
Home automation with Raspberry Pi, Node and React - deepsy
https://viktorkirilov.me/post/home-automation-raspberry-pi/
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SEJeff
There is a really popular project (disclaimer: I'm an occasional contributor)
that also has an excellent Raspberry Pi story named Home Assistant:

[https://home-assistant.io/](https://home-assistant.io/)

[https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant](https://github.com/home-
assistant/home-assistant)

They also have a full Pi distro named Hassbian:

[https://home-assistant.io/docs/hassbian/](https://home-
assistant.io/docs/hassbian/)

~~~
acidburnNSA
I can vouch that it is freaking amazing too. My whole apartment is automated
with it. Jungle noises play when I wake up, a northern loon calls precisely at
sundown every night, I have motion- and door-triggered alarms that email me
photos of the action and can be deactivated with a repurposed TV remote. I can
activate dings when people visit my small website. It can turn on my portable
air-conditioner when I leave work if the temperature is high. It can tell me
if my mom's house across the country loses power or drops below a threshold
temperature. It reminds me to do pushups at 8:30 and puts on a techno pandora
station to inspire me. It sends live traffic and weather data to a matrix
screen on my fridge to help me plan my commute. It can turn on/off all my
lights, stereo, and TV. All self-hosted but accessible remotely through a
personal VPN. And it uses 0.01 long-term load on my Raspberry Pi 2. Oh! and
when I want to change or add a feature, I can because it's all in Python 3
hosted on github. Man, I love home-assistant.

~~~
balloob
Glad you like it! And now I've been listening to Northern loon calls for the
last 10 minutes..

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paulbennett
I mentioned this on the previous HN topic, the way the heating temperature is
being controlled doesn't look correct to me. In all the boilers I've used the
dial the servo is turning adjusts the temperature of the water being sent
through the heating loop (to a blower or radiators) - this is not the heating
thermostat. Generally you set this once and don't need to adjust it again, the
thermostat does the work of turning the boiler on and off depending on when
heat is required.

Similarly the dial above adjusts the domestic hot water temperature, while the
system is running. Again, you rarely need to change it once its set to a
temperature you are happy with.

Maybe I'm not understanding how this boiler works?

~~~
bluGill
Are you mistaking different for correct? Generally the thermostat just turns
the pump on, but is there actually anything wrong with leaving the pump on and
changing the temperature?

~~~
paulbennett
I'm not entirely sure, however running the pump without actually heating the
water seems like a waste of energy. Maybe that's how this boiler works though,
I'd be interested to know more from the OP.

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Animats
The total absence of fault detection and shutdown is kind of scary.
Fortunately it doesn't have the authority to do anything important. The worst
it can do is turn the heat all the way up, down, or off.

~~~
plandis
Yeah is is the reason the only IOT product I own are light bulbs. If they fail
it's not that bad.

I definitely wouldn't trust a smart fridge, lock, thermostat, etc...

~~~
slg
With maybe the exception of a lock, I wonder if that fear is justified without
knowing the catastrophic failure rate of the "smart" functionality. There are
plenty of ways that these devices can save you from the failure of "dumb"
devices by keeping you aware of the status of your home.

For example which scenario is more common:

-A smart thermostat mistakenly turns off your heat in the dead of winter while you are on vacation causing your pipes to burst.

-A smart thermostat lets you know that the heat is not working in the dead of winter while you are on vacation because the furnace died which allows you to fix the problem before your pipes burst.

I don't know the answer to that, but I am not sure why we should assume the
first scenario is more common without any real evidence.

~~~
bluGill
> A smart thermostat mistakenly

I disagree with your use of the word mistakenly here. With IoT we need to
worry about intentional remote attacks. This is not a mistake.

If we are not dealing with a malicious attacks then I would suspect that the
second problem (system failure) is more likely.

~~~
slg
Hacking of IoT devices in another fear that has questionable justification
(don't get me wrong, many IoT manufactures are verging on negligent with the
level of security on their devices). Most hackers aren't chaotic evil
caricatures raining down destruction just for the lolz. They are usually
trying to gain money or power. What is the goal of taking over my smart
thermostat and turning off the heat? What is the likelihood of that actually
happening?

~~~
giobox
> What is the goal of taking over my smart thermostat and turning off the
> heat?

While it might seem an extreme example, in many parts of the world when AC or
heat fails, it can be a really big deal, especially for the very young and
very old. A great example is the 1995 Chicago heatwave, which killed ~800
people. If IoT thermostats become more widespread and tightly coupled to the
actual heating systems, it's not unreasonable to think they could become an
attractive target. Even ignoring the incidents of deaths, the inconvenience
alone of losing AC or heat can be substantial in many climates.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Chicago_heat_wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Chicago_heat_wave)

Without a source I personally wouldn't feel comfortable assuming that "money
or power" alone account for a vast majority of these attacks. I don't think
it's an unreasonable hypothesis that some are the result of plain nastiness,
stupidity, or doing it simply because they can.

~~~
slg
Humans aren't frogs in a boiling pot. If an IoT device shuts off the AC or
heat, someone will notice before it gets to the level in which it will kill
them. That would certainly be an inconvenience but I can't imagine a scenario
in which it would be deadly.

~~~
bluGill
Only if someone is home. I've gone on long vacations before in the middle of
winter. There is always the risk I will come home to find something broke and
my pipes are frozen. I don't personally know anyone who has had this happen,
but it is a real risk. Real enough that the local Home Depot has devices to
warn you about this (often dial a specific phone number).

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oulipo
This is very cool! You can bind your Raspberry Pi and Node with Snips to add a
100% on-device Voice AI, take a look at our website at
[https://snips.ai](https://snips.ai), and we would love to feature what you
build with our platform on the website!

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rhcom2
Nice, time to buy some perfboard and ditch the breadboard so it stays
together.

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pmarreck
Lost me at Javascript

