Following the recent purchase proposals for ZigBee sensors and adapters that have been approved, most of the gear has arrived. @nogthree has all of the window/door sensors and we’ll be installing them some time in the next week or so. The ZigBee adapters have just arrived, and I’m in the process of flashing them with the custom firmware to allow us to use them.
Next step is to design and print some cases for them so they have a little more protection than just the bare circuit board.
The cases have finished printing and I’ve flashed the custom firmware and assembled them. They’re both ready to go so I’ll set them up either this weekend or next Tuesday. I think they look quite good and am happy with how they turned out.
The next stage of the HSBNE ZigBee network is to setup the zigbee2mqtt software to bridge the ZigBee network to our mqtt server. I’ll set up a hass.io server on porthack01 inside a docker container and run the mqtt server on that using the add on. The ZigBee adapter (the co-ordinator one) will connect to porthack01 via USB and be made available to the hass.io docker container which will run zigbee2mqtt.
I’ve just finished setting up hass.io in a docker container on porthack01. I’ve also installed the ZigBee adapter and repeater. Zigbee2mqtt is talking to the adapter successfully, but it’s having trouble connecting to the hass.io mqtt server which I’ve been troubleshooting for quite a while now.
After some troubleshooting it seems like there’s weird stuff going on with the docker networking between the containers (each hass.io addon is a docker container). I’ve finally resolved it and now zigbee2mqtt is fully operational. I’ve finished installing all of the window sensors on various windows that are commonly left open.
I’ve also integrated all of these into hass.io and have configured duckdns so it’s easily accessible via the internet. We can’t easily use a *.hsbne.org subdomain with SSL as the portal is already taking up port 80 & 443 which means it will be a headache to get let’s encrypt working nicely. The hass.io duckdns addon talks to duckdns and let’s encrypt via their API to do DNS based verification so that’s why it works.
The zigbee repeater doesn’t seem to be powering up anymore so I’ve bought that home and I’ll do some troubleshooting. The good news is the furthest away sensors seem to work, but I think it’s very marginal as they seem to occasionally drop out. Once the repeater is in place it should improve this.
I’m going to start work on integrating these sensors into the portal so that members can easily check them when they’re packing up. I’ve also placed an order for the temp/humidity sensors that were approved the other night.
Here’s some pics of the sensors installed. Note: the sensors are intentionally mounted off centre so they’re more sensitive to a window being open.
The replacement CC2530 arrived and it has been flashed with the router firmware and connected to the ZigBee network. Great news is that it’s working well and has significantly improved the link quality of everything in the green room area.
I’ve ordered all of the additional Aqara sensors that have been approved. There was also a bit left over in the budget so I ordered an additional CC2530 and POE > 5v adapter. The intention with this is to install it out in the quad somewhere under the covered area to extend the ZigBee network out to the gate. It will just be plugged into the woodshop switch and powered via POE.
Our ZigBee network is starting to get busy with 24 sensors now having been installed around HSBNE. All of the issues @nogthree and I were having with pairing some of the sensors have been resolved thanks to @pelrun who discovered if you delete the sensors from the zigbee2mqtt database they will repair straight away.
Here is a list of the sensors currently part of our ZigBee network. The green ones are those that have been paired but not installed. The blue ones are those that have been installed and tested to work correctly in their installed location.
@jabelone and I have also installed a power over ethernet powered zigbee gateway in an external box that originally held a wifi router we used for external wifi. Plan is to use the big omni antenna on it to get better range, and I’ve sourced the appropriate TNC-SMA adaptors to install it this weekend.
I’ve now finished tidying up home assistant and configuring the new green room display. We will now have a list of open doors and windows, and sensors with low battery (if any). Thanks to @pelrun the display can now run in “kiosk mode” which removes the top bar to allow for more screen to be used.
