Linux HomeAssistant

[Agentgonzo]

Does anyone else on here use HomeAssistant for their geeky automation? It was mentioned on a few iSpindel threads before.

Anyway, I've had an iSpindel for a while, and after a cold winter got myself a heat-belt. I've only-just now got the two wired together so I have thermostatic control of my fermenter. Yes, I could get an inkbird, but where's the fun in that .
Anyway, if anyone's interested, the setup I have now looks like this:

If you'll excuse the rather ugly extension lead, this is:

• A 30L Stainless Steel BrewMonk (same as BrewDevil, Klarstein, SS Brewtech) fermenter
• A neoprene insulating jacket
• An iSpindel
• A TPLink Kasa smart plug (£10)
• A generic 30W heater belt, plugged into the smart plug

The iSpindel posts (via a relay I wrote) to home assistant.

In HomeAssistant, I then have:

1. An input number to set the target temperature I want
2. The above sensor for the current beer temperature
3. A threshold to determine whether the beer temperature is lower than the desired temperature
4. A KP100 Kasa plug control which controls the smart plug
5. An automation to run it all.

The automation is pretty simple. If the threshold is on (requiring heat), it turn the plug on, otherwise it turns the plug off.
Obviously, it only gets an update whenever the iSpindel reports its temperature/gravity, which is currenty half an hour.

It does overshoot a little bit (half a degree) on the way up, but this is OK for me as I just set the temperature to be half a degree lower than I want. And half a degree fluctuation is far better than I used to have when it was just stabilised by the central heating anyway.

It seems to work nicely for me so far. This is just a 14L batch, but I normally brew 23L batches, so the overshoot will probably be smaller under my normal conditions.
It's not been running for 24h yet, so this graph is a bit midleading in terms of the time.

 

[Rwilts]

What are you running the Homeassistant on?

 

[Agentgonzo]

What are you running the Homeassistant on?

Raspberry pi 4, as a docker image.

 

[Rwilts]

Sounds like something I can have a look as a project, I have all those things kicking around

 

[Agentgonzo]

Depending on how good you are with Linux and its tooling, it can either be a bloody nightmare, or fairly simple. Running things as docker containers is easier now (once you've learned docker itself) than installing it natively into the OS.

Home assistant took a bit of learning, but it wasn't too bad. If you need help, just ask.

 

[Graz]

Interesting. I do have a Pi at home running Home Assistant, at the moment I don't really utilise it fully I just have a couple of Zigbee devices and a Zigbee dongle for it to turn a few lights on and off. I have bigger plans if I get some free time in future.

Hadn't really though about utilising it for brewing though. Have Inkbird / STC-1000 on my brew fridges.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Brewpiless is a great project and doesn't tie up a very expensive raspberry pi.
Brewpiless uses a PID algorithm rather than on off threshold.

I'm just working on integrating pressure monitoring and hopefully autospunding along with the temperature control and it will integrate with the ispindel and brewfather.

 

[Agentgonzo]

Brewpiless is a great project and doesn't tie up a very expensive raspberry pi.
Brewpiless uses a PID algorithm rather than on off threshold.

I'm just working on integrating pressure monitoring and hopefully autospunding along with the temperature control and it will integrate with the ispindel and brewfather.

It's not like it ties up my pi. I have a whole bunch of other stuff running on it and already used homeassistant for a bunch of other household automation.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

It's not like it ties up my pi. I have a whole bunch of other stuff running on it and already used homeassistant for a bunch of other household automation.

It looks like it integrates well.

 

[ChilledGecko]

I've moved my HA set up from a Pi4 onto an old HP running Proxmox (HAOS).
I also run separate LXCs for Influx and Grafana.
Most of my automation logic is via Node-Red, I find it easier than YAML when revisiting it at a later date and trying to understand what the Dickins I was up to.
I'm just configuring a separate Debian LXC to run my 'external' scripts for updating my SSL wild card certificates and shifting data from my solar inverters and such like.

 

[Agentgonzo]

I've moved my HA set up from a Pi4 onto an old HP running Proxmox (HAOS).

Interesting... I went the other way! I used to run the home server on an HP mini server, but probably a year ago I moved it all into a 4th gen pi. Mainly because the server is on 24h a day and then power consumption is so much lower with the pi than the hp box.

 

[ChilledGecko]

Yeah, I'm looking for reliability over power consumption. I need the Wife Acceptance Factor.
I'm also running another instance on an old laptop in my shed, one virtual for my ADSB feeds and one for my AIS feeds. I used to have them on one pi but I suffered reliability issues with services failing. Splitting them out has made them fit and forget.

 

[ruskythegreat]

I use HA mainly to control lights. I can tap on the lights in the image to turn them on/off.

Looking into what I can do with brewing is definitely next on the list.

 

[ChilledGecko]

@ruskythegreat when I had a 3 vessel rims set up I used craftbeerpi3 to control it. I think craftbeerpi4 is out and stable now, may be worth a look?
It had good control including pid for the heaters.
Not linked to HA but useful in its own right.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Brewpi also worth a look.

 

[toledo]

After messing around (or up!) a RPi2 the bullet was bitten and a thin client Dell Wyse 5020 purchased from eBay. Looking today there are unused ones of these very cheaply available... Anyway, after sorting out the boot of the device and Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS it was time to install Home Assistant, which was done by installing Docker, then Portainer, and running a script to install Home Assistant. Pretty straightforward to get to here; adding a Zigbee hub (DeConz) was a little less obvious but can be done and Home Assistant will immediately recognise the device and any zigbee kit added and paired. More hardware: Sonoff mains switch; Sonoff temp/humidity sensor (attached to the fermenter); heater mat (blue disc, 30W) under the fermenter.
Two automations: one to look for temperature falling below a chosen setpoint (e.g. 20C) and switching on the heater (25 litre batch); another to evaluate that the heater has been on for an hour and switching it off.
The Home Assistant was actually for other purposes but does the job for fermentation at a marginal additional cost of about £50 for a reliable termperature controller setup.
Why Portainer? Home Assistant changes 2 or 3 times a month, and updating it using Portainer is as easy as: Stop container, Recreate (pull image), check Start.
Analogous setup to that of @Agentgonzo

 

[Twostage]

I use a network of Pi zeros to control the central heating and hot water using S/W I wrote. Its parent was a control system for a brew fridge when I realised that a brew fridge and a central heating system are similar enough from a S/W control point of view. The latest build has 4 temperature sensors so I can monitor the temp of two fermenters, the fridge and the ambient temp (which is just for interest really). Its also in a proper project box unlike V1 which was in a wooden box that some port came in .

Another pair control the living room TV, Satellite recorder, blueray and kindle firestick and kitchen TV all using the same remote control. Nearly went insane putting that lot together .