home assistant News - Page 8 of 13 - CNX Software

February 16, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 2 Comments

Control 8 relays with the Raspberry Pi Pico using PicoRelay8 or Pico-Relay-B

Waveshare Pico Relay B with Raspberry Pi Pico board

8086 Consultancy’s PicoRelay8 is a baseboard for the Raspberry Pi Pico (W) board equipped with eight 28V DC / 10A Normally Open relays that be used for all sorts of automation projects, while Waveshare Pico-Relay-B also supports eight relays with both DC and AC loads and comes with some extra features. PicoRelay8 PicoRelay8 board specifications: Supported MCU board – Raspberry Pi Pico or Pi Pico W, and it may also work with “mostly” compatible boards such as the Banana Pi BPI-Pico-RP2040 or BPI-PicoW-S3, WeAct RP2040, and others as long as all GPIO used on the PicoRelay8 are exposed on the same pins. Relays 8x HF3FF/005-1HST relays rated for 28V DC/10A, as well as 10A/250V AC and 15A/125V AC, but the board is not designed to get power from the mains (safety-wise), so it’s only really suitable for DC loads Each relay has a 2-pin terminal block attached to it. GPIO […]

January 26, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

ESP32 OpenMQTTGateway smart plug acts as an BLE MQTT gateway and a power meter

The Theengs Plug ESP32 smart plug runs OpenMQTTGateway firmware to serve as a BLE MQTT gateway and power meter compatible with Home Assistant, Homebridge, OpenHAB, DomoticZ, FHEM, Jeedom, NodeRed, AWS, and any MQTT-compatible IoT or Smart Home system. While the Matter standard should improve interoperability between Smart Home frameworks over time, there are still millions of devices already produced that are not Matter compatible, and the Theengs Plug aims to at least partially address this issue by helping users reduce the number of hubs required and have only one that supports different ecosystems. Theengs Plug hardware specifications: Microcontroller – ESP32 dual-core wireless MCU with 2.4 GHz WiFi and Bluetooth LE connectivity Network Protocol – MQTT Power Supply – 100-120VAC, 60Hz, up to 15A Dimensions – 103 x 61 x 34.6mm Temperature Range – Operating: 0ºC ~ 40ºC; storage: -10°C ~ 50°C Humidity – 0%～95% (no condensation) Certification – UL Some […]

January 14, 2023January 14, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 9 Comments

433 MHz is not dead! Using an ESP32 board with LoRa module to talk to 433 MHz sensors

CNXSoft: This is a guest post by Florian Robert (1technophile) of the OpenMQTTGateway project about using a 433 MHz LoRa transceiver on an ESP32 board for home automation, specifically to talk to 433 MHz sensors Everyone is talking about Matter, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Zwave, but before these complex communication technologies, we had one simple, robust one that our sensors and devices used to leverage: 433MHz. It may be too simplistic to talk about 433 MHz as a technology as there are different and various usages of this frequency. You can find it being used in numerous devices around your home, from your outdoor temperature sensors, and security sensors to the tire pressure sensors in your car. If we want to be specific, we can talk about the different radio frequencies (433 MHz, 915MHz, 868MHz, 315MHz, or 350MHz) and signal modulations OOK, ASK, FSK that we encounter behind the keyword 433MHz. […]

December 31, 2022December 31, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 21 Comments

Year 2022 in review – Top 10 posts and statistics

It’s the last day of the year and the time to look at some of the highlights of 2022, some traffic statistics from CNX Software website, and speculate on what 2023 may bring us. The semiconductors shortage continued in 2022, but things are looking brighter in 2023 with the full reopening of the world mixed with forecasts of difficult economic times that should keep the demand/supply equation in check. On the Arm processor front the biggest news of the year, at least in this corner of the Internet, was the launch of the Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 processor together with interesting single board computers that we’ll discuss below. Announced last year, the Amlogic A311D2 octa-core Cortex-A73/A53 was finally made available in a few SBC’s, and we finally got some news about the Amlogic S928X Cortex-A76/A55 SoC showcased in 8K TV boxes, but we have yet to see it in action. […]

December 27, 2022February 22, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 10 Comments

SONOFF ZBMINI Extreme tiny Zigbee smart switch does not require a neutral wire

SONOFF ZBMINI Extreme (aka ZBMINI-L2) is an ultra-compact Zigbee smart switch that can control home appliances and lights without a neutral wire and can fit into almost any mounting box. The tiny wireless switch can fit into the smallest EU-type/86-type/120-type mounting box, and works with gateways supporting the Zigbee 3.0 protocol such as ZBBridge Pro, NSPanel Pro, SmartThings Hub, Amazon Alexa Echo speaker, and so on. It also supports external switches, voice control,eWelink app control, and other features. SONOFF ZBMINI Extreme (ZBMINI-L2) specifications: MCU – Silicon Labs EFR32MG22 Arm Cortex-M33 @ 76.8 MHz Zigbee microcontroller with up to 512 kB flash, up to 32 kB RAM Connectivity – Zigbee 3.0 Input – 100-240V ~ 50/60Hz 6A Max Output – 100-240V ~ 50/60Hz 6A Max Dimensions – 39.5 x 32 x 18.4mm Casing material – PC V0 As mentioned in the introduction, the SONOFF ZBMINI-L2 does not need a neutral wire […]

December 22, 2022July 24, 2023 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 11 Comments

DROPLET irrigation system works with ESPhome and Home assistant

When PricelessToolkit failed to find an affordable (indoor) irrigation system that works with Home Assistant and ESPHome, he built the DROPLET board based on ESP32 wireless SoC and supporting up to five micro-pumps and soil moisture sensors. The board also comes with switches to manually control the pump, a built-in DS18B20 temperature sensor, a buzzer, and a I/O header to connect an expansion header for relay control, I2C, GPIOs, and an external DS18B20 temperature sensor. DROPLET specifications: Wireless module – ESP32-S with ESP32 dual-core 32-bit microcontroller @ 240 MHz with 2.4 GHz WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, 4MB SPI flash Display – I2C header for 5V/3.3V OLED display Pump interfaces – 5x 2-pin connectors for micropumps Sensors and sensor interfaces DS18B20 temperature sensor 5x 3-pin connectors for soil moisture sensors; pulled low with a 1 MΩ resistor. Expansion – 2x 16-pin right-angle female header with GPIOs, UART, 5V, and GND Debugging […]

December 14, 2022December 15, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

JetHome JetHub D1+ automation controller runs Armbian with mainline Linux, supports Home Assistant

JetHub D1+ Linux 6.1 automation controller

Earlier this year, we noted the addition of the JetHome JetHub D1 Linux-based home automation controller to mainline Linux 5.16, and the JetHome JetHub D1p (D1+) was just added to Linux 6.1 with some improvements. Still based on the Amlogic A113x processor, the JetHub D1+ gets more memory and storage with 2GB DDR4 RAM and 32GB eMMC flash, a MicroSD card slot, a new RTL8822CS wireless module, and a micro USB port to easily access the console and/or flash firmware to the device. JetHub D1+ specifications: SoC – Amlogic A113x quad-core Cortex A53 processor @ up to 1.5 GHz System Memory – 2GB DDR4 Storage – 32GB eMMC flash, MicroSD slot Connectivity 10/100M Ethernet RJ45 port Dual-band WiFi 5 up to 867 Mbps and Bluetooth 4.2/5.0 (RTL8822CS) Texas Instruments CC2652P1 Zigbee 3.0 module USB 1x USB 2.0 Type-A host port for peripherals 2x Micro USB ports one console access and […]

November 4, 2022November 4, 2022 by Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft) - 3 Comments

b-parasite Bluetooth LE plant sensor gets Zigbee support

rbaron’s b-parasite is an open-source hardware Bluetooth LE plant watering sensor that can measure soil moisture and ambient temperature/humidity/light and works with ESPHome, Home Assistant, or any macOS or Linux platforms including the Raspberry Pi boards. It is based nRF52840 multi-protocol wireless microcontroller, so stanvn decided to add Zigbee support to the b-parasite through the “Zigbee Plant Sensor” firmware based on the Nordic Semi nRF5 SDK for nRF52 series of SoCs and working with Zigbee2MQTT. Let’s have a look at b-parasite hardware specifications first: Wireless MCU – Nordic Semi nRF52840 Arm Cortex-M4F multi-protocol wireless microcontroller with Bluetooth LE 5.0 and 802.15.4 (Zigbee/Thread) radios, 1024 KB flash, 256KB SRAM Sensors Capacitive soil moisture sensor Sensirion SHTC3 temperature and humidity sensor ALS-PT19 light sensor Power – ~200 mAh CR2032 coin-cell battery estimated to last for a couple of years with readings every 10 minutes The GitHub repository for the board contains the […]