Archived Forum

What or how do you control the air conditioner?

Bedroom one via IFTTT and Sensibo which is an internet connected smart controller,

rest of house via IFTTT and Ecobee's which is another internet connected smart thermostat

I had wondered if you were using WeMo as there is a Linux support system for that now.

Linux to IFTTT looks challenging though.

Nope I'm not using that.

I haven't seen an obvious route yet between EMONCMS and IFTTT apart from publishing it to something like Twitter. I'm hoping someone will have an answer. I'm thinking a combination of adding feeds together in EMONCMS, then removing a calibration value followed by allow positive to create the spare power available signal, but I'm unsure where to go from there.

suggestions anyone?

I'd say use Node-RED and IFTT's new "Maker" channel to cook up a recipe that integrates emoncms and IFTT.

Thanks for the reply, do you know if it uses many resources? I've already got MQTTWarn running to translate MQTT topics into a form that EMONCMS can see and OPENHAB which is written in Java to talk to my ECOBEE thermostat. I'm guessing they'll all play nicely together but I'm concerned the pi2 may run out of power or memory.

It can be demanding on memory especially that you have so many things running already. I believe the way to go is for a cloud VM, running all these things and then use the RPi as a dummy forwarder only. There are pretty darn cheap deals on digitalocean for example.

Thanks, I did wonder. Maybe I can do something with MQTTWarn and a dummy twitter account. I'll experiment further. A cloud account could work however it does add an extra layer of complication into things that's not under my control.

Can anyone suggest any way other than through Node Red to get a EMONCMS feed into IFTTT?

There is now IFTTT Maker which allows the sending of data or simply the on, off or toggle command.

I have a "working" system using php to send the on or off command. However today the system sent the command, IFTTT received and logged it, but the mode on the WeMo switch didn't change. There is also appears to be a significant delay between the command being sent and the switch changing.

The best option is to use the open source python code run on your local RPi to do the controlling, however I haven't yet integrated this into my project yet. I am using for a pool pump.

Things have moved on a bit since I last posted in this thread. I now use Openhab on the pi taking MQTT inputs from Emonhub and controlling things including my pool pump which turns on when the sun is out and turns off when it goes in with the aim of completing my daily filtering cycle using spare solar power. It works well. Openhab talks direct to wimo I believe if you are interested in a non cloud solution.

This OpenHab looks like it could be a good solution.

Have you had any experience integrating IR remote controls with it?
The only two I found listed that it supports are very expensive.

Are there any good threads on here or blogs else where on the integration of EMONCMS and Openhab?

I use a 433mhz transceiver with it and a home easy (trust home automation, previously known as Coco in Australia / NZ) remote control as well as the iPhone app to switch things on and off. Can't comment on the IR kit as I've not tried any. 

There is an EMONCMS binding but it didn't seem to work with my emonpi image so I used the raw MQTT messages from the Emonhub part of EMONCMS as inputs. It may work with the normal installation but I've never tried it.

For basic Openhab installation take a look at www.homeautomationforgeeks.com i modified the instructions by installing it into /home/pi/data/Openhab as Openhab likes to be able to write to its directory tree and by default the low write raspberry pi install only allows writing into a small number of locations. You'll also need to type rpi-rw before you install to allow writing to the rest of the file system.

Thanks for this.

When you say you installed it to the /home/pi/data/Openhab folder, do you mean you copied all the contents of the distribution-1.7.0-runtime.zip into this folder?

I tried this, but I receive the command not found when I try to run the start.sh file.

Also if you could provide a copy of your default.sitemap and default.items files that would be very helpful.

Simply copying the runtime should get you a working system, although you need to add in the demo sitemap and items files which are seperate downloads and a good place to start. My items and sitemap is very large and would make no real sense unless you know my setup and what I do with it.

To get the start.sh to run you need to change permissions and I'd strongly recommend following the info on the homeautomationforgeeks site, albeit with a different directory holding the openhab files.

Mine is started using "sudo /etc/init.d/openhab start" which is all documented on there. Basically you need to install the script in /etc/init.d, then make it executable, and from memory a couple of other things before it works.

Good luck!