Home automation / IoT in Gentoo?

Zucca · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 9:13 am Post subject: Home automation / IoT in Gentoo?

So I bought a smart led lamp out of curiosity.
One that's "WiZ Connected".
According to this it's essentially a Philips technology.
While the WiZ Android App is okay'ish, I'd like to control (automate) the lamp via my home server.
There are few big IoT software "packs" for linux:

I don't see either being available on ::gentoo repo. :( ... or in any other repo (from gpo.zugaina.org) either.
However OpenHAB suggests that one should run it inside a dedicated VM or inside a container. They provide Docker image... I've never used Docker. :| If I go via container route (VM is just too overkill for one task) I'd choose a container format which is supported by libvirt (I'll remote manage my VM's via virt-manager).

So. Are there programs similar to Home Assistant or OpenHAB available for Gentoo?
Have you installed one such? How does it work? Do you run it in container or without?
_________________
..: Zucca :..

Buffoon · Veteran Joined: 17 Jun 2015 Posts: 1369 Location: EU or US

I run Domoticz (bubba overlay), years ago when I started I made my choice - Z-Wave. Not sure what connectivity protocol is best today, haven't done any research lately.
_________________
Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

Zucca · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 3:53 pm Post subject:

Buffoon · Veteran Joined: 17 Jun 2015 Posts: 1369 Location: EU or US

If you intend to expand your smarthome project significantly I suggest you pick a protocol what suits you best and start buying devices designed for that protocol. Domoticz and probably other smarthome software can handle more than one protocol, but it is not feasible. Z-Wave for instance creates meshnet, it really helps to connect all devices together and adds reliability.
_________________
Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

Zucca · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 4:58 pm Post subject:

Yeah. IIRC Z-Wave and Zigbee have that mesh feature. And maybe others too.
The WiZ smart light I bought is plain WiFi.

I'm not against to buying certain products which use one certain protocol, but I do want to be able to mix things as I like. Since if I later want to switch to another system I want to be able to control both, old and new, smart things from one single interface while in the process of shifting into a new system.
These open source solutions truly are the best answer. Yay!
_________________
..: Zucca :..

pa4wdh · l33t Joined: 16 Dec 2005 Posts: 953

I've also been looking at home control/domotics software available in the ::gentoo repo and was surprised to find none. Good to know there's an overlay for domoticz, it seems like a very nice project.

Since I don't have any devices yet, i still have the possibility to choose. From what i've found open source support for Z-Wave is better than Zigbee, is that correct? Especially the Z-wave.me UZB seems to be well supported.
_________________
The gentoo way of bringing peace to the world:
USE="-war" emerge --newuse @world

My shared code repository: https://code.pa4wdh.nl.eu.org
Music, Free as in Freedom: https://www.jamendo.com

Zucca · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 7:46 pm Post subject:

Buffoon · Veteran Joined: 17 Jun 2015 Posts: 1369 Location: EU or US

If I recall correctly Zigbee did not exist when I started using Z-Wave. There is dev-libs/openzwave in bubba overlay, I wouldn't even know how to start with Zigbee. BTW, bubba overlay is well alive and maintainer responds to emails.
_________________
Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

Zucca · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:02 pm Post subject:

Zucca · Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 10:58 pm Post subject:

Buffoon · Veteran Joined: 17 Jun 2015 Posts: 1369 Location: EU or US

Zucca,

I just learned from another thread and doing some additional reading it is possible now to control Zigbee devices in Domoticz, so if I wanted I could add some Zigbee devices to my existing Z-Wave setup. Therefore, in case you learn more and gain some experience please share. I believe there are many who will be interested.
_________________
Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.

Xgemone · n00b Joined: 23 Apr 2021 Posts: 1

Zucca is right, do as he wrote in the messages. By the way, thanks for the topic, you helped me and my friend solve one problem. My friend and I have one project, we are working on it for the soul, so that we have fun together. We even recently started an interesting dispute about what is better to work in a home garage or in a specialized gym. We just then took a break for a bite to eat, because we were waiting for an order from https://www.automation-usa.com/ for our project. Poor courier, we dragged him into our argument, but he helped us determine which is better. I initially knew that the home garad would win, it was a matter of time. Thanks again for the topic.
_________________
Scientific fact - tea is better coffee.

pa4wdh · l33t Joined: 16 Dec 2005 Posts: 953

I've been experimenting with domoticz (from the bubba overlay) and homeassistant (from the HomeAssistantRepository overlay). Both seem to be z-ware capable (at least the software support is there, i don't have any hardware yet). I'd like to share my experiences.

Domoiticz is easy to get going, and it's nice that almost everything is configurable from the webinterface. Even though i don't do anything special with it, it also felt a bit limited.
Homeassisstant is a bit harder to get going. Most configuration has to be done within a configuration file in yaml format, which -to me- seems easy enough to do. After the installation it somehow tried to trick me into creating an online account, which is not strictly needed, and since i'm very privacy aware i didn't like that. What i don't like about the packaging is that the USE flags only pull in extra dependencies, they don't actually switch off a feature when the USE flag is off. As a result if offers a lot of "integrations", even for features you've switched off, and when you use it it simply fails and logs a missing python module. The plus side is that there are a lot of integrations available, which makes it compatible with almost everything.
_________________
The gentoo way of bringing peace to the world:
USE="-war" emerge --newuse @world

My shared code repository: https://code.pa4wdh.nl.eu.org
Music, Free as in Freedom: https://www.jamendo.com