Home Automation, part 6: Leaving and Arriving home routine via NodeRed

Posted on 2021-02-28

Context

Following my previous posts about my automation flows[1] and my night and morning routines[2], in this post, I want to describe the two simple routines I have in place for when I leave my place or when I come back.

1: /2021/02/06/home-automation-part-4-list-of-my-nodered-automation-flows/

2: /2021/02/22/home-automation-part-5-night-and-morning-routines-with-nodered/

It is basically about managing devices and alarms when I leave or come back home.

The involved devices are:

A raspberry pi 0W with a fisheye camera pointing at the door entry running motion[3];

Telegram on my phone;

A z-wave door sensor;

My homelab[4] cluster with NodeRed[5], Domoticz[6] and Mosquitto[7];

Nota: More devices will be used for the next post explaining all alarms in place.

3: https://motion-project.github.io/

4: /pages/home-lab/

5: https://nodered.org/

6: https://www.domoticz.com/

7: https://github.com/eclipse/mosquitto

Routine description:

Leaving Routine

When leaving my apartment, the following scenario runs:

Wait 30s and: * Switch off lights and TV (if on); * Stop kodi media server and the multi room music system if playing; * Switch off the piscreen display.

Wait 5min and: * Start entry door camera (motion); * Set "Away" mode (for alarms); * Send "good by" notification.

The NodeRed flow looks like this:

NodeRed leaving flow [IMG]

I will describe in the next post the alarms themselves in place and how they work so I won't say much here except that NodeRed will send via MQTT a message. A custom python script run on the raspberry pi 0W with motion listen to this specific topic. Depending on the message, the script will start/stop motion and the camera. Stay tuned for more details.

You can read the part 4[8] for details on managing the devices.

8: /2021/02/06/home-automation-part-4-list-of-my-nodered-automation-flows/#device-mgt

5min later, I will receive a message on Telegram if everything went well saying «Away mode activated! See you soon :)».

Starting the "leaving routine"

I used to have a Bluetooth beacon to detect if I was home or not but it died. Since then, I have a more manual process. When leaving the house, I have multiple options to start the "leaving home" scenario:

On the touch piscreen, I can start the "leaving home" scenario (see this post[9] for a screenshot of the dashboard);

By clicking on my "exit button" near the entry door. Unfortunately, this is the only unreliable z-wave device I have so I don't really use it as it doesn't work most of the time[^1];

By clicking on the right button that my multi button remote control[10];

By sending a Telegram command (Allow me to enable it whenever I want).

Arriving Routine

When arriving home, the following is done:

9: /2021/02/06/home-automation-part-4-list-of-my-nodered-automation-flows/#dashboard

10: https://www.remotec.com.hk/zrc90

Switching off the entry camera (stopping motion);

Switch on piscreen display;

Send me a welcome message on telegram (just to make sure that if anyone else know how to stop the alerts by saying I'm home, I still receive something on telegram);

Change house mode from "away" to "home";

The NodeRed flow looks like this:

NodeRed home flow [IMG]

Again, on the next post I'll talk about the different alerts mechanism in more details. But same as above, a message is sent via MQTT so that the motion service is stopped.

Starting the "arrived home routine"

As said above, I do not have Bluetooth detection anymore to see if I'm home or not. To start this scenario, I can:

Click on a specific button of the remote control;

Send a telegram message (eg: when in the elevator);

Wait for the alert and indicate I'm home (read below).

The 3rd option is the one I'm using the most because when I get back home without starting the home routine ahead (which I never do since I don't do Bluetooth detection), it will starts an alert (because door has been opened while "away mode" activated, and because the entry door camera will detect motions).

Again, I will explain in details the alarm/alerts in place, but what you need to know here is that when the entry door is opened while in "away" mode, I will receive a message via telegram asking « Stop Alert », « Real Alert », « I am Home ».

More details later, but clicking on « I am Home » will simply start the "arriving home" scenario.

Telegram Door Alert [IMG]

So when I arrive home, I usually use this.

[^1]: I use this Fiboro button[11]. Unlike all other Fibaro[12] devices that works flawlessly, this one just doesn't work properly. And seeing other comments online, I'm not the only one. Too bad for a device that is supposed to by used as an emergency button…

11: https://www.fibaro.com/fr/products/the-button/

12: https://www.fibaro.com/

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