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This little pet project of mine started out as a hobbyist venture. I have been involved in consumer electronics since 1973. I currently work as a network administrator for a regional ISP in eastern Michigan. My original goal was to simply monitor the doors and windows whether they were open or not. Currently, we collect temperature readings from different areas of the cottage, the state of the HVAC system, how long it has run ‘today’, the current state of the doors and the battery levels of the sensors. I have a screenshot below. (updated screenshot 3-20-24)
I added a local display screen that is mounted in the hallway next to the thermostat for guest convenience for the ’23 season.
Update 2022:
HomeAssistant has been running in the cottage for 4 years. The improvements to the system through the years has been amazing! When I started with it, most all of it was configured through code. Now, everything (well, practically) is configured in the GUI. Door sensors have been the most troublesome, mostly with mounting problems, but some of the first door sensors were cheap junk. Some of the early wireless temp/humidity sensors were/are battery hogs. I moved to bluetooth temp/humidity sensors this year, so far battery life has been phenominal.
The system monitor the status of the sliding doors and if they have been left open for 5 minutes, the HVAC system will turn off. After all the sliders have been closed, as indicated by the status light in the living room, the HVAC system operation will resume.
View the current status of the Cottage on your pc or scan the code above on your smartphone.
Update 2024:
HomeAssistant has been running in the cottage for 6 years. The door sensors have all been switched out to the Ring brand sensors, these have a very wide range of space between the magnet and the sensor in which they work. Much more reliable than any others I’ve tried plus they use two coin cell batteries for long battery life. All the temperature/humidity sensors are bluetooth tags. Battery life is excellent. The window sensors are NOT in the AC interlock circuit. Leaving a window open will not shut off the AC, the main reason we have them is to see if the guests are using the windows, which windows and that helps us make a decision on whether or not to put screens in the windows. We would much rather leave the screens out because at the end of the season we have to pull them out and the sand buildup in the windows sometimes prevents removing them without destroying them.
There is now a HomeAssistant display running on the wall next to the thermostat.
