Hi,
For monitoring stuff around the house, like heating, I have found
"openhab" openhab.org to be very good.
It is open source, and you can write your own data collection plugins.
So you should be able to modify your existing data collection programs
to interface to openhab.
It has nice looking web interfaces, and also a mobile app.
I have previously tried domogik.
https://github.com/domogik/domogik
But I found domogik rather unstable.
openhab has been very stable and useful.
I have not tried other home automation systems.
Kind Regards
James
On Fri, 1 Jan 2021 at 13:33, Roger Munford via Hampshire
<hampshire@???> wrote:
>
> It is customary at this time to wish everybody a happy new year. However
> it is probably more appropriate to wish you all good luck in the future.
>
> I haven't had a question [n years and now two have popped up at the same
> time.
>
> The first is advice on programming. I have programmed everything in C
> but would be interested to know if there are any advantages in adopting
> another language.
>
> I have a couple of projects to do with household monitoring running on
> raspberry pis and I have done enough to get them working but I would now
> like to make them more robust.
>
> The first is a central heating monitor. I have a vaillant boiler and
> some years ago bought a windows programme plus a hardware dongle which
> monitors the communication between boiler and controller (ebus). By
> experimentation and research I found the necessary commands so that I
> can get information such as room temperature and programmer times and
> can change the heating programme details remotely. This wasn't as useful
> as I thought because I discovered that I was working from home and
> everyday was pretty well the same as any other day.
>
> My system consisted of two parts which communicated by using shared
> memory. The first part consisted of the bus monitor which synchronised
> with the bus and read every packet. Some data came randomly such as
> current room temperature and when that was received the shared memory
> was updated. Other data such as programme times were only sent after a
> request so the monitor would have to send those as well. Temperature
> data was stored on Mariadb. I had hoped at one stage to make it
> inteklligent so the boiler was only activated when necessay, not just
> follow the timer.
>
> The second part is a webserver and I used PHP to create a web page with
> the controls on and communicate with shared memory. When a control is
> changed, a flag is set and the monitor sends the commands to the boiler
> controller to get the required data.
> It all works but is there a better way of organising it.? It runs on
> plain Raspbian but is there a better OS more suited to these sort of
> apps. should I be looking at Ubuntu core for safety and upgradeabilty?
>
> I have some other monitoring projects which are gathering data. I
> monitor my electricity consumption, solar generation and car charging
> (modbus) and plan to monitor individual room temperatures (one wire) and
> water consumption and rain water harvesting usage pulse (counting). I
> am interested in doing more home automation. Would it be worth getting a
> home automation package and could they be configured to work with these
> disparate functions?
>
> The second major query has arisen because my local community formed a a
> whatsapp group during the covid crisis which was very successful. Two
> groups are emerging. Those that want to support the natural environment
> and those that want to tackle social problems in our area. I know first
> hand some people involved in long established groups in both of these
> areas but their activities are not well known and I think that we need a
> couple of websites that people could refer to. Could anybody recommend a
> solution which would involve cheap hosting, ability to register details
> and easy administration. It might even be a sort of dating app. Those
> offering help and those organisations who may need it.
>
> Thanks for your time, I would be grateful for any comments.
>
> Good luck in the New year.
>
> Regards
>
> Roger
>
>
> --
> Please post to: Hampshire@???
> Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
> LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk
> --------------------------------------------------------------
--
Please post to: Hampshire@???
Web Interface:
https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire
LUG URL:
http://www.hantslug.org.uk
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