I lately purchased an Aqara vibration sensor with the plan of affixing it to our eating room desk for the aim of establishing a movement in Homey such that if it’s nighttime and the desk is bumped or tapped anyplace, the sunshine would flip ON and keep on for 10 minutes.

It didn’t actually work the best way that I hoped it will…

https://youtu.be/SiO59Ldyd8k

The vibration sensor isn’t as delicate as I hoped it is likely to be. Consequently, to set off the movement/automation that I arrange, somebody must faucet on the vibration sensor itself. To date we haven’t been capable of set off it by tapping anyplace else on the desk.

I feel I’ll finally take away that vibration sensor from the eating room desk and use it for one thing else as an alternative. However for now, it’s nonetheless on the desk and it form of works, though it’s probably not any extra useful than simply utilizing a lightweight swap on the wall.

One other factor that didn’t actually work the best way that I hoped it would was that after vibration is detected, the sunshine comes on for 10 minutes and my thought was that if extra vibration was detected thereafter, the movement would constantly re-trigger and the sunshine would keep on. Sadly, that additionally doesn’t appear to be the best way issues work.

So I might say the vibration sensor not being as delicate as I would love it to be is a matter with the Aqara system, however the movement not regularly re-triggering earlier than it ends is a matter with the Homey ecosystem.

What really finally ends up occurring is that the movement is triggered, the sunshine comes on after which after 10 minutes, the sunshine goes off.

If you’d like the sunshine again on, it is advisable go and faucet the vibration sensor once more.

That’s not what I had in thoughts.

I really like Homey, however I feel there must be some option to regularly re-trigger issues to keep away from a scenario like this the place the sunshine turns off after which it is advisable re-trigger the entire thing once more to get the sunshine on for one more 10 minutes.

The Aqara vibration sensor additionally looks like product, it’s simply clearly not appropriate for this explicit thought. Nonetheless, I feel it will be nice for one thing a little bit extra “excessive contact”, so I’m certain I’ll put it to work someplace else in our residence finally.

What’s up with Alexa?!

Alexa had an “fascinating” day lately. Often, Alexa is cooperative and responsive 90-95% of the time, however the different day, voice management didn’t work in any respect. Within the Alexa app, my Sonos Arc soundbar was exhibiting intermittently as “offline” regardless of having a “robust connection” within the Sonos app.

I used to be digging round on-line for proof of widespread issues with Alexa, however didn’t discover something.

The Sonos soundbar can be on-line, then offline and even when it was on-line, the entire thing was actually bizarre.

Anyway, maybe Alexa simply wished a break day work as a result of the subsequent day all the things was again to regular similar to we by no means skipped a beat.

I actually don’t know what to make of all that, however I hope it doesn’t make a behavior of occurring too usually!

I’m not getting a P2 movement sensor in spite of everything

The shop that I ordered three extra Aqara T1 mild bulbs and a P2 movement sensor messaged me and advised me that they couldn’t really get me a P2, however requested if I might be comfortable with a P1 as an alternative.

After some transient analysis, I made a decision that the P1 seems completely tremendous for my use case. From what I might see, the battery life is definitely longer on the P1 in comparison with the P2, which is nice. The opposite vital distinction feels like Matter help for the P2, however I don’t notably care as a result of I’ll be connecting the P1 to Homey with Zigbee.

The opposite factor that I observed is that within the Homey app, I can see the Aqara P1 listed as supported particularly, however I can’t see a selected point out of the P2.

All that to say, I’m getting the P1, not the P2.

I thought of a presence sensor however determined that it was overkill for this explicit use case. My plan is to make use of the movement sensor and three Aqara mild bulbs within the outdoors elevator foyer space. I don’t actually foresee any situation the place an individual goes to be stationary in that space for greater than a minute, so a movement sensor will do exactly tremendous.

Till subsequent time, have one.

Study extra about Automated House right here.

Take a look at the Homey Professional for your self:

https://amzn.to/3MaktQf (Amazon affiliate hyperlink)

Aqara vibration sensor:

https://amzn.to/4gn9VuX (Amazon affiliate hyperlink)

Aqara T1 water leak detector:

https://amzn.to/4cVp5EP (Amazon affiliate hyperlink)

Subscribe on Youtube

Be a part of our Good House neighborhood

If you wish to add humidity and temperature sensors to your private home automation sensor, you may — like [Maker’s Fun Duck] did — purchase some generic ones for a couple of buck. For a greenback, you get a little bit sq. LCD with sensors and a button. You even get the battery. Are you able to reprogram the firmware to bend it to your will? As [Duck] exhibits within the video beneath, you may.

The system advertises some customized BLE companies, however [Duck] didn’t wish to use the seller’s telephone app, so he cracked the case open. Inside was a microcontroller with Bluetooth, an LCD driver, a sensor IC, and little or no else.

The processor is an ARM Cortex M0, a PHY6222 with very low energy consumption. The LCD is a really low cost panel with no drivers onboard. All of the drive electronics are on the PCB. The sensor is a CHT8305C which makes use of I2C.

Fortunately, the PHY6222 has a publically accessible SDK with English documentation. The PCB has two units of UART pads and it’s attainable to flash the chip through one of many UARTs.

Finally, [Duck] put a customized firmware on the field, however we had been intrigued by the concept for a buck you could possibly get a little bit low-power ARM module with an LCD and a sensor. It looks as if you could possibly do extra with this, though we’re certain the LCD is just not very normal goal, absolutely this little field may act as a panel meter, a countdown timer, or plenty of different issues with some customized firmware.

These are, after all, knock offs of the marginally dearer Xiaomi sensors, and people are flashable, too. We aren’t certain how correct both sensor is, however humidity measurement is a posh matter.