Raging Computer

My wife and I are new parents. We have an older GE Eterna dryer with a buzzer that can wake the dead. Home automation is all fun and games until you can use it to make major annoyances go away, then it’s no longer a frivolous hobby!

Continue reading “Quiet Dryer Notification for Home Assistant – Home Automation for Babies”

Using the Home Assistant SNMP Switch component with my Cisco 3750 PoE switch, it’s possible to enable or disable PoE on a switch port.

This post on a thread about saving energy via PoE got me close enough to manage the rest.

In the example below, i’m controlling PoE on port 41.
Continue reading “Home Assistant SNMP Switch for PoE on Cisco 3750”

Using a node.js module (node-hikvision-api) for accessing a hikvision camera’s built-in motion detection for use in OpenHAB

It’s a little annoying how Hikvision exposes the motion events on their cameras. It’s a multipart http stream containing XML.

See Hikvision manual Page 176
Section 8.11.30 /ISAPI/Event/notification/alertStream
http://oversea-download.hikvision.com/uploadfile/Leaflet/ISAPI/HIKVISION%20ISAPI_2.0-IPMD%20Service.pdf

node-hikvision-api abstracts that away a bit so hikmotion.js can focus on what to do with those events, like update motion contacts in OpenHAB.

Requirements:
node.js
hikvision camera with motion events configured
(tested with DS-2CD2332-I & XC-2142FWDI)

Continue reading “Hikvision Motion Detection in OpenHAB using node.js”

Wouldn’t it be cool if you could monitor your electricity usage with OpenHAB for less than 20 bucks with the same accuracy your power company uses for billing?

Using an inexpensive rtl-sdr dongle, it’s possible to listen for signals from ERT compatible smart meters using rtlamr. This script runs as a daemon, launches rtl_tcp and rtlamr, and parses the output from rtlamr. If this matches your meter, it will push the data into OpenHAB using the REST API.

Turns out these ERT meters (at least in Omaha) are broadcasting 4 hours of usage data with 5 minute resolution. It broadcasts this data every minute, repeating the previous broadcast until the next 5 minute interval has completed. This data is flying around unprotected. Using free software and an inexpensive SDR dongle it’s possible to pull this data into OpenHAB.

rtlamr does all the heavy lifting here. It listens for the data, decodes, and passes along the meter readings.

On my meter, the interesting information is just above the readout. That’s my meter’s type and endpoint ID or serial number. I’ve blurred my details for privacy.

Continue reading “rtlamr Power Meter Data in OpenHAB”

Wouldn’t it be cool to control an android device’s wake and sleep from OpenHAB? I’ve strapped a couple tablets to the wall with command strips. I’m using them to control OpenHAB. Gotta get ’em working well enough to gain wife approval before doing anything more permanent.

I was griping about turning my tablet screens on and off in response to sensor triggers in my home automation system. My first attempt using Tasker to poll the OpenHAB Rest API was too laggy to be useful. I wasn’t making much progress when my buddy over at https://opsech.io told me about adb and sending keyevents using adb shell. He ninja’d up tabletcontrol.sh and it works beautifully. Following his example, I munged out gettabstatus.sh and it works well enough.

Requirements-Tablet:
Rooted Android device
WiFi ADB – Debug Over Air
NOTE: This app works on ROOTED devices only.

Requirements-Server:
OpenHAB Server & exec binding, tested on 1.8
linux/bash, tested on Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS
android tools ADB
[text]sudo apt-get install android-tools-adb[/text]

Continue reading “Controlling Android Tablet Screen with OpenHAB and ADB”