You've Got Mail

I decided I wanted add a sensor to know when my mail has arrived. Searching online showed that this wasn't an original idea. Most people run into trouble having a sensor for this due signal loss to either all metal mail boxes or distance. Before I bought a new sensor I chose to test these limitation by temporarily relocating a motion sensor to the back of my mailbox.  Luckily I didn't run into either of those issues since I already had Zigbee bulbs for some exterior lighting with a relatively short drive way and a plastic mailbox. 

I ordered an new THIRDREALITY Motion Sensor  since that exact sensor was used to test this concept.  To make the sensor less noticeable I removed the electronics and gave it a quick coat of spray paint to make it blend in with the back of the mailbox. 

To ensure I only receive a single notification I have the automation disable itself as its last action. 

 Separately I have an automation set to also trigger off of movement in the mailbox but only run it's actions if the "Motion Mailbox Mail Arrived" automation is disabled. All this automation does is re-enable the "Motion Mailbox Mail Arrived" automation.

Additionally  I have added re-enabling the "Motion Mailbox Mail Arrived" automation. This is due to the fact that I don't always care to retrieve my mail since I normally know what is being delivered. Informed delivery sends me an email each morning with a scan of my mail. https://informeddelivery.usps.com/ is worth checking out if you haven't heard of it before. 

The only thing left to do is monitor how well the sensor actually works now that it has been deployed. 

Security Camera Setup

 I have had a security camera system in place for over 4 years, but I have never fully utilized it. My current 8 camera system is an integrated system by ZMODO. While it had good performance when first installed the image quality in a couple of the cameras has dropped off significantly in the last couple years.

Unfortunately the existing cameras are not compatible with anything other than the ZMODO base station that came in the original set. So I can't test new software solutions with the old hardware.  The other factor driving this update is the fact that ZMODO doesn't integrate with Home Assistant. It doesn't allow for imbedding image feeds or feeding motion alerts/object detection into automations.

To start this project I replaced the main camera that overlooks my front door. Luckily the cables run for the old cameras are power over ethernet cables that can be adapted for use with standard cameras by just clipping off the proprietary connector and installing a RJ45 connector.  So I have installed a generic 1080P RTSP camera using the old cable. 

Zone Minder, Frigate, and Blue Iris were all tested before I finally decided to use Blue Iris. This was selected due to the ease of setup and integration with Home Assistant via the Home Assistant Community Store (HACS).  This update required 3 software components be setup: Blue Iris, an MQTT server, and the Home Assistant Integration. 

I chose to make use of the convenient Unraid Community Applications store add on for Blue Iris that only requires selecting the data storage location to setup the docker image. Once the Blue Iris docker instance booted setup was very straight forward. The camera is added using the  RTSP url/port/credentials that are unique based on the specific camera. Additionally a user account needs to be setup to allow access via Home Assistant.

Adding the Home Assistant integration is as simple as adding it using HAC. All that needed to be set was the IP address, port, username, and password of the account setup in Blue Iris. 

At this point the camera is exposed to Home Assistant and the entities for motion alerts and connectivity.  The next task is actually feeding the motion sensors with data. To do this an MQTT server has to be setup. I chose to setup the MQTT server available in the official Home Assistant add on store. The tricky thing here is both the Add-On and the integration it adds has to be configured. The configuration is very straight forward to just set a username and password for the MQTT broker. 

The last step is configuring Blue Iris to feed the MQTT server the data. This is done by adjusting the server level configuration under Digital IO and IOT.  The MQTT server credentials need to be set and tested to ensure the MQTT sever is properly connected. 

At this point I added a new Camera page to my dashboard to add the new camera and sensor.  I was also able to create a basic motion activated alert to my phone. The final step of this setup is the same as all new Home Assistant changes, create a backup and securely store it on another system.

I will continue to monitor how this performs over the next week before I purchase a license for Blue Iris. So far it seems like it will be well worth the $60 license fee. If they happen to have a Black Friday sale I might make that decision sooner. I will be monitoring Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales for new camera to replace the remaining ZMODO cameras.

Smart Smoke Detectors

 Since I have recently expanded my smart home to include a Z-Wave network I have decided that I should add at least one other device to justify adding Z-Wave. The device I chose to add was a single smoke and carbon monoxide detector.  I chose to purchase the offering from First Alert  as it was the only option from any well known smoke detector manufacture. Similar to my feelings for smart locks I think it is much easier for companies to tack on smart functionality to the product they have generations of experience manufacturing than it is for a tech company to engineer a quality product from scratch. 

Sadly this integration does not seem to allow remote clearing of alarms. The functionality of this device was not clearly documented. That was the main feature I was wanting, but it seems the only option to get that feature is to go with a Nest. I can't recommend that though since the don't allow local control. Due to this lack of functionality I will not be replacing my other smoke alarms with these any time soon. I will revisit this in about 6 years when  I replace my existing smoke detectors due to their approximate 10 year lifespan. 

Smart Garage Door

 Early into my smart home journey I made the mistake of choosing a MyQ-G0301 to control the garage door. I have nothing against Chamberlain, but I regret this purchase since it requires internet access to work and is exposed to a third party.  Leaving an entry point to my home exposed started to worry me when I was researching smart door locks. 

Rather than replace the controller/hub with some other solution  or updating the garage door opener that is as old as I am I chose to accept the risk of the hub being compromised. The worst thing that this hub can do is flash, beep, and send a signal to open/close the door. I don't have to care about the device sending the door open signal if the door opener is not powered on. I was able to accomplish this by adding a locally controlled HS103 TP Link smart outlet. 

To make this as seamless as possible I have integrated it into existing automations that are triggered by my location.  As soon as I leave my home area the outlet is turned off.  As soon as I re-enter my home area  the outlet is turned on and after a 15 minute delay it is tuned off. This only requires that I manually turn the outlet on in order to open the garage.  I might have to look into smart buttons to more easily trigger this going forward.

Choosing to cut power to the garage door opener since I don't know how efficiently the MyQ would work if it was only powered on when I wanted to use it. Choosing this route also has the added benefit of not having to worry about anyone/thing else sending the open/close signal, which I know is not a big risk. 

Smart Deadbolt

 About 6 months ago my electronic keypad deadbolt died. A couple of batteries in its battery pack had leaked causing the electronic control to stop working. This left me with a dumb key based lock with a useless keypad. 

I have finally selected a suitable replacement, the Kwikset SmartCode 910. This keypad integrates into smart homes by using the Z-Wave Plus protocol. This hardware was chosen since Kwikset has a proven track record with building quality locks and I have personally seen some of their basic digital locks last at least ten years even when constantly exposed to the weather. 

Since my Home Assistant didn't already have any existing Z-Wave hardware I chose to add a Nortek GoControl USB stick. I chose this Z-Wave radio since it also contains Zigbee radio which could come in handy if I ever choose to migrate from using a physical Raspberry Pi with a RaspBee II to a containerized installation. 

As this was my first foray into Z-Wave, I had to setup both the Z-Wave JS official add-on and add the Z-Wave JS integration. This was pretty straightforward once I realized both were required. To step the add-on, all that needs to be done is generate a random network key that is 16 bytes long and select the device. The GoControl has the Z-Wave hardware as port0 and the Zigbee hardware as port1.

Once the add-on is ready, I simply had to add the  Z-Wave JS integration and select configure form the integrations page. From that page I selected Add Node  to add my new device. Since this is literally a security device it needs to utilize the secure inclusion. Then all that had to be done was pressing the A button which my specific smart lock uses for pairing. 

Finally the new device is visible. Now I just need to figure out what useful automations or notifications I need to setup to make the most of this new device. 

TP Link Local API

 Due to recent issues I have experienced with my TP Link outlets becoming unavailable for a brief moment causing some automations to be triggered, I have decided to reset all of my smart outlets to local only control to see if it resolves the issue. This has the added bonus of removing one of my dependencies on web services. 

To do this I had to sign out of the TP Link Kasa app. TP Link does not currently let you opt for local only control if you are signed into their app. Then one by one place the outlets in pairing mode by holding down the power button for a few seconds.

Local Only Access

Once each device was set to local only control I was able to remove the old Home Assistant GUI integration and instead configure it via the configurations.yaml. In order to make this a one time change I first had to set static IP addresses for each device. Since I make use a a PI Hole adblocker as both my DNS and DHCP server, I was able to easily find each device based on their hostname reported to the DHCP server matching their TP Link model number. The MAC address can also easily be found by reading the label on the physical device or checking the device info in the Kasa app.

         

MAC ADDRESS

Once the devices have a static IP it is just a simple matter of adding the appropriate config to Home assistant.  The below example shows the config I ended up using.  One interesting thing to note was that my existing automations and Dashboards in Home Assistant  didn't require reconfiguration. I don't know if that was due to the mac addresses not changing or the device descriptions in Kasa were not changed. 

Configuration.yaml

Hello World

 

This site will follow the crazy thing I choose to implement with my smart home. I realize no one will probably read this, but at the very least this will serve as documentation of my decent into madness trying to get every last thing in home to communicate together as locally as possible.

As of the start of this blog my smart home consists of:
18 TP-Link smart plugs
19 various Hue bulbs
8 Third Reality smart switch adapters
1 Nest Smart Thermostat
1 Google Nest Mini
1 Google Nest Hub 7″
6 Samsung SmartThings water sensors
4 Samsung SmartThings door sensors
1 Shark Smart Vacuum
1 MyQ Garage Door Gateway
1 Raspberry Pi Running Home Assistant

Every time I make a major change to my setup I plan to document it here. Some planned changes I am currently thinking through are updating all the TP-Link device to only support the local commands and to find the perfect hardware to make use of Home Assistants new energy monitoring feature set.