Blue Sky thinking with SageTV and Home Automation

[wayner]

I was playing around with my Control4 Home Automation system yesterday and I got to thinking about what I would like to see in an ideal world.

One thing that would be cool would be a "Pause and resume in Bedroom (or any other room) feature". So let's say you are watching a TV show on SageTV in your living room. You decide that you want to move to your bedroom. You would push one button - either on your phone, tablet or SageTV UI - and SageTV would pause, your HA system would shut off your TV, AVR, etc. It would then turn on your TV, AVR, etc in the bedroom, fire up SageTV and bring up the movie where you left off, just waiting for you to press Play when you get to the bedroom.

All of this should be feasible with something like Control4 and the SageX, or even using the (lightly documented) Logitech Harmony API, but it would take a bit of work.

Anyone else have any similar ideas on interesting ways of integrating SageTV and other sources in a HA system?

[KarylFStein]

Funny, I was going to ask something like this recently. I've been playing with HA at home, but the focus has really been on things that would help me on a regular basis, (which of course is different for others), rather than things I might use a couple times a year or just for the cool factor. But I figure as I keep tinkering we'll get into less used things and then the "hey, look what you can do" stuff. Of course one has to keep in mind how the kids might use the tools to torture each other, (e.g. I'm not putting any HA things in bathrooms or their bedrooms--I imagine they'd have all sorts of fun turning off lights, stereos, etc. while someone was trying to take a shower, sleep, etc.)

But I am sort of curious what people have done with HA to make life easier or even just fun for future fodder.

Right now I just have several light switches, a few outlets, some light bulbs, HVAC controls, water sensors and (sitting on the shelf currently until I have time), door controls. Plus Harmony remotes and a few Echos scattered about. Next I'm looking to put some control panels in. But no real plans after that.

I'm not very keen on the cloud, but did make an exception for the Echos, (well, and a vacuum although I'm not sure it helps me any to be able to remotely start it up, so might disconnect it from the WiFi). My parents bought me an Echo for Christmas so I sort of had to hook it up then ended up getting a couple more as it grew on me.

Mainly I use HA for lights (the kids are terrible about turning things off) and controlling entertainment consoles via the Echo. And while I've recently replaced my sump pump and water heater, sensors for flooding, (I had a couple incidents which prompted replacing of said appliances ). When I get to the doors it'll control those, (again, the kids are terrible about locking up).

I haven't really come up with "it would be cool if" ideas without then thinking that it would be more eye candy than useful. Getting basic Echo control of SageTV via an SSL connection is probably top on my wish list right now .

[will]

I am in the process right now of building out a home automation system. I'm using Home Assistant, an Open Source, locally ran, HA software. I haven't programed anything yet but this system will control every light in my house (about 50+ z-wave light switches/dimmers), whole house audio, security cameras, etc. One of the things that attracted me to Home Assistant is how it isn't cloud based but I can integrate it into Amazon Alexa with some custom python code on Lambda (an AWS service). I'll be able to say Alexa, tell (automation system name) to do X. X, is basically a YAML script you setup on Home Assistant.

Home Assistant is very customizable and I have thought about writing a plugin for it to interface with STV. For example, stopping what is currently playing on your living room TV and then playing it on your master bedroom TV and pausing it, wouldn't be difficult to code. I believe you can do all this right now with sagex.api (get what's playing, stop, play a file, pause, etc.) and I believe Home Assistant supports REST calls. Also, I've already started looking into z-wave based IR controllers so I can have Home Assistant turn TV's on and off and select the correct input.

I haven't moved into the new house yet so I haven't set things up but I can keep you posted if I do decide to integrate STV into my automation system.

[wayner]

I have had a Control4 HA system for about a decade. It controls lights, blinds, fireplace, door locks, etc and my security system and IP cameras can be accessed through it as well. Having the motion sensors from the security system also allows me to do motion lighting (If HallLightSensor IsActive Then Turn On Hall Light - kind of thing).

The Echo integrates very nicely into this and it has been very useful - "Alexa bedroom blinds down", "Alexa kitchen lights on". Having a HA system makes the Echo about 10X more useful. The Echo Dot is also very good for music playback if you send the output into an AVR or other decent speakers. You can start music with voice or use the Spotify app on your phone and then play to the Echo Dot.

I haven't integrated most of my AV equipment into Control4 as to do so you need controllers in every room to do the IR control and to connect into your AV. The IR control is less needed if your devices, like TVs, SageTV extenders and AVRs, can be fully controlled by IP. I have found that I like the Harmony remote controls to do all of this and the family is use to using the remotes so the FAF is good. I am now on my third generation of Harmony controls and almost all of them are the hub based systems that are controllable via IP but that is kind of a kluge.

FYI - for those with Harmony Hub remotes there has been some interesting work down on facilitating access to the API.
See https://www.myharmony.com/en-us/harmony-api
and https://github.com/maddox/harmony-api

[will]

Originally Posted by wayner

I have had a Control4 HA system for about a decade. It controls lights, blinds, fireplace, door locks, etc and my security system and IP cameras can be accessed through it as well.

I know this is off topic but what manufacture (e.g., somfy) are you using for motorizing your blinds?

[KarylFStein]

I ended up with OpenHAB and a Z-Wave dongle. There seems to be a religious war between OpenHAB and Home Assistant. I tried and liked both, but OpenHAB just clicked better with me.

OpenHAB has the Harmony integration as well as a couple forms of Echo integration. One is a skill and the other makes it look like a Hue bridge. The former is more feature rich, but that was too much cloud for me. The latter only does switch, dim and HVAC, but also lets me integrate with the Harmony. When I get to things like the garage door maybe I'll revisit the Echo skill so I don't have to say awkward things like "turn on the garage door" .

But as it stands you can say things like "turn on the living room TV" and it'll run the activity to set everything up, or "tell Harmony to turn up the volume", or "tell Harmony to pause", etc. We have the Dots and Bluetooth receivers so you can do things like say "play classic rock" followed by "turn on the living room speakers" to stream the music through the AVR.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by will

I know this is off topic but what manufacture (e.g., somfy) are you using for motorizing your blinds?

The blinds are actually made by Hunter-Douglas but I believe the motor/controller is made by Somfy. The first blinds that I have had are about a decade old and they are just controlled via IR. I got some additional blinds about 3 years ago that use something called the Hunter-Douglas Platinum bridge that is an IP connected bridge. But I have had problems with that. Subsequently that has been replaced with something called Hunter-Douglas Powerview.

One of the problems with a more "closed" system like Control4 is that you have to buy drivers and they can be expensive - often more than the hardware. There was a free driver for the Chamberlain MyQ garage door system but the API changed a few months back and the old driver doesn't work. So if you want to control it through my Control4 system I would have to pay something like $200 to buy the new driver. Or you can just use it with the MyQ app on your phone.

Getting all of this stuff to work together and talk to each other can be expensive and frustrating. One of the worst is integrating pool equipment where you often have to buy a hub or controller for about $500 which is very frustrating to add simple functionality and especially since the hardware is likely less sophisticated than a $10 Raspberry Pi with a few relays, etc.