoying compromises that frustrate the end user. Sometimes, doing it your own way is the only way to get satisfaction!

A thermostat unit and a replacement PCB for it

Custom Thermostat PCB Connects Boiler To Home Assistant

January 15, 2023 by Robin Kearey 24 Comments

Thanks to Home Assistant, automating the various systems that run your home is easier than ever. But you still need to make a connection between those systems and your Home Assistant setup, which can be tricky if the manufacturer didn’t have this use case in mind. When [Simon] wanted to automate his home heating system, he discovered that most Home Assistant-enabled thermostats that he could find didn’t support his two separate heating zones connected to a single boiler. The easiest solution turned out to be to design his own.

The original heating system consisted of two control boxes that each had a 230 V mains connection coming in and a “request heat” control line going to the boiler. [Simon] considered replacing these with a simple off-the-shelf ESP8266 relay board and a 12 V power supply, but figured this would look messy and take up quite a bit of space. So he bought a neat DIN-rail mounted enclosure instead, and designed a custom PCB to fit inside it.

The PCB holds a Wemos D1 Mini connected to two relays that switch the two heating circuits. The D1 runs ESPhome and needs just a few lines of configuration to connect it to [Simon]’s home network. There’s no separate power supply — the 230 V line is connected directly to a 12 V DC power module mounted on the PCB, so the new system is plug-and-play compatible with the old.

Complete PCB design files are available on [Simon]’s website and GitHub page. There are several other ways to make custom thermostats for your home, with an Arduino for example. If you’re interested in repairing your own heating system, or want to optimize it even further, there’s a whole community out there to help you.

When Pi Supply Falls Short, Thin Clients Stand Tall For Home Automation And Low Power Computing

November 25, 2022 by Ryan Flowers 80 Comments

Do you need a cheap, small computer for a low power computing project? Historically, many of us would reach straight for a Raspberry Pi, even if we didn’t absolutely need the GPIO. But with prices elevated and supplies in the dumps, [Andreas Spiess] decided that it was time to look for alternatives to now-expensive Pi’s which you can see in the video below the break.

Many simply use the Pi for its software ecosystem, its lower power requirements, and diminutive size. [Andreas] has searched eBay, looking for thin PC clients that can be had for as little as $10-15. A few slightly more expensive units were also chosen, and in the video some comparisons are made. How do these thin clients compare to a Pi for power consumption, computing power, and cost? The results may surprise you!

Software is another issue, since many Pi projects rely on Raspbian, a Pi-specific ARM64 Linux distribution. Since Raspbian is based on Debian, [Andreas] chose it as a basis for experimentation. He thoughtfully included such powerful software as Proxmox for virtualization, IOTstack, and Home Assistant, walking the viewer through each step of running Home Assistant on x86-64 hardware and noting the differences between the Linux distributions.

All in all, if you’ve ever considered stepping out of the Pi ecosystem and into general Linux computing, this tutorial will be an excellent starting point. Of course [Andreas] isn’t the first to bark up this tree, and we featured another thin client running Klipper for your 3D printer earlier this month. Have you found your own perfect Pi replacement in these Pi-less times? Let us know in the comments below.

Continue reading “When Pi Supply Falls Short, Thin Clients Stand Tall For Home Automation And Low Power Computing” →

a 3d printed case, sitting on a table with cactuses in the background, with a 3d rendered holo assistant reflected in a cone of polycarbonate sheets from a flat HDMI display pointed up

Anime Inspired Holographic Virtual Assistant

November 22, 2022 by Abe Connelly 28 Comments

[Jessp] has created a very cute and endearing DIY virtual assistant called Maria. The build combines a 3D printed housing that uses a modern take on the “Pepper’s Ghost” illusion to render a virtual, three-dimensional anime inspired assistant that can take commands to get information about the weather, play music or set timers.

The hub houses a Raspberry Pi 4B and a 3.2 inch LCD HDMI screen mounted flat on its back to render the perspective corrected “Maria” character using a technique borrowed from the Pepper’s Cone project. Polycarbonate sheets are formed into a cone, allowing for the 3D effect of rendering the virtual assistant model. A consumer grade mini USB microphone is used to receive voice commands along with a consumer grade USB speaker for audio feedback. The virtual assistant offloads the text to speech services to Google Cloud, along with using a weather API and Spotify developer account to for its musical options.

All source code is available on [Jessp]’s GitHub page, including build instructions and STL files for the housing. We’ve featured open source voice assistants in the past, including Mycroft and a even a HAL-9000 virtual assistant (running Kalliope) but it’s nice to see further experimentation in this space.

Continue reading “Anime Inspired Holographic Virtual Assistant” →

This Pico-W IoT Starter Project Gets You Into Home Assistant Quick As A Flash

September 3, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 20 Comments

Many of us hacker types with some hardware knowledge and a smattering of embedded experience would like to get into home automation, but there can be quite a learning curve. If you’re looking for a hackable starting point; something to deploy, learn about and then later expand upon, then look no further than the PicoW Home Assistant Starter project from [Danilo Campos].

The project is based upon the arduino-pico core, which supports a whole pile of RP2040-based boards, so you don’t need to restrict yourself to the “official” Pico-W, so long as you have working networking, Wi-Fi or otherwise. Integration is provided by the arduino-home-assistant library, which acts as the bridge between your sensors and other widgets, MQTT, and thence the network beyond. Events and sensor data on the end-point are packaged up with MQTT and published out to the broker via the network provided, all for minimal initial effort. Once you’ve got the basic connectivity to your Home Assistant instance working, there are many code examples in the arduino-home-assistant GitHub page to give you a helping start to connect whatever tickles your fancy.

It turns out we’ve covered HA quite a bit on these fair pages, like for example, these sweet automated window blinds. Another hack uses load cells under the bed legs to detect if someone is in bed or not, and if this isn’t your thing, maybe your idea of a home assistant is a bit more like this one?

A brick mailbox with a LIDAR sensor mounted inside

Using A LIDAR Sensor To Monitor Your Mailbox

June 6, 2022 by Robin Kearey 31 Comments

The inconvenience of having to walk to your mailbox to check for mail has inspired many hackers to install automated systems that let them know when the mail has been delivered. Mailbox monitors have been made based on several different mechanisms: some measure the weight of the items inside, some use cameras and machine vision, while others simply trigger whenever the mailbox’s door or flap is moved. When [Gary Watts] wanted to install a notification system for his 1940s brick letterbox, his options were limited: with no flap or door to monitor, and limited space to install mechanical contraptions, he decided to use a LIDAR sensor instead.

Probably best-known for their emerging application in self-driving cars, LIDAR systems send out a laser pulse and measure the time it takes for it to be reflected off a surface. In the case of [Gary]’s mailbox, that surface is either the brick wall or a letter leaning against it. Since letters are inserted through a vertical slot, they will usually be leaning upright against the wall, providing a clear target for the laser.

The LIDAR module, a VL53L0X made by ST, is hooked up to a Wemos D1 Mini Pro. The D1 communicates with [Gary]’s home WiFi through an external antenna, and is powered by an 18650 lithium battery charged through a solar panel. The whole system is housed inside a waterproof plastic case, with the LIDAR sensor attached to the inside of the mailbox through a 3D-printed mounting bracket. On the software side, the mailbox notifier is powered by Home Assistant and MQTT. The D1 spends most of its time in deep-sleep mode, only waking up every 25 seconds to read out the sensor and send a notification if needed.

We’ve seen quite a few fancy mailbox monitors over the years: some are extremely power efficient, some use multiple sensors to allow for different use-cases, and some others are simply beautifully designed.