• 8 Posts
  • 97 Comments
Joined 3 years ago
cake
Cake day: June 13th, 2023

help-circle

  • Boilers are kinda on/off, from a control perspective.
    The boiler heats water to the set flow temperature, pumps it around the loop, and repeats until it’s switched off.
    The amount of gas used is modulated by the boiler to make the water come out at the right flow temperature.
    Unless all the rooms in your house are perfectly insulated, or so badly insulated that they lose heat instantly, ad-hoq temperature changes in individual rooms is tricky to do well.

    I did have smart TRVs for a while, but actually ended up binning them.
    So my current solution is:
    HomeAssistant controlled call-for-heat. This is a relay that when connected, turns the boiler on.
    Temperature sensors in each room. This allowed me to balance the radiators so they all warmed up evenly, and also feed into the HA thermostat to decide when the heat needs to come on.
    Manual TRVs in each room set to slightly above the normal target temperature. So they’re normally open, but will close if something crazy happens, like someone turning on a fan heater.
    Timed target temperatures in HA. So the target temperature drops at bedtime, and rises just before I get up.

    I also lowered the flow temperature of the boiler, which improves efficiency.
    I’m not 100% sure what you’re trying to achieve in your setup.
    But adding TRVs to each room (and having one always-open, like the bathroom) would be a good step forward.



  • I love my Reolink one.
    It’s powered by PoE, which means running an ethernet cable, and either using a PoE capable switch, or injecting the power just for that cable with an injector.
    If you’re planning a few cameras, a switch is worth it, as you can power them all easily. Basic ones are £20.

    Because it’s powered, it will stream all day/night without worrying about batteries. It stores video locally on a microSD, and dumps clips to FTP happily.
    The clip capture is pre-rolled too (30s, I think?), which is always nice.

    Currently, I have the feed in dashboards, and I have an automation that flashes the lights and sends a picture to my phone when someone presses the bell.
    Eventually, I’d like to integrate it directly into HA so I can speak to people without using the Reolink application.

    I like Reolink’s other cameras too (they do quite a few). I have an 810A, and a 510, if you wanted any feedback on them.









  • If it helps for a future purchase, Focusrite’s external interfaces have been amazing for Linux support.

    To the point where I didn’t even notice; It just worked perfectly out of the box.

    I’m assuming you’ve already checked this, but is your interface set to the same frequency/bit depth between Linux and windows? Or if it uses optical, whether it’s set to the same word clock source.






  • I knew this would come up, which is why I threw in the “ok for consumer gear” line.
    I don’t have any super accurate sensors at home to test against, but to be honest, cheap hydrometers are best for vague ranges. “It’s damp”, “it’s normal”, or “It’s dry”.
    Which is actually what I use it for: It’s in the bathroom to send alerts to open or close the windows based on humidity and outside conditions.

    Compared to the rest of the sensors in the house, when the windows are open and air in the house is normalised, it’s within 5%, which is about all I could really hope for.