Home Automation

boneless said:

I am using home assistant for my own house, blue iris handles cameras, and home assistant picks the feeds up, as well as motion alerts etc.


It is an open source project, runs on raspberry pi, Ive got it running on a VM with ubuntu.


I love it, I am the geek that likes to make different stuff talk together. I can post some examples if you like.

Click to expand...

How reliable have you found them?

Aabeck said:

PLC's and camera's aren't a good match.

For home automation I have 4 SLC racks running:

Security lights in 5 rooms and the basement that don't act like they are on a timer
Flood detector that shuts off the house water
Motion detectors
Wired smoke detectors
Heat detectors
Solar battery monitoring with auto charging if too low
Air conditioner compressor power monitor of controlled (cheaper) meter and auto switchover when needed
Water heater undertemp
Outside outlets for battery charger, slow cooker, and air conditioner compressor service power
Multiple RTD's and T thermocouples monitoring everything I could
Incoming water pressure
Water flow to toilet with auto shutoff if runs too long
Electric blanket control, with Start relay added to the blankets controller
Lots and Lots of Christmas and Halloween lights (Christmas uses over 120 outputs and 4 analog outputs)

EDIT: and a Christmas tree that the dog chewed on that had its own SLC with 100 outputs.

With a simple AdvancedHMI setup on a Windows tablet and a dedicated AHMI computer setup that controls and monitors everything.

Now, thinking of putting a lock mechanism in the fence gates and locking them with a keypad for access.

Want to tie into washing machine and dryer and to monitor the cycle status from upstairs - these are too quiet to hear and the finished beeper can't be heard unless you are in the utility room with it.

Click to expand...

Sound great, but you aint using the cameras, and very understandably. What would have you chosen if you wanted to add cctv cameras in your existing system?

I am sure that using these PLCs for what you are doing now is not giving you any troubles, right?

Also, has anyone of you ever used Elkom PLCs? here is an example:

https://elkom.com.tw/blog/2014/09/24/plc2011a1/

How about the Clipsal system? Getting an answer out of Schneider is like extracting teeth! **** software also.

BobB said:

How about the Clipsal system? Getting an answer out of Schneider is like extracting teeth! **** software also.

Click to expand...

they dont have mobile app I guess. how about siemens Logo? looks promising

Sham said:

Have you ever used it? Reliable enough?

Click to expand...

The visualisation with cameras, yes. This is one of the best bang for buck visualisation solutions. 100 clients is the default max. It's HTML5 only, so anything is a client, you don't need to worry about installing java or even a native client. Runs on the PLC.

Only messed around with OpenCV. I guess it is more of a programmers image detection API than an electricians click click go type solution. Still the standard cost in industry for a click click go from say Cognex can be prohibitive.

Logo! is a neat solution but it is artificially restricted. "Oh we need a bit more memory for this application" means moving to S7-1200 and a complete rewrite.

On the Pi reliability, this device is 50 bucks. But it is the most sold computer ever. They have CE certification and a QA department. I would trust a Pi over an off brand "make 1000 PLCs a year" manufacturer for reliability. Chuck a UPS in there and a big enough power supply and you have protected the SD card problem. Then use a read only file system (bit of Linux configuration to do) and you've got a pretty reliable computer.

And if you're programming in CODESYS on there, if they want more reliability, just copy the application to a WAGO PLC, or certain Schneider PLCs and you're set. Copy it to a redundant PLC even.

I think having a range of performance points is crucial to establish yourself in the Home Automation market.

P.S. the PI would only normally be the controller, and you would use remote IO from any of the majors. Perhaps you would use local raspberry IO for cameras or temperature probes, but nothing with long wire runs. That's what industrial is for.