Author Archives: ragingcomputer

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!

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.

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 canContinue 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 andContinue 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 onContinue reading “Controlling Android Tablet Screen with OpenHAB and ADB”

As you can see from previous posts, I’ve started automating my house. There was an ADT alarm system installed. I was given a user code, but that was it. I opted not to pay ADT’s ridiculous monthly fee since reasonable monitoring can be had for $10/month. Looking at the panel, I have a Safewatch ProContinue reading “Taking over an ADT Alarm and integrating it with OpenHAB”