Home automation with Sailfish OS

Is anyone using a home automation system controllable using Sailfish OS?

I’m curious to know what sort of systems are out there, how they’re being used and what Sailfish OS software you use to control it (if any… maybe you’re just using the browser?).

I’m thinking of things like heating, lighting, music, security systems, etc… Home Assistant, Philips Hue, LIFX, DLNA, Alexa, Sonos, that kind of thing.

If you’re using anything like this, I’d love to know more.

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Yes. I have about 10 Sonoff switches/plugs, all have been flashed with TASMOTA. I have written an app specific to my set up, allowing me to control lighting, heating, HiFi and an RGB led strip. Sonoff devices once flashed with TASMOTA can be controlled via its own webpage, by RF fob, phone, etc.

Also, I have a Sonoff RF Bridge flashed with TASMOTA, this is useful for opening and closing my roller shutter, this is function is also included in my app. Getting the codes for the roller shutter took many, many hours/evenings to achieve.

For my Denon amp, I had to make my own IR transmitter, I used an ESP8266 dev board (€3) and an IR LED (€1.00 for 10) and mounted it in a Nescafe coffee pot lid. It hangs on a really short USB cable for power directly from a wall outlet which is opposite my amp. The ESP8266 board was also flashed with TASMOTA IR firmware.

I could ramble on about it all, as its taken many months of learning to code it all for SailfishOS and learning how to flash Sonoff modules, etc, etc.

All in all, a very homemade “home automation” system, but it all works 99.9% of the time. Sometimes a Sonoff module goes offline, killing the power for a moment usually sorts that.

Sonoff products are designed with DIY HA in mind, they practically cater for it while serving up EweLink as the proprietary app, but this means calling home to China each time you turn a light on or off…so, yeah, TASMOTISE IT!!

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There is Quartermaster on openrepos which does some Homeassistant stuff. However since I don’t have anything myself, I can’t tell you how good it is.

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That’s in my TODO list. So i’m currently using the web interface of domoticz via the browser. Works well enough.

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Interesting; Domoticz is a new one for me @JulienBlanc. Could you briefly describe what you have attached to it? How usable do you find the Domoticz Web interface?

I’d be interested to hear about anyone’s experiences using Quartermaster.

There is as well the Kasa app (openrepos) which controls tp-link kasa devices.

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I use Hue to control the lights.
Currently I use the Hue Android app but I’m also developing a native Hue app in parallel.

Due to very limited time it will take long to get it to a usable state…

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I also use Domoticz, with a variety of 433MHz (RFXcom), zWave and Zigbee devices:

  • temperature sensors,
  • velux/blinder controler,
  • motion detection sensors,
  • window/door opened/closed sensors,
  • power usage sensor,
  • on/off switches

As usual, a few articles on my blog :wink: Nico's blog — Posts tagged "Automation"

And I mainly use the stock SFOS browser for that, although a native app could be helpful.

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Thanks @pmelas. Do you use this yourself?

I am using the Alexa app to control smart home devices. I would also like to use the Xiaomi Home app but it appears to be incompatible with Android App Support, possibly because of the lack of Bluetooth.

No, I do not have TP-Link Kasa devices to test the app, I have few TP-Link Tapo devices instead which seems to be more popular and I use the official Android app via AD to control them.

Thanks for clarifying @pmelas. If anyone else is using the Kasa app, it would be great to know.

I have Homeassistant running at home with a bunch of Tasmota-based switches, a Sonoff-Tasmota-RF Bridge (for two remote controls), connections with the converter of the solar panels and the smartmeter and atm two Zigbee temperature sensors. I have not done too much with it yet, only smaller automations (e.g. for the Christmas lights… :wink: ) and a bit of monitoring of energy use. For what I want to do, Homeassistant is great, and I suppose I’m not even using half of what’s possible. Also, I have not exposed Homeassistant to the internet - if I do want to access it from outside my home (does not happen very often), I create a temporary ssh-tunnel.

With regard to Sailfish-support: in 4.3.x, the browser was too old and I could not use the web-interface that Homeassistant is offering. Hence, I was using Quartermaster. It works well if you just want to toggle a switch or read the value of a sensor, but otherwise, it’s still quite limited when compared to the web-interface or the Android app. Now, under 4.4.x, the browser has caught up far enough so I can use the web-interface - with that, I’m quite happy.

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I have the same experience with Home Assistant and SFOS. The current native web browser is able to display the Home Assistant dashboards. No need for (native) apps :slight_smile:

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I use domoticz to control several sensors, lights, smart plugs and switches, all parts of a single zigbee network.

In my opinion, there are three steps / phases in home automation:

  • add/create the devices to the automation network
  • configure the automation scripts (like, when i press this button, this action occurs)
  • live the automation

I don’t need a smartphone app for the first two steps, which are better done on a pc with keyboard / mouse. It could be useful for someone who don’t have a PC at hand, but my guess is that it’s not the average sailfish user. Usually, if the web api works from the browser, that’s also enough.

For the third step, a smartphone app could be useful, but the whole point of automation, is to not require user interaction. If i need a smartphone to put a light on, well, obviously my home setup is broken. There are, however, a few use cases where a smartphone app could be handy. This is for things that change often, such as my wake-up time. It would be nice to trigger the light in a dimmed mode at a specified wake-up time, and changing that wake up time should be nothing more than changing an alarm within the SFOS clock app. In that regard, the domoticz web interface is failing and an app would be nice.

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About LIFX , you can find this code at Github:

It’s now quite old. What i understand is that LIFX change often the hardware and at the end it’s difficult to write code for Lifx lights bulbs :frowning: I understand also that you need to make reverse engineering to have something working.
But this code could be a beginning ?

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I use Homeassistant on Raspberry Pi 4B (HASSIO) and RaspBee II. I mainly use security elements - sensors of opening, movement, smoke and heat, siren, SMS gate, cameras, but also a Honeywell thermostat, weather station and I would also like to use Shelly contactors for a pellet-electro boiler.
I use the web client on Ubuntu and SFOS 4.x (browser from stock). I’m happy with this configuration, everything I need works for me on SFOS. Perhaps I only miss active notifications. :wink:

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@flypig for DLNA/UPNP I found only Jupii but the one I have installed from storeman or somwhere else is not fully correct. Tested with LG and Panasonic TV it sometimes work, sometimes works for a moment, often TV display image for a few seconds and lost connection.

I have a custom controller for a pyranometer on my roof that switches a 3 kw heating element in my water heater in the summer. It’s home made and connected to raspi GPIO. I only record minimal stats which are available via a websocket via wlan. The whole point of this automation effort was to NOT have to interact with software :slight_smile:

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