I am a big fan of Home Assistant - Home Assistant and use it to control my house. Quick demo of some of the capabilities from HA webs - demo
It is a bit of a "rosetta stone" for home automation that allows you to mix and match all sorts of devices (zigbee, z-wave, wifi, 433Mhz,) from various vendors and have it all work seamlessly (no vendor lock-in). It is open source free software that you can run on a spare PC or raspberry pi. In my case I use a raspberry pi 4 with an SSD attached. It is controllable there is likely someone who is using HA to control it.
At home I have:
- lights (control lights on off, dim, etc.)
- switches (air filters, fans turn on/off)
- sensors (temperature, humidity, presence, door open close, water leak detection, etc)
- automations (arriving home at night, walk into room, garage door open, side gate open, etc.)
- presence detection (turn on counter lights when entering kitchen, closet lights, etc)
- reminders (you left the garage open, tomorrow is trash day, give dog medication, etc.)
- voice integration (hey google turn on X light, fan, filter, etc)
- voice notification (google devices say "hey dummy you left the garage open, or leak detected in attic water heater, etc.)
- control volume of music playing through the house, see what is playing, etc.
- control / monitor all the above while on the road (nabu casa)
All this is done with devices of all sorts (zigbee, z-wave, wifi, chrome cast, roku, google home) and from different vendors. Most run completely "locally" with no requirement for cloud or internet connection, while some require an internet connection. They have integrations for just about anything you can think off - integrations
Enough salesmanship, so I got to thinking about "Camper Assistant" and how it might be used in a camper so did some googling:
So I have a spare pi that I thought I might start doing some modest first steps:
- few sensors (temp, humidity, pressure) - zigbee sensor (no hub required with zigbee pie dongle)
- door sensors - sensor
- basic dash board to show graphs from sensors
- basic automations - turn on small light when door opens, etc.
- future potential (energy monitoring, leak detectors, GPS location tracking, OBD II vehicle data, battery powered cameras, puddle light on for night time bathroom break, etc.
You can go crazy with this stuff, some basics can be pretty handy and useful. I need another project like I need a hole in my head, but thought I would post for those geeky enough to think about this.
Next step - get pi running off batteries and loaded with basic integrations for starter sensors.
