This weekend I had the urge to use my raspberry pi!
Podman + the all in one image and I’m up and running. (Ok it wasn’t quick as I played with different Debian releases and getting the podman systemctl process working)
So far, I am most excited about being able to track the humidity on my nest thermostat. I’m in Miami and am in a constant battle with it! I’m playing with the cards and really like the gauge and statistic views.
Connected my pi-hole, my Spotify, weather, lights. Trying to figure out what’s next. Recommendations welcome. Happy to see the community support as I read more.
If you like statistics give graphana a look. It’s a very powerful graphing toolkit, given enough time you can create really beautiful views of your data.
If you need aditional data: Many smart plugs can measure power consumption…
Before buying more sensors/actuators: Think about the communication pritocols you want to use:
WiFi
- No additional HW required
- Simple setup
- No battery powered devices or high battery consumption
Bluetooth
- Probably no add. HW req.
- Battery powered devices
- limited range
Zigbee
- good range
- lots of devices
- low power/battery powered
- needs add. HW (usb stick)
- may be a little more complex to set up
(This is just a veeery short summary)
We’ve got a few grafana instances at work but I don’t think I’ll head that direction without finding a few more smaller projects first.
With a mesh wifi, (and a bad experience with wink/wave/ZigBee) at my last house, I’m thinking WiFi for sure!
Thanks!
If you want something inexpensive to play with, start looking at Zigbee devices. There are a variety of environmental sensors, plus motion sensors, contact sensors, and smart lights, sockets and switches.
You will need a Zigbee coordinator to get started, popular choices include the Home Assistsnt SkyConnect, SONOFF USB dongles, and Conbee II.
Building custom devices with ESP8266/ESP32 boards and ESPHome is also a lot of fun, there are plenty of projects for weather and air quality monitoring for instance.
