My New Whole Home Controller (Updated: Dec 2021)

[Jdamore]

Hi Roberto! Thank you!

For energy monitoring, I am using the Aeotec Zwave HEM paired to Smartthings. Unfortunately, it stopped working a few days ago when Smartthings pushed out an update!! I have the 2 clamp version (one for each phase) and it monitors the feed into the house. I am only displaying a total power usage but you can display each individual phase in HR if you want. To keep to my at-a-glance strategy, I used datatriggers to change the background color of the wattage… yellow if I am using 1000-5000 watts, red if I am at 5000+ watts, and no color if I’m under 1000w.

While I cant recommend this device at the moment (until the issue is fixed), I highly recommend getting an energy monitor. I’ve had this for a few years and it most definitely payed for itself and then some.

On that note, if anyone can recommend an energy monitor that will play nicely with HR, I’d love to hear some options.

[Roberto_Vazquez]

Sounds great, I was looking into Sense energy monitor but still thinking thinking about spending 300 bucks on it. plus don’t see any integration to any smart home hubs. Have to check if there has been anyting recent.

[jkidd]

This is fantastic work, and I’m drooling (metaphorically, at least) at the idea of creating something similar.

I’ve been wanting to create some control stations with some Fire tablets sitting around. I got pointed to the Home Remote as one possible way to get there, and I see that you’ve already done 500% more than I’d even imagined.

Is there a way in this platform for you to safely share the structure and framework of the work that you’ve done (if you’re willing, of course) without also inadvertently giving access to your devices? It seems like collaborating on builds and designs would be a fundamental feature of a platform… I didn’t seen any examples in my 30-40 minutes that I’ve spent exploring the tools so far, so I’m hoping this is something I just need a pointer to.

Thanks!
/Joe

[Jdamore]

Hi Joe!
I’ve stripped out my credentials and you can download my project from the link. EDIT: link removed… See OP.

It would require a lot of changes to work for your equipment but at least you have a good example to work from. Poke around and let me know if you have any questions.

I scooped up a bunch of fire tablets (two HD8’s and one HD10) back near the holidays when they were on a big sale. The new HD10 is very fast and works well with my animations. The HD8’s are are good but slightly slower. One thing I didn’t like was amazon removed the ability to disable sleep. However, you can use adbLink to disable sleep (Hoping for for no burn-in!).
The Home Remote Designer has the ability to publish to an FTP server. I setup the FTP server on the same laptop I use for the designer so getting my updated projects to my Fire tablets is easy.

[Jdamore]

I haven’t made too many changes in the last couple weeks. Mostly tweaks here and there.
I did make a popup for the rooms in my floor plan that do not have a lot of controls. The popup up is a page browser. Pressing a room enables the page browser and writes which page. I used another button the size of the whole screen so, when you click anywhere outside the popup, it closes. I was able to make the popup open with an animation by a sequence of PropertyActions of height and width.

[jkidd]

Thanks for sharing this! I’ve taken more time than I really should before work this morning starting to look through it. 2 questions pop up at first:

1. Is there a consensus on the next-best weather integration since Dark Sky announced their embed and API access end-of-life a couple months ago? I figure if possible I’d just start out from the beginning on a long-term answer there.

2. What did you use for your floorplan images? I’ve decided that for v1 I’m probably going to use a simple and non-detailed 2-d set of boxes for mine, but I’ve started playing around in Planner5D for something a bit more exhaustive. That’s early going, though, and I’m not yet convinced it’s what I’d want to stick with.

Thanks,
/Joe

[Jdamore]

The only discussion I’ve seen so far was on the old forum: I’ve been keeping an eye out but haven’t actively been seeking an alternative.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/thehomeremote/darksky|sort:date/thehomeremote/DHGGXcOXB2o/QQLByASLAAAJ

I’ve used Planner5D but found SweetHome3D to be much easier and better quality. In fact, my first floor plan was in Planner5D and I used it to make drawings to design a hot water radiant floor project in my great room a couple years ago. There are others out there too but, SweetHome3D is just what I personally settled on and its well liked in the commercial BAS systems I’ve done. To edit my floor plan images (like creating a transparent background or sizing), I used GIMP (photoshop alternative). Here’s a link for when I was trying to figure this all out…
https://groups.google.com/d/topic/thehomeremote/9Rm_QyTWhus/discussion

[Randy_Stone]

I have the sense monitor, and I would not really suggest it. I’ve had sense for almost 2 years, and its detection is not that great. It uses machine learning and AI, but it sucks. It’s found around 20 devices in my house, and 8 of those are duplicate AC.

[Roberto_Vazquez]

Wow, really! Thanks for the heads up. Still in my wish list is a energy monitor so thanks for the heads up. I think it might be better just to probably get smart plugs with energy monitoring and maybe even create something nice here in THR that will give a read out of each plug. hmmm I have an Idea coming on!!!

[Jdamore]

About a month ago, I took the Aeotec HEM off smartthings and moved it over Hubitat. Its actually working really well now. I’ve had it setup to refresh the wattage every 5 seconds and it worked well but I didn’t want to congest my z-wave network so, I bumped it up to 10 seconds. Seems solid! There’s no fancy software for trending or AI but its good for me (as long as it keeps working lol!)

Funny thing is how well you learn the typical wattage usage and how much power each device, in you entire house, consumes. I have my own “AI”

[Jdamore]

I’d LOVE to do that. Just gets expensive getting all the smart plugs/outlets. I used a (heavy duty 40amp) smart switch on my well pump and use the energy monitoring to send me notifications if the well pump kicks on and no one home. So there are definitely benefits to monitoring individual circuits/outlets!
I tweaked my dashboard to show both phases.

[David_Schatz]

Very cool setup, I was going through your pop up and it works great in the simulator but doesn’t funtion at all on the IPAD app, all the other buttons function just fine though… any advice would be great cause i created a pop up as well that I can’t get to work on my ipad
@Jdamore

[Jdamore]

hmmm… I don’t own any apple devices so I can’t test this. I have all android. I’m using Page browsers all over but, the popups use only one page browser and the Page property is written for the room you press. Maybe this has something to do with the issue or maybe the issue has something to do with the Size properties (for the animations)?

[TLoomos (Ted Loomos)]

I know I’m replying to a post that’s a year old, but the design you have is very close to what I am looking to create and I was hoping you might be able to re-post your hrp file as a starting point for me. The one that’s posted here looks like it was placed into your trash bin in Google Drive.

[Jdamore]

Hi Ted! Sure thing. Give me a day or two to rework my project. I’ll clean it up and simplify it a bit.

[Jdamore]

@TLoomos Done. Stripped it down and made it more universal. Keep in mind you may need to configure the platform and/or resolution to the size of your device. Its currently setup for a Fire HD10. I can think of several different ways to created a layout like this but this seems to work well for me. Give it a shot…

JD_Layout_2021_1_6.hrp (1.6 MB)

[dlmorgan999 (Dave Morgan)]

Thanks much for sharing your project file. It definitely taught me a few things. However - there is one thing I haven’t yet been able to figure out. I’ve seen at least a couple of projects that do this, so I must be missing something.

I understand (I believe anyway) how to use a combination of a button and an image on top of each other. I also understand using a data trigger on the image to change the image when the associated button is pressed.

What I haven’t been able to figure out yet is this. I find that once the image has been changed, it never changes back to the default image when I select another button.

Honestly, I wouldn’t expect it to change back without having to add another event, but people seem to be doing this. Can you please fill me in on what I’m missing, or where to look in your project file?

[Jdamore]

Hi Dave! Sounds like you’re digging in and thats good! First off, there’s many ways/methods to accomplish the same thing in many cases. The way I did it is just what I found to work for me for what I wanted to do. There’s other ways and probably more simplistic ways to do what I did… there is probably a better way for sure (I was still learning when I made it)!

In short; if a datatrigger is no longer met, it will go back to the default property…

Here’s a synopsis on my example:

• I used a virtual device called “PageSelection”.
• If you press a “Button” the event is change “PageSelection” to the corresponding page.
• The “ImageButton” is using a datatrigger which is bound to PageSelection. If the datatrigger is met, the property setter changes the image, in my case, to an image that appears to be selected. When the datatrigger is no longer met, the image reverts back to the default image.

I grew fond of PageBrowsers and I use a lot of them in my project. By default, I set the IsVisible property is unchecked. Each PageBrowser has a datatrigger which is bound to “PageSelection” which makes it visible. Again, when the datatrigger is no longer met, the PageBrowser becomes no longer visible. Note: you can use one PageBrowser and use multiple datatriggers to change the Page property. There’s a reason I prefer multiple PageBrowsers. Instead of pagebrowsers, you can use DeviceBrowsers, MediaBrowsers, WebBrowsers, or whatever.

Hope that helps

[dlmorgan999 (Dave Morgan)]

Thanks much! What I didn’t realize is that the property would go back to the default value if the trigger wasn’t met. That makes things much easier. . I’ll play with that here in a bit.

And I’m having so much fun with HR. I’ve been doing automation in one form or another since the mid 70s (when X-10 came out)! I’ve gone through a number of different automation apps since the early 90s, having recently transitioned to HomeSeer.

I didn’t much care for their UI designer and recently saw a reference to HR in the HomeSeer forums. I work in IT, and while I’m not a developer, I’ve done a bunch of programming over the years. I quite like the way the designer works, and it feels comfortable to someone who is used to Visual Studio.

Bill has done a great job with the design, and I’m actually quite enjoying learning what all this is capable of. The community here in the forums is also a great resource, and between this and the Google Groups, I’m doing a lot of reading every day. Thanks again for the help!

[Jdamore]

Over the last year I’ve integrated a few new devices and made tweaks to my project (mostly to clean up things from my newbie days) but, I really wanted to over-haul my interface. I began a new project from scratch, but I kept going back to the same layout because its easy. My parents, when they visit, know how to use it and understand it. My parents actually using it is debatably a good thing.

I decided to keep with the same project and just give it a face-lift. It looks better on the tablets then my screenshots… the tablets give it more of a glassy look.

I still have some things I’d like to do (like find a cool lightbulb icon). I’ve been migrating from Hubitat to HomeAssistant so that’s been a lot of work/learning.

Anthem receivers are new to my setup. They have a Web UI so, I added a WebBrowser

Bill added App Orientation several months ago so I use Portrait mode as a favorites page. This is mostly for use on my phone. Still have some work to do here but its been good.

TheHomeRemote JD Demo