Example of a real home automation system

In this section, the idea is to give you an overview of what a real home automation system looks like. I will do this by providing details about my own system.

History

I started to build my current system in 2017 when I first purchased my first four Wi-Fi actuator plugs. At that time, I didn’t have any idea how the system evolve. I just wanted to try to control them remotely and use the phone application to be able to turn them on or off remotely or program them to turn on or off based on a schedule. In 2019, I purchased the Raspberry Pi 4, again, with no idea of how to install any specific software to it, only a regular Linux distribution. I was living in a small, rented apartment with my family and had no plans to implement any automation.

In 2020, I finally decided to invest time in learning about Home Assistant and the ecosystem related to it. I installed Home Assistant on Raspberry Pi, and then I hacked the four actuator plugs by installing Tasmota on them. In the same year, I also purchased my first ESP8266 module and BME280 temperature sensor. I was able to create my own temperature sensor and integrate it into Home Assistant.

We purchased a house in 2021, and I became motivated to really automate it. In less than 1 year, I was able to grow the number of devices from 4 actuator plugs to 23 different devices, including commercial and homemade sensors and actuators.

Note

Tasmota (https://tasmota.github.io/) is the software system that will be installed on the sensors and actuators to work with the home automation system. It will be explained in Chapter 3.

Current configuration

The following tables list all devices I have at home, separated by device type. At the time of writing, besides the home automation server, there are 11 sensors and 11 actuators.

Home automation server

The home automation server is just one device, and Table 1.3 provide more details about it:

ID	Device name	Location	System installed	Specifications	Function
1	HomeCamino	Office	Home Assistant	Raspberry Pi 4	Home Automation Server

Table 1.3: Details about the home automation server

As mentioned previously, the home automation server I have at home is shown in Figure 1.8, and its creation and configuration will be covered in the next chapter.

Sensors

Table 1.4 presents the current sensors I have in my home automation system:

ID	Device name	Location	System installed	Specifications	Function
2	MB_Thermo	Master bedroom	ATC_MiThermometer	Xiaomi Mi thermometer	Measure the master bedroom temperature
3	MB_backyard_door	Master bedroom	Tuya	Door sensor	Detect the master bedroom to backyard door open
4	Front_door	Dining room	Tuya	Door sensor	Detect the front door open
5	LivingRoom_Thermo	Living room	ATC_MiThermometer	Xiaomi Mi thermometer	Measure the living room temperature
6	Kitchen_backyard _door	Kitchen	Tuya	Door sensor	Detect the kitchen to backyard door open
7	Backyard_Thermo	Backyard	ATC_MiThermometer	Xiaomi Mi thermometer	Measure the backyard temperature
8	Kid1_Thermo	Kid1 bedroom	ATC_MiThermometer	Xiaomi Mi thermometer	Measure kid1 bedroom temperature
9	Kid2_Thermo	Kid2 bedroom	ATC_MiThermometer	Xiaomi Mi thermometer	Measure kid2 bedroom temperature
10	Garage_door	Laundry	Tuya	Door sensor	Detect the laundry to garage door open
11	Garage_Thermo_Motion	Garage	Tasmota	ESP8266 own sensor	Measure the temperature and detect motion in the garage
12	ESP32_Thermo	Office	Tasmota	ESP32 own sensor	Five-zone BlueTooth temperature Hub

Table 1.4: Sensors in my home automation system

In regards to the sensors, it is worth commenting on the IDs 11 and 12, which are homemade sensors. In this book, we will cover them using hands-on projects in Chapter 3 and Chapter 10, respectively. In Chapter 10, the process of hacking the thermometer IDs 3, 5, 7, 8, and 9 will also be explained.

Actuators

Table 1.5 presents the current actuators in my home automation system:

ID	Device name	Location	System installed	Specifications	Function
13	MB_TV	Master bedroom	Tasmota	CT-065W plug	Turn on/off the master bedroom TV
14	MB_Fan	Master bedroom	Tasmota	SONOFF Basic R2 r	Turn on/off the master bedroom fan
15	DiningRoomLamp1	Dining room	Tasmota	CT-065W plug	Turn on/off one of the dining room lamps
16	Front Lights	Dining room	Tasmota	SONOFF Basic R2	Turn on/off master front lights
17	Kid1_Fan	Kid1 bedroom	Tasmota	SONOFF Basic R2 Mini	Turn on/off the master bedroom fan
18	Corridor_Lights	Corridor	Tasmota	SONOFF Basic R2 Mini	Turn on/off corridor lights
19	Laundry Lights	Laundry	Tasmota	SONOFF Basic R2 Mini	Turn on/off laundry lights
20	WLed_SW	Garage	Tasmota	CT-065W plug	Turn on/off front yard decoration lights
21	Coffeemaker	Anywhere	Tasmota	CT-065W plug	Turn on/off different lights at home
22	Wled	Front yard	WLED	WS2812 strip Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights	Control front yard decoration lights
23	Wled_tree	Dining room	WLED	WS2811 LED lights	Control Christmas tree LED lights

Table 1.5: Actuators in my home automation system

Most of my actuators are commercial based. Most of them are from SONOFF, which is known to be based on the ESP8265/8266 chip from Espressif Systems. In Chapter 4, I will tell you how I hacked two actuator models used at my home. Chapter 9 in this book will be another hands-on project to explain how actuators 22 and 23 were created.

Bill of materials and costs

I captured in Table 1.6 all the information you need to know about the cost and material used in my home automation system. Some items I purchased as kits with more than one unit, so I’m just including the items I need. I’m also including some tools and accessories I purchased for the installation. All costs are final costs after taxes.

More information and details about specific parts will be provided later in each of the hands-on project chapters:

Item	Function	Unit Cost (USD)	Qty	Total (USD)
Raspberry Pi 4 + power supply + case + 32 GB SD card	Home automation server	86	1	86
ESP32 module	Five-zone BT temperature collector	9	1	9
ESP8266 + BME280 (temperature sensor)	Part of a homemade temperature sensor	14	1	14
WS2811 LED lights	Christmas tree lights	15.50	1	15.50
ESP8266	Christmas light and front yard lights controller	3	2	6
Power Supply + WS2812 LED strip lights	Front yard LED strip lights	50	1	50
SONOFF basic R2	Various actuators	6.60	4	26.41
HC-SR501 PIR sensor	Part of a homemade motion sensor	2.50	1	2.50
Crimping tool + wire connector	Actuators installation	34	1	34
Universal Serial Bus (USB) wall charger	Homemade sensor	2.50	1	2.50
USB to Serial converter	Hack commercial sensors	6.50	1	6.50
SONOFF Mini R2 Basic	Various actuators	6.84	3	20.54
Tuya Smart Wi-Fi door sensor	Door sensors	5.80	4	23.2
Bluetooth Xiaomi thermometer	Five-zone Bluetooth temperature sensor	4.42	5	22.12
Total Cost				318.27

Table 1.6: Bill of materials and cost of my home automation system

I hope this section inspires and supports you to see how your home automation system could be if you don’t have one yet. If you do have one, I still believe it could inspire you to include new and different devices in your home. You will see that it is not difficult to create your home automation system. We will start to do this in the next chapter. Therefore we can conclude this section and this chapter with the following summary.