WLED & Home Assistant - #WLED 3ATIVE Logo. Final Build Demo

One of the first projects for my new Ender 3 V2 3D printer was to make my Logo in real life! 

Here I demo the project complete and run you through some of its feature, plus a little BTS of what's inside. 

WLED on a Sonoff - Part2 - DIY Logic Level Shifter

Sometimes you can not install your Sonoff Basics and Power Supplies close to your LEDs. Of course you can easily extend the power and data cables you will have a problem if the 'Data' wire is too long.

Pretty much all addressable LEDs need a 5volt level on the data wire. While most will work fine if they are commanded by the 3.3volts coming out of an ESP chip, longer cables will drop this 3.3volt signal too much. Making for some frustrating colour and effect issues.

In this video I show you two ways of making a cheap 'Logic Level Shifter' to boost the 3.3volt signal back up to a nice healthy 5volts of the 'Data' wire.

WLED on a Sonoff Basic

WLED is without a doubt THE BEST controller for your LED needs. 
Programmed to run on most ESP devices it can control hundreds of NEO-PIXELs LEDs, those individually addressable LED strips & strings to produce thousands for colours and many MANY effects.

The trouble is, these ESP devices and development boards, without some additional hardware, don't control the power to the strips - leaving your PSUs running 24/7.

 

Even when not lit, these LED 'Pixels' still draw around 1mA each and when you consider the average strip has 300 of these LEDs on, that's about a 1/3 of an Amp.

Now consider many of these strips adorning your home all year round just sitting there during the day and only being lit at night or even just for the holidays, you'll quickly see that's a HUGE waste of power.

⚡In fact, it's over SIX THOUNSAND Hours a year ! ⚡

Enter my tutorial...

Installing WLED on a Sonoff Basic has some massive advantages. First, it's compact and a nicely cased unit with convenient screw terminals. However, more importantly... It has a built in Mains switching Relay!

In this tutorial I show you have to use a Sonoff Basic to not only control your LEDs but with the on-board relay to shut them all down COMPLETELY when not in use!

Alexa NR Discovery still works

via IFTTT

Our guide to integrating Alexa in Home Assistant

Give your home a personality and have some fun too!!!

It's all very well having your home automated but, what if you're not near a control panel or your phone is over there!!! That's when you need voice control...

Being able to tell your home what you want AND have it talk back to you was a dream some years ago. Now you can DIY it yourself - for the cost of a 'Smart' Speaker

This series of tutorials will show you how to get voice control and feedback using more open-source software and plug-ins. There's no complicated setups, no extra sign-ups or subscriptions...

-  (unless you want to subscribe to our YouTube channel - thnx)

First: Getting Alexa and Home Assistant connected

There are many ways to integrate Amazon Alexa in to Home Assistant, this by far the easiest and quickest... 

https://youtu.be/r-pwLvCT0Bg

Next: Controlling your Home Assistant Devices

While all devices are 'discovered' as lights, we show you how much you can do using the power of Node-Red.

https://youtu.be/l1as3tYVy64

Now the fun part: - Advanced TTS (Text to Speech)

Of course there's standard TTS - blocks of text that are the same every time. How about automating random made phrases, given you HUNDREDS of variations.

https://youtu.be/3MdnRfCQcVE

Taking it even further: The power of TTS in Node-Red

Scripts and Home Assistant are fun but if you want more sophisticated speech, Node-Red gives you a re few more features.

https://youtu.be/Ib8RffCYcfo

More than one Alexa ?

In a another room and want to hear what the temperature is or need to have TTS follow you around the house? Let her know where you are!

https://youtu.be/cLv0CGgoTJ0

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Home Assistant & ESPHome Humidifier convert Demo

Here's a brief demo of my latest endeavour - Making a standard Humidifier 'Smart'

Using just a D1 mini programmed with ESPHome (through Home Assistant) I brought all the controls back to Home Assistant, including the Water Level Sens,r. plus, control of the LED/Night-Light.  

Internally I've stepped down the devices' in coming 24VDC supply to 5V, for the D1 mini. Then used the GPIOs to command the Humidifiers own CPU.
At this point the original rotary switch is disconnected. However, in the next update / phase of this project I will add that back in - as well as some indicator lighting.
There is also plans to change the on-board Light for something a li'more... well, RGB!!!  

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Home Assistant: Fans | Thermostats | other DIY - Oh Yeah

The main topic of this Live Stream is 'Ultimate Fan Project'

Watch Dave convert, from scratch, a standard 3-Speed Desk Fan. That note only is controllable from Home Assistant but also has local control by re-deploying the on-board speed selector. Plus add in some speed indicator LEDs

This fan can now be controlled by Home Assistant, Voice and still have manual local control... and of course reap the benefits of temperature, time of day and other automation controls.

You will see how to program a Sonoff Basic to use an 8 port expander to provide the necessary GPIOs for:

• 3 Fan Speeds
• 3 Indicator LEDs
• 3 Speed Selector Buttons

My GitHub page for ESPHome code & Other Info:

https://github.com/3ative/ultimate-fan-project

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ESPHome, Home Assistant DIY Digital Thermostat - demo

Just a quick update for a DIY ESPHome Thermostat...

Using just a D1 Mini programmed with (yes you're guessed it) ESPHome. Dave put together a working Wi-Fi thermostat. It is bi-directional meaning, it is able to control the Software thermostats in Home Assistant and get updates from Home Assistant and everything you need is displayed in the integrated OLED display. 

Once all the kinks are worked out a step-by-step tutorial will be made and the full code will be released.

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3ATIVE is getting all Automated

GOOD NEWS EVERYBODY!

Over the last year we have been working and testing some home automation products. Now we've settled on the open source software - "Home Assistant", it's time begin putting back to the community.
You may have seen previous post, where we discussed building an LED indicator/display in the IR remote receiver for a Media Centre PC.

We've recently started adding tutorial videos to our YouTube Channel and have a Playlist for our Home Assistant; Programming, Device and Gadget builds.
With accompany code and other information on our GitHub Page we hope to become a helpful resource for beginner to advanced users for this FREE software.

So, please Subscribe and tell everyone about us! LOL


More to come soon, stay tuned.