David J. Atkinson

@tenebrisnox @Teppichbrand Would you recommend #DietPi for a #RPi Zero running a slim #HomeAssistant that will be dedicated to drive a kiosk? (no camera feeds)

#homeAutomation

@EncryptKeeper That’s my experience. Zombied home computers are big business. The networks are thousands of computers. I had a hacker zombie my printer(!) maybe via an online fax connection and it/they then proceeded to attack everything else on my network. One older machine succumbed before I could lock everything down.

@shortwavesurfer You are exactly right. I like the Third Reality vibration sensor because it gives you a nice ability to tweak the sensitivity. Also, in Home Assistant I use a helper to sample the sensor over a second or two and compute the median. This eliminates a lot of spurious detections. Like any detector, there is always a tradeoff between false alarms and missed detections. This sensor has a nice sweet spot that is not hard to dial in.

@shortwavesurfer I use a vibration sensor #3RVS01031Z by Third Reality, Inc (Zigbee) in my mailbox and it works great. Sometimes, a heavy rain will trigger it but generally it only signals that the door has been opened.

@kattfisk That seems to imply that you cannot personally listen to or watch recordings that you have made in public. In doing so, you are abstracting personal details that you might have missed before, refreshing your memory, and so on. What is the material difference between you doing this without machine help versus with automation that makes it ethically problematic? What if a friend helped you, not a machine?

@tofu It depends on your local power system. At my house, I see frequent under voltage conditions. Also, some devices are more tolerant than others. You’ll find power conditioning in pretty much all data centers.

@tofu UPSs have some glitches, but the benefits of the power conditioning they do (the good ones) outweigh the trouble of the rare glitch. For example, reducing wear and tear on the electronics they power. Also, the performance of some electronics is highly sensitive to the quality of power provided (e.g., no under- or over-voltage conditions). I don’t rely on the UPS for surge protection. For that, I use upstream Tripp-Lite outlets.

@tofu I like it. Your “for now” comment is on point; there is always more to do!

For comparison, here is my 19” 15U rack , also a work in progress: PDU, ventilation, 16 port switch, 2U mount for up to 8 Raspberry PI s or NAS., and a 8x KVM HDMI/USB switch to connect the RPis to a small monitor, keyboard and mouse on top. I use one RPi for #HomeAssistant, another for home security cameras and other video, one for HomeBridge, one for Pi-Hole, and other for experimentation and testing. A UPS is in back. I Iove that the rack is on wheels because I frequently move it to get access to the back.
#HomeAutomation.

@Bronzie I’m partial to the #Meross smart outlets outlets, model mss315 in particular. Zigbee set up is super easy, highly reliable, and you get good energy use data from each one that works out of the box. #HomeAutomation #HomeAssistant

@muusemuuse @essell Maybe this? There seem to be a number of possibilities. Let us know what you find out. #HomeAutomation #Maker #SelfHost

@Showroom7561 You are referring to incoming IPs? I get around 50 to 100 per day as well. Easily blocked. My bigger concern is outgoing connections by home automation devices on my network. I have over 200 lights, switches, and sensors of various brands, most of which try to “phone home” anywhere from daily to every few seconds. They are reporting (something) to data aggregation businesses that presumably are selling. Blocking some devices from Internet access (e.g., my Leviton light switches) causes the device to fail! Yet another case of companies stealing our personal data.

@irmadlad Yes, and keep a copy offsite! A good friend’s house burned down in the recent Eaton Canyon fire. He and his family lost absolutely everything. Photos, letters, memorabilia — the story of their lives. A devastating loss. He had plenty of backups, but none stored elsewhere and the ones in his house were also thoroughly toasted. Friends are working to find copies of photos, but that is just a fraction of what was lost.

It isn’t hard to do backups, just a chore. I by a thumb drive every few months. A few terabytes is not too expensive and it is small. I backup to it and mail it to a family member. I know it is safe. Daily backups are better but more cumbersome. I back up weekly to hosted disk drives at a small Internet service provider.

@spitfire I said that but the fact is I don’t really know. But I’d like to know. I know #HA #HomeAssistant can launch apps and select channels on #AppleTV so I think it should be possible on iOS. Using webhooks maybe.

@just_another_person Turning on or off nightlights. Changing iOS focus (e.g., sleeping). Activating outside security monitoring… all kinds of interesting use cases.

@bus_factor Some of the #mmWave (Radar) Presence sensors may be able to detect bed presence through the mattress, mounted under frame. I have not tried this yet but I’ve been planning to. The Aqara FP-1 or Aqara FP-2 are candidates, but maybe too pricey for an experiment. The Apollo MTR-1 is far less expensive and excellent for short range. It is also small and with a sturdy enclosure you could easily place it between and mattress. These sensors can pick up very small motions, even the human heartbeat (sometimes through walls). I use both Aqara (easier set up) and Apollo MTR-1 for room and zone presence detection, with #HomeAssistant for integrated automation.