SwingingTheLamp

Little did I know when I found a HomeKit lightbulb in the clearance bin at my grocery store for $3 what it would lead to. Here I am, though, adding to and re-jiggering my smart home set up. It's nothing earth-shattering, but it was fun, and I thought I'd share what I found out in case it's news to other folks. It started when I bought a handful of new Sonoff devices...

Mainly, I ordered the MINI-ZB2GS to install in the front hall. I have a 2-gang switch box there, with switches controlling the porch light outside, and the ceiling fixture inside. These are slick, little devices that fit in a standard electrical box, and convert your existing mechanical switches into smart switches. I ran into a head-scratcher, though, when I flipped the switch to test the porch light, and it cycled on and off several times before remaining off. I thought that it had to do with an interaction with the motion-sensor on the light itself, but as it turned out, it's because the MINI-ZB2GS supports momentary push-buttons, as well as switches. While tucking the unit into the box, I must have inadvertently pushed the button to put it in momentary-push mode. I just had to remove the face plate, and carefully push the button to cycle the mode back to 'switch'.

I took the opportunity to upgrade from a ZBDongle-E to a ZBDongle Max. This is what turned into the really enjoyable part! The ZBDongle Max can operate as Zigbee coordinator over USB, ethernet, or WiFi (though not recommended). I mounted it in a convenient location where it has good connectivity to the rest of the Zigbee network, and ran a cable to my PoE switch. Home Assistant picked it up right away, it was just a few clicks to add it to ZHA, and a few more clicks to migrate the network to this new coordinator. I realized that with the HA server physically de-coupled from the Zigbee coordinator, it doesn't need to be located in the living room any more. It could live anywhere that has a network jack. Since HAOS is running in a virtual machine, I could even temporarily migrate the VM to other hosts (like my desktop machine), while moving the usual host out of the living room. (Also, this dongle allegedly supports firmware that can do Zigbee and Thread simultaneously. I haven't tried it, since I don't have any Thread devices yet.)

The ZBDongle Max has WiFi AP functionality for up to 8 devices. It's limited to devices that connect outbound, because it won't route incoming connections, nor forward mDNS announcements. That's perfect, though, for connecting the ratgdo, since it connects to HA with MQTT! That decouples the garage door from my main WiFi AP. I have a few RGB LED light strip controllers that use WiFi, but the Magic Home integration discovers them with mDNS. If only there were some way to have them connect outbound, instead. And, as it turns out, there's OpenBeken firmware. These are BL602 devices, which can be flashed over-the-air, so I did that. Now, they connect to HA via MQTT, too, so they can get off my main AP, too. OpenBeken supports MQTT discovery for HA, so it was a snap to connect them. There used to be a noticeable delay when operating them with the Magic Home integration, but now they are lightning-quick. I can push the button on the remote, and it sends a Zigbee message to the coordinator, which forwards it to HA over the LAN, which triggers an automation, then HA sends a message back over the LAN to the ZBDongle Max, which sends it to the LED strip via WiFi. And it all seems to happen instantaneously.

Just for fun, I also added a CAM Slim Gen2 to my order. I was disappointed to later notice that Sonoff doesn't list Home Assistant compatibility for it; you're meant to use the eWeLink app. BUT, there's thingino to the rescue! It's a BusyBox-based firmware which you can flash the camera with, and then add it to Home Assistant using the ONVIF integration. Supposedly, you can use the two-way audio via a WebRTC integration, but I haven't set that up yet.

Perhaps the most mundane thing (to me) was adding the open/closed sensor to my freezer door. Sometimes, it doesn't seal all the way when closed. By very carefully locating the sensor and the magnet, HA now knows whether the freezer is closed all the way, and quick 'n dirty automation alerts me when it's not, using a voice announcement on the smart speaker.

In the process, I also discovered the UPnP functionality of both my router and switch, and the HA UPnP integration. It was a good day.

The simple math of the Yard-Sale Model shows that if everybody started out with equal money in a fair economy, the outcome tends toward one person holding all of the money. The cool graphical simulations on this page demonstrate why.

The news article post about the pedestrianized streets in Barcelona reminded me of this video about the same effect with congestion pricing. These conversions always garner heated opposition that peaks just before implementation, as everybody hallucinates a worst-case scenario. Then, after people get used to it, they wouldn't have it any other way.

Ray also talks about the Pike's Place pedestrianization, which he's been advocating for years, so I'm surprised he doesn't get more love in the community.

(Okay, so I'd just stepped out of the shower when I thought this one up.)

Transcript: Image of sign reading, "If I could find a country that didn't take immigrants in I'd move there"

I'm thinking about getting a larger television, as what I have is a bit too small for the living room. I have an inexpensive soundbar that mostly works, but doesn't always turn on with CEC, and occasionally stops passing the video signal through and needs to be power-cycled.

Are there any TVs and soundbars out there that can integrate with Home Assistant, and don't need a cloud connection at all? (Not even for initial setup.) I was about to buy a Sonos soundbar when they were on sale last month, but discovered that you don't actually own Sonos devices, since setup is locked behind a cloud account and the company could change the terms of access at its whim.

I've read encouraging things about the Sony Bravia devices, and the manuals seem to say that you can set them up entirely locally (although some features are cloud-only). Is this still the case?