Blog
The Tailscale service solves access between individual devices if you don't have a public IP address. It's free for one user with support for up to 100 devices. We'll show you how to install Tailscale on a Raspberry Pi that you'll have at home and on a client (Android, iPhone) from which you'll want to access the home Raspberry Pi. Our example will be remote access to OpenHAB running on a Raspberry Pi. However, the same setup applies to many other applications - home NAS, PiHole, Home Assistant, Domoticz, NextCloud, and others.
The Shelly brand is known for its products that primarily communicate over WiFi, including smart plugs, relay switches, blinds control relays, and many other devices. One of the advantages for deployment is the ability to both read and control these devices using the universal MQTT protocol. Across existing add-ons for both OpenHAB and Home Assistant, we will demonstrate how to use Shelly devices without installing any additional extensions.
In this post, we will show you how to retrieve information from a photovoltaic power plant by Victron. We will connect to the Cerbo unit via MQTT. Based on these values, we can control various appliances (heating, boiler, etc.) and prevent the battery from being drained when they don't need to be.
In the post, we will demonstrate step by step how to communicate directly with the GoodWe inverter in a smart home setup and obtain real-time information (unlike the SEMS portal). This information is essential if we want to react to current parameters in a smart home, such as activating additional cooling or controlling a socket with a various load.
In this article, we will connect the Amazon Echo Dot voice assistant with open source home automation. We won't be using OpenHAB Cloud, so everything runs locally. In this case, a few additional settings are necessary, but the result is worth it!
In this series, we will look at the step-by-step setup of MikroTik devices for home users or a small business (up to 25 people). In the first article, we will focus on the initial setup - we will download Winbox and set up DHCP for the primary network and guest network. Similarly, we will also adjust the WiFi settings.
In a your smart home, PIR sensors may not only be used to switch lights on and off based on motion, it is possible to utilize these sensors to detect the presence of motion in a particular room. This information can be used to create a relatively reliable uncertified home security system. In this guide, you will find the logic for how this can work in the OpenHAB software in our model smart home.
NFC (Near Field Communication) tags are small plastic or paper stickers that can be used to automate various functions in the smart home. In this article, we will show you examples of use and a guide on how to write an action on an NFC tag using a mobile phone.
In this article, you will find a detailed guide on how to connect to WireGuard VPN from Android.
In this article, you will find a detailed guide on how to connect to WireGuard VPN from iOS.
This article describes the self setup of the WireGuard VPN protocol on MikroTik devices with RouterOS version 7 and higher. This phenomenal VPN is very fast, secure, and easily configurable in a home environment. It can be said that it is currently the best VPN for home use available.
We provide tutorial for the connection of the active Nilan recuperation unit, in our case the VP18 K WT type with OpenHAB 3. By communicating via Modbus it is possible to read the whole range of values, but mainly also to control the unit through OpenHAB. This allows us to remotely or programmatically change the performance and ventilation settings depending on the mode (night, cooking, etc.)
We are providing a simple step-by-step tutorial how to install home energy meter. We did not find any MQTT device, so we buy Aeotec Home Energy Meter as we are already have a Z-Wave controlller in our smart home.
In this article you will find detailed instructions on how to connect to OpenVPN from iOS devices.
The classic disk cloning tool in linux is the dd command. This command creates a image of disk or extracts the contents from the image to disk. The dd tool needs to be handled carefully and you need to understand its use. We'll show a more advanced technique of creating a disc image that contains unallocated space. A classic example is when I have a Raspbian operating system installed on a 250 GB disc, but there's only a tiny boot partition (e.g. sda1) and my own operating system partition (sda2) which together have 15 GB. Instead of saving a 250 GB image, I would like to save only two partitions with 15 GB, so that the image is smaller and can be expanded to 16 or 32 GB flash.
In this article you will find detailed instructions on how to connect to OpenVPN on Android.
If you have a smart-home, NAS, etc., it's a good idea to think about safe access to your network when you are not at home. Currently I recommend commercial router like Turris or a cheaper option of MikroTik routers. In the other hand, Raspberry Pi can be used as OpenVPN server too. In this article, we will show how to set up secure access to your home network from the internet using OpenVPN on MikroTik routers.
The HC-SR501 PIR sensor contains mechanical adjustement for range detection and time. But in an intelligent house, we want to be able change time how long the light will be active and change whether the light will be controlled by PIR or not. You can find a tutorial how to config your PIR sensor to enable this features in this article.
Native support for OpenHAB is provided by video intercom by Doorbird company. The solution is powered and connected by a UTP cable and has its own IP address to make it easier for you to install at the gate. OpenHAB is then able to import images from the intercom, visit history, manage gate opening on the button and by the phone, do not disturb feature during night, alarm feature etc. In the instructions we guide you how to use OpenHAB with Doorbird D101.
In this article, you can find how to indicate water level in the reservoir (e.g. rainwater tank). The values are converted into the volume in liters. This feature enables you to automatically fill the tank when needed or predict any other situations (e.g. irrigation volume)
DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface) is an open interface for lighting controls in the home, industrial buildings, public objects, etc. To connect to our OpenHAB system, we can use a commercial converter from ADFWEB called HD67941-B2 - DALI / MQTT - Converter. In the article, we will show how to use this converter in conjunction with MQTT.
Sometimes you need to edit SMB shared folders and add new location. In Samba, the configuration file smb.conf is the configuration file you should edit. Below it's described how to edit configuration as you want.
Local weather station allows you to track the exact direction and speed of the wind, the amount of rainfall but also the intensity of the sun's radiation. This information can be used, among other things, to protect interior of the house from the sun or wind and to decide on the garden irrigation. We will show you how connect commercial weather station with OpenHAB.
Need fixed IP address for OpenHAB? Simple guide will show you how to set static IP address on linux Debian systems like Raspbian. You can use same guide for ubuntu or other debian like linux systems.
