ESP8266 – RequireIoT

My Home Automation story, part 4: three years later, what has changed?

In the previous parts of this series I described my objectives for and anticipated benefits of my home automation system (part 1), detailed the implementation (part 2), and described real benefits and some technical “lessons learned” (part 3). Three years have passed since I wrote part 3, so it is time to look at what has changed: what do I see as the real benefits of the home automation today? What new technologies have I introduced, if any? What additional

3 November 2023 Embedded / Home Automation / openHAB

MyDashboard for openHAB — home automation status at a glance

Before I leave the house, I want to see an overview of all relevant home automation variables: are all the windows and doors closed? are all the lights off? is my computer off? is the washer or dryer still running?

For this, I built a small, battery-powered display next to the front door. It has a Wifi connection to the home network, and pulls all relevant OpenHAB variables via its REST interface, every hour, and at the push of a button

1 November 2023 Embedded / Home Automation / openHAB

Light control for indoor plants

Winter is approaching, so I needed to bring my kitchen herbs collection inside, and I thought some artificial light might help to keep them thriving during the dark part of the year.