weewx and home automation

[Franklin Bockstael]

Hello all,

 

In the near future I want to make a start with home automation with z-wave products.

Because I want some functions depend on weather conditions and I have a Vantage Pro 2, Raspberry Pi and Weewx, I was wondering if one (or more) of you has done this kind of connection.

I would like to know more about that subject.

In April there will be a number of solar cells installed on my roof (2250 Wp) and so my green fingerprint is increasing.

But with smart use of home automation I want to let it grow even more.

 

Franklin

[Mathieu Dallaire]

Hi Franklin,

I have been playing around with home automation for the last two years and integration level with weather information is very different accross products. Do you have an idea of what HA controller you will buy or what technology you are planning to use? What kind of rules do you want to put in place related to weather?

I have worked with ISY (Insteon), Homeseer (z-wave) and Elk M1 Gold (Alarm system with automation functions).

Installing a PV array on my rooftop is definitly in my project list. What model of panel will you use?

Mathieu

[Per Edström]

I'm using Tellstick DUO (hw) and Telldus Center + Nexahome (sw) that can "listen" to some temp/humid sensors and turn on the car heater depending on outdoor temperature etc.
Nexahome also works with Z-wave and R.pi. NexaHome is Java-based so it works on Linux and Windows.

I mainly use DUO/Nexahome to automate lights to follow the sunset/sunrise as it varies quite a lot over the year (4hrs sun around X-mas and 20hrs sun around midsummer).

[Mark F]

I use z-wave and Indigo software for Mac.  I'm in the process of developing a plug-in for Indigo that will populate variables in Indigo with all of the weather station stats from weewx.  For now, I use a backwards way of doing this -- I publish my stats to wunderground, then use the wunderground plugin for Indigo to pull the data back into the automation software.  It works, but for obvious reasons makes little sense.

Prior to using Indigo, I wrote ruby scripts that handled much of my needs.  My scripts just interfaced with the weewx database and ran queries to get the requisite information.  This isn't a terribly difficult task to tackle if you have development experience.

Some automation uses of weather data: 

• HVAC control
• Considering outdoor temperature/outdoor forecast 
• Irrigation control 
• ET readings
• Recent rainfall
• Forecasted future rainfall (I have a model that looks at POP to determine whether to delay an irrigation schedule)
• Halt irrigation if temperatures are near or below freezing, winds are high, or humidity is very low
•  Day/Night (light/dark) settings based on solar radiation/lux readings
  

I'd love to hear other ideas for utilizing the localized weather information for automation control.

[Chris Manton]

I also use Indigo, but no z-wave, only Insteon products.

I had also intended to write an Indigo plugin with view (or WSDL?).  WSDL was windows only, but after verifying proper functionality I moved to wview on a linux box.

One of those two weather utilities broadcast data packets on network and I was going to scoop them into Indigo using an Indigo module.  Ended up moving to weewx, scuttling that project.

When I started, z-wave was still expensive and unreliable and there weren't many products.  Now it seems there is a lot more options for z-wave.

C

--

[Oz Greg]

I would not recommend Z-wave, I have a z-wave system and it works but it is not open and Micasa produces some pretty buggy software with no published roadmap and irregular firmware upgrades that seem to be funded by new products not any overall strategy on top of a closed eco system..  That said the pi daughter board (razberry) looks interesting if I could get it in my country *sighs*.. Some locks etc will not work with it but you should be open enough that could program it to work with other data sources.. 

QWHA seems the way to go if you want to go the insteon path which is much more open.. 

Good luck.