feed.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" ><generator uri="https://jekyllrb.com/" version="4.3.2">Jekyll</generator><link href="https://sortedbits.nl/feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" /><link href="https://sortedbits.nl/" rel="alternate" type="text/html" /><updated>2024-02-22T08:08:53+01:00</updated><id>https://sortedbits.nl/feed.xml</id><title type="html">Sorted bits</title><subtitle>Random stuff</subtitle><entry><title type="html">Migrated to Homey</title><link href="https://sortedbits.nl/blog/migrated-to-homey" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Migrated to Homey" /><published>2024-01-07T00:00:00+01:00</published><updated>2024-01-07T00:00:00+01:00</updated><id>https://sortedbits.nl/blog/migrated-to-homey</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://sortedbits.nl/blog/migrated-to-homey"><![CDATA[<p>In my holiday break wetalked a lot about how Home Automation, but more importantly, home control was taken care of. There were some complaints about
system being to difficult and there were a bunch of issues, which needed to be resolved.<!--more--></p>

<p>After a bunch of research and experiments with all kinds of dashboard, it really felt like I was the only one using Home Assistant and the rest was accepting the quirks of the home.</p>

<p>So, while I had a 3 week break at work, I did some work and changed a bunch of stuff:</p>

<ul>
  <li>Switched out Home Assistant for a Homey Pro (2023).</li>
  <li>Installed physical switches for lights in the kitchen, connected to Zigbee in-wall switches.</li>
  <li>Installed a Zigbee in-wall switch in the office space, connected to a physical switch.</li>
  <li>Installed my Button+ on the wall and configured the switches to perform tasks that we do every day.</li>
</ul>

<p>The switch to Homey started as an experiment, but the more I started tinkering with it, the more I saw the ease of use this system offers.</p>

<p>After my 3 week holiday I had everything ported over and was actually ready to switch Home Assistant off, which I did.</p>

<h3 id="missing-apps">Missing apps</h3>
<p>First thing you do when trying to find an alternative to Home Assistant, is to see what hardware is compatible. If not everything you use is compatible, you look at ways to make it compatible. I was missing a couple of things in this.</p>

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>App</th>
      <th>Status</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="https://github.com/sorted-bits/intergas-homey">Intergas Incomfort</a></td>
      <td>In certification process</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="https://github.com/sorted-bits/com.sortedbits.rainbird">Rainbird</a></td>
      <td>Almost ready for certication</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="https://github.com/sorted-bits/com.sortedbits.dsmrreader">DSMR Reader MQTT</a></td>
      <td>In test</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td><a href="https://github.com/sorted-bits/com.sortedbits.grott">Grott MQTT</a></td>
      <td>In test</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

<p>The development of apps in Homey is a pretty fun thing to do, but also, some of this is in pretty beta state at the moment.</p>

<h3 id="insights">Insights</h3>
<p>I am a numbers and graphs nerd and this was actually one of the things that first grabbed me when I was looking for an easier alternative to Home Assistant. The graphs in Homey looked simple but beautiful.</p>

<p><img src="/assets/images/20240107/homey-graph.png" alt="Power usage graph" /></p>]]></content><author><name></name></author><category term="Home Assistant" /><category term="Homey" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[In my holiday break wetalked a lot about how Home Automation, but more importantly, home control was taken care of. There were some complaints about system being to difficult and there were a bunch of issues, which needed to be resolved.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Home Assistant padding card</title><link href="https://sortedbits.nl/blog/home-assistant-padding-card" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Home Assistant padding card" /><published>2023-12-24T01:00:00+01:00</published><updated>2023-12-24T01:00:00+01:00</updated><id>https://sortedbits.nl/blog/home-assistant-padding-card</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://sortedbits.nl/blog/home-assistant-padding-card"><![CDATA[<p>I like my Home Assistant cards to be spaced out nicely, there, I said it!
<!--more--></p>

<p>And while for all these styling changes, my first instinct was to grab the excellent <a href="https://github.com/thomasloven/lovelace-card-mod">card mod</a>, this does come with a limitation (when you are working with stacks): You can’t apply a styling to a card that doesn’t render an element itself, e.g. the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">vertical-stack</code> and the problem is, I use that card all over the place.</p>

<p>For example, look at this example:</p>

<p><img src="/assets/images/padding-card-screenshot.png" alt="Padding example" /></p>

<p>This is what the padding card can do for you as well. Just copy it in the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">www/padding-card</code> directory, add it to your resources and you are able to use this <strong>AMAZING</strong> card yourself.</p>

<figure class="highlight"><pre><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="pi">-</span> <span class="na">type</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">custom:padding-card</span>
  <span class="na">height</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">10 // the default is 6, if you use that, you can omit the height configuration</span></code></pre></figure>

<p><a href="https://github.com/sorted-bits/padding-card">Grab the card here!</a></p>

<p>PS. If you look at the screenshot and think, how did he get such a nice title between those cards, do I have a surprise for you later on… (hint: it’s a custom card).</p>]]></content><author><name></name></author><category term="Home Assistant" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[I like my Home Assistant cards to be spaced out nicely, there, I said it!]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Home Assistant sidebar order card</title><link href="https://sortedbits.nl/blog/home-assistant-sidebar-order-card" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Home Assistant sidebar order card" /><published>2023-12-24T00:00:00+01:00</published><updated>2023-12-24T00:00:00+01:00</updated><id>https://sortedbits.nl/blog/home-assistant-sidebar-order-card</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://sortedbits.nl/blog/home-assistant-sidebar-order-card"><![CDATA[<p>After successfully getting my kids to install the Home Assistant app, there was one glaring problem. Dashboards are sorted alphabetically!<!--more--></p>

<p><img src="https://media2.giphy.com/media/tfUW8mhiFk8NlJhgEh/200w.gif?cid=6c09b9522xyi5p51lysglw1pjnzgo1f94bh1f91pzneyslyf&amp;ep=v1_gifs_search&amp;rid=200w.gif&amp;ct=g" alt="Shocked" /></p>

<p>TL;DR <a href="https://github.com/sorted-bits/sidebar-order-card">Github link</a></p>

<p>This has been a problem with Home Assistant for me, as I love to have 2 separate accounts, one admin and one normal user account. This way I can keep some stuff separated. Except, logging in and out resets your dashboard order <strong>every time</strong>! I like my dashboards sorted a certain way and this <em>hack</em> does it using a card.</p>

<p>After installing this card, there are 2 modes this card provides, which are:</p>

<ul>
  <li>“Show me my current order and display a configuration”-mode</li>
  <li>“Always make sure that this is my order”-mode</li>
</ul>

<h4 id="show-me-my-current-order-and-display-a-configuration-mode">Show me my current order and display a configuration-mode</h4>

<p>This mode grabs your current configuration from the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">local storage</code> and displays a configuration for this card, based on your current dashboard ordering/visibility.</p>

<p>Make sure you add this card to your default dashboard configuration (or even ALL of them, but e.g. using the <a href="https://github.com/custom-cards/decluttering-card">decluttering card</a>).</p>

<figure class="highlight"><pre><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="pi">-</span> <span class="na">type</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">custom:sidebar-order-card</span>
  <span class="na">initial</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="kc">true</span></code></pre></figure>

<p>The above configuration will display the card, with your current sidebar order. It will probably look something like this.</p>

<figure class="highlight"><pre><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="pi">-</span> <span class="na">type</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">custom:sidebar-order-card</span>
  <span class="na">initial</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="kc">false</span>
  <span class="na">items</span><span class="pi">:</span>
    <span class="pi">-</span> <span class="s">home-dashboard</span>
    <span class="pi">-</span> <span class="s">woonkamer-dashboard</span>
    <span class="pi">-</span> <span class="s">energy</span>
    <span class="pi">-</span> <span class="s">history</span>
  <span class="na">hiddenItems</span><span class="pi">:</span>
    <span class="pi">-</span> <span class="s">developer-tools</span>
    <span class="pi">-</span> <span class="s">logbook</span></code></pre></figure>

<h4 id="always-make-sure-that-this-is-my-order-mode">“Always make sure that this is my order”-mode</h4>

<p>Copy the configuration that is displayed by your dashboard and replace the previous one. This will make the card invisible, but every time the dashboard loads, the configuration in the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">local storage</code> will be overwritten en your menu will have the predefined order.</p>

<h4 id="remarks">Remarks</h4>
<ul>
  <li>New dashboards will always be visible if they are not in your configuration. I <em>think</em> they will be added to the end of the menu.</li>
  <li>Reordering your menu and not storing that configuration in your card configuration, will end up removing your new order.</li>
  <li>This is probably not the greatest solution for this, as this would probably be a per-user server-side configuration, but until then, this works.</li>
</ul>

<p><a href="https://github.com/sorted-bits/sidebar-order-card">Grab the card here!</a></p>]]></content><author><name></name></author><category term="Home Assistant" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[After successfully getting my kids to install the Home Assistant app, there was one glaring problem. Dashboards are sorted alphabetically!]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Display value from MQTT on Button+ display</title><link href="https://sortedbits.nl/blog/display-mqtt-value-on-button+" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Display value from MQTT on Button+ display" /><published>2023-12-23T15:52:35+01:00</published><updated>2023-12-23T15:52:35+01:00</updated><id>https://sortedbits.nl/blog/display-mqtt-value-on-button+</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://sortedbits.nl/blog/display-mqtt-value-on-button+"><![CDATA[<p>So, in <a href="/blog/publish-value-to-mqtt">the last post</a> I described how to publish a value from Home Assistant to MQTT. Lets do something useful with that.<!--more--></p>

<h3 id="living-room-temperature">Living room temperature</h3>

<p>Now I want to display the current living temperature as a BIG value on the display of the Button+. This is pretty easy, now that we have that value in MQTT. In the previous post, I published the value to the topic <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">button.plus/thermostat/current</code>, which should contain the living room temperature in Celsius.</p>

<p><img src="/assets/images/button-plus-temperature-example.png" alt="image" /></p>
<blockquote>
  <p>The alignment on the simulator isn’t completely the same as on the device itself, it needs some tweaking sometimes.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>When opening the Button+ configuration page, you are able to add a new <strong>Display item</strong> by clicking <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">Display configuration</code> &gt; <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">Add new empty display item</code>.</p>

<h4 id="appearance">Appearance</h4>

<p>The first screen that shows, is the appearance configuration. These values are the ones I use to display it in the middle of the screen:</p>

<figure class="highlight"><pre><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="na">x</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="m">25</span>
<span class="na">y</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="m">30</span>
<span class="na">Font size</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="m">5</span>
<span class="na">Alignment</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">Top Left</span>
<span class="na">Width</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="m">50</span>
<span class="na">Number rounding</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="m">1</span>
<span class="na">Label</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">&lt;empty&gt;</span>
<span class="na">Unit</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">°C</span></code></pre></figure>

<h4 id="mqtt-subscription">MQTT Subscription</h4>

<p>Once you have set the appearance, you want to add a subscription to the topic we mentioned above. We do that by clicking <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">Add new empty topic</code> and then clicking the new topic that has just been created.</p>

<p>In the topic details you need to fill in the following information:</p>

<figure class="highlight"><pre><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="na">Event type</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">Value</span>
<span class="na">Broker Id</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">&lt;your broker name&gt;</span>
<span class="na">MQTT topic</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">button.plus/thermostat/current</span>
<span class="na">MQTT Payload</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">&lt;empty&gt;</span></code></pre></figure>

<p>That’s it! This should display your value on the display.</p>]]></content><author><name></name></author><category term="Home Assistant" /><category term="Button+" /><category term="MQTT" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[So, in the last post I described how to publish a value from Home Assistant to MQTT. Lets do something useful with that.]]></summary></entry><entry><title type="html">Publish an Home Assistant value to MQTT</title><link href="https://sortedbits.nl/blog/publish-value-to-mqtt" rel="alternate" type="text/html" title="Publish an Home Assistant value to MQTT" /><published>2023-12-23T13:52:35+01:00</published><updated>2023-12-23T13:52:35+01:00</updated><id>https://sortedbits.nl/blog/publish-value-to-mqtt</id><content type="html" xml:base="https://sortedbits.nl/blog/publish-value-to-mqtt"><![CDATA[<p>A lot of times you want to display values on the <strong>Button+</strong> without already having that value available in MQTT, or maybe that value is in a different format and you want to want to publish a formatted version of that value.<!--more--></p>

<p>To get started with this, I use a very simple automation for each value I need. Of course, this can probably be done in a more complex way, but the idea is to demonstrate how to get the value in MQTT.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>This ‘tutorial’ expects you to have MQTT running and connected to both Home Assistant and Button+.</p>
</blockquote>

<h3 id="living-room-temperature">Living room temperature</h3>

<p>In my case, I really want to display the living room temperature on the <strong>Button+</strong> device. This is a value that Home Assistant fetches directly, without using MQTT, from the device itself.</p>

<p>For me this value is stored in a sensor called <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">sensor.living_room_temperature</code> and when I look at the value in my HA developer tools, it looks like this.</p>

<p><img src="/assets/images/living_room_temperature.png" alt="image" /></p>

<p>What we need now is a nice automation that tells Home Assistant to publish the temperature to MQTT each time it changes, that way the <strong>Button+</strong> can display the most recent value.</p>

<p>In Home Assistant, we click <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">Settings</code> &gt; <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">Automations &amp; Scenes</code> and then <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">Create Automation</code>. We use the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">Create new automation</code> option from the dialog that pops up.</p>

<p>Here is the YAML for the automation:</p>

<figure class="highlight"><pre><code class="language-yaml" data-lang="yaml"><span class="na">alias</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s2">"</span><span class="s">[Button+]</span><span class="nv"> </span><span class="s">Living</span><span class="nv"> </span><span class="s">room</span><span class="nv"> </span><span class="s">temperature"</span>
<span class="na">description</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s2">"</span><span class="s">"</span>
<span class="na">trigger</span><span class="pi">:</span>
  <span class="pi">-</span> <span class="na">platform</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">state</span>
    <span class="na">entity_id</span><span class="pi">:</span>
      <span class="pi">-</span> <span class="s">sensor.living_room_temperature</span>
<span class="na">condition</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="pi">[]</span>
<span class="na">action</span><span class="pi">:</span>
  <span class="pi">-</span> <span class="na">service</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">mqtt.publish</span>
    <span class="na">data</span><span class="pi">:</span>
      <span class="na">qos</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="m">0</span>
      <span class="na">retain</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="kc">true</span>
      <span class="na">topic</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">button.plus/thermostat/current</span>
      <span class="na">payload</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s2">"</span><span class="s">{{</span><span class="nv"> </span><span class="s">states('sensor.living_room_temperature')</span><span class="nv"> </span><span class="s">}}"</span>
<span class="na">mode</span><span class="pi">:</span> <span class="s">single</span></code></pre></figure>

<p>In this automation you can see that the trigger is a state change of the entity <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">sensor.living_room_temperature</code>. The action that is triggered is called an <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">mqtt.publish</code> and the <code class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge">payload</code> we publish is a state from the same sensor.</p>

<p>That’s it!</p>

<p>A good way to monitor MQTT and see if everything is getting published correctly is by using a tool like <a href="http://mqtt-explorer.com">MQTT Explorer</a> which gives you a real-time view of the values in your MQTT broker.</p>]]></content><author><name></name></author><category term="Home Assistant" /><category term="Button+" /><category term="MQTT" /><summary type="html"><![CDATA[A lot of times you want to display values on the Button+ without already having that value available in MQTT, or maybe that value is in a different format and you want to want to publish a formatted version of that value.]]></summary></entry></feed>