Code Snippet – Hue Play Sync Status

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For those using Philips Hue Play Sync Box, you can integrate it with Home Assistant. Because Home Assistant treats the sync box like a media play, your able to start/stop the light syncing and grab status information. I have a dashboard the shows a summary of status information for all the hardware in my media cabinet. This card uses the custom:button-card to display the status of the Play Sync box.

Note: This snippet makes use of the button-card template feature. The template I used for this can be found here:

type: custom:button-card
template: large_status
icon: hue:sync-box
name: |
  [[[
    var status = ""
    if (states['media_player.theater_sync_box'].state == "idle" )
      var status = "On - Sync Idle ";
    else if (states['media_player.theater_sync_box'].state == "playing")
      status = "On - Sync Active ";
    else
      return "Off"
    status = status + "- " + entity.attributes.source
    return status;
  ]]]
entity: media_player.theater_sync_box
variables:
  label_var: Hue Play Sync

Code Snippet – Door and Lock Status

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This snippet uses two entities, a door lock and door sensor, and displays the status to the user. Using combination of icons, icon color and text, the user can determine if the door is open, closed and locked.

Code:

- type: custom:mushroom-template-card
  primary: Basement Door
  secondary: >-
       {{ 'Closed and Locked' if
       is_state_attr('binary_sensor.basement_door', 'raw_state_text',
       'Closed') and is_state('lock.basement_door_lock', 'locked') else
       'Open' if is_state_attr('binary_sensor.basement_door',
       'raw_state_text', 'Opened') else 'Closed and Unlocked' if
       is_state_attr('binary_sensor.basement_door', 'raw_state_text',
       'Closed')}}
  icon: >-
      {{ 'mdi:door-closed-lock' if
      is_state_attr('binary_sensor.basement_door', 'raw_state_text',
      'Closed') and is_state('lock.basement_door_lock', 'locked') else
      'mdi:door-open' if is_state_attr('binary_sensor.basement_door',
      'raw_state_text', 'Opened') else 'mdi:door-closed' if
       is_state_attr('binary_sensor.basement_door', 'raw_state_text',
      'Closed')}}
  icon_color: >-
     {{ 'light-green' if is_state_attr('binary_sensor.basement_door',
     'raw_state_text', 'Closed') and
     is_state('lock.basement_door_lock', 'locked') else 'yellow' if
     is_state_attr('binary_sensor.basement_door', 'raw_state_text',
     'Closed') else 'red' is
     is_state_attr('binary_sensor.basement_door', 'raw_state_text',
     'Opened')}}
  entity: binary_sensor.basement_door
   hold_action:
      action: more-info

Code Snippet – Cover Status

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This code snippet is an example of a cover status. In this example, we are displaying the current status of a group of blinds to the user. This snippet uses the Mushroom Dashboard cards. Two things are happening here:

  1. The secondary information is dynamic and changes depending on the status of the entity (in this case “cover.basement_window_shades”):
    • Open if the shade position is 0
    • Closed if the position is 100
    • Partially Open if the shade position is anything other that 0 or 100
  2. Similar to #1 the icon displayed is based on the status:
    • mdi:window-closed if the shade position is at 100. Note: mdi:window-closed shows a window with no shade giving the user the impression that the shade is fully open.
    • mdi:roller-shade-closed if the shade position is at 0.
    • mdi:roller-shade if the shade is partially open.

Code:

      - type: custom:mushroom-template-card
        primary: Basement Shades
        secondary: >-
          {{ 'Open' if is_state_attr('cover.basement_window_shades',
          'current_position', 100) else 'Closed' if
          is_state_attr('cover.basement_window_shades', 'current_position', 0)
          else 'Partially Open'}}
        entity: cover.basement_window_shade_02
        icon: >-
          {{ 'mdi:window-closed' if
          is_state_attr('cover.basement_window_shades', 'current_position',
          100) else 'mdi:roller-shade-closed' if
          is_state_attr('cover.basement_window_shades', 'current_position', 0)
          else 'mdi:roller-shade'}}
        icon_color: light-green

What is Home Automation?

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Home automation smart homeHome Automation is defined as building automation for the home. Homes with some home automation are often called intelligent homes or smart houses. A home automation system typically connects electronically controlled devices to a central hub that provides a user interface. This interface can be an app on your phone, a website you access for your computer or mobile device, or via a digital assistant like Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, or Google Assistant. Its goal is to make your life easier by automating mundane tasks.

The benefits of home automation include safety, convenience, control, comfort, and energy savings. Here are some of the most significant benefits that home automation provides:

  • Home automation is convenient. With home automation, you can control your home’s lights, thermostat, and even your coffee maker from anywhere in the world.
  • Home automation creates comforting routines. With innovative home technology, you can create routines that make your life easier and more comfortable.
  • Home automation offers data and control. With smart home technology, you can monitor your energy usage and control your appliances remotely.
  • Home automation increases safety and security. Using motion detectors, you can turn on outdoor lights, trigger a camera to record video of someone at your front door, or alarm an intruder by sounding the alarm.

home automation control panel smart homeToday’s home automation technology is far different from 10 years prior. Today we have technologies like Virtual Assistants and devices like Philips Hue smart lighting. Our cars are more intelligent and often connected to the internet. As a technology enthusiast, all of this is amazing to me. I can ask my smartwatch to open my garage door or unlock my front door. From anywhere in my home, I can access many devices from my smartphone. I can turn my bedroom lights on or set the temperature before leaving my living room. All of this sounds great. However, there are two significant problems with today’s home automation marketplace. Interoperability and security. This article discusses interoperability today and what it should look like in the future. We will also touch on an open-source project called Home Assistant and discuss how it helps solve the interoperability problem.

Today, we have multiple competing technologies that we can use to make our homes smarter. For example, to send instructions to a smart device, you need some method to communicate with it. Z-wave and Zigbee are two incompatible radio technologies that allow devices to talk wirelessly to a central hub. This requires you to lock yourself into one of the two’s ecosystems or buy and support both using two different hubs. For the non-technical homeowner, this can be intimidating to figure out. A new technology that was recently introduced, Matter, aims to fix this issue. Matter has the backing of industry insiders such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, Legrand, and Lutron, to name just a few. 

Another area where interoperability is an issue is Virtual Assistants (VA). Virtual Assistants allow you to interact with devices using just your voice. Amazon’s Alexa, Alphabet’s Google Assistant, and Apple’s Siri are the three most popular Virtual Assistants. You typically find an assistant installed on hardware sold by these companies. More so than Z-wave and Zigbee, users are locked into a proprietary ecosystem once they purchase one of their devices. Unfortunately, you need to ensure that any smart devices, such as lights or smart thermostats, are compatible with your preferred VA. 

Thankfully, there are solutions to the interoperability problem. One mentioned earlier, Matter, has broad support among device manufacturers and tech companies. If your smart device or virtual assistant supports Matter, you know your devices will be compatible. However, as of 2023, there aren’t many Matter devices on the market.

Home Assistant LogoAnother solution is to use a central control system. Several good open-source systems are out there, including OpenHAB, Hubitat, and my favorite, Home Assistant.

Home Assistant (HA) is an open-source software project supported by a vibrant community of developers. The software can be installed on almost anything, from a Raspberry PI to your home PC. HA is modular and extensible. Want to use Zigbee-based lights such as Philips Hue? You can purchase a Zigbee USB radio, plug it into your HA device and start pairing and adding your lights. Do you want to use one of those Yale keyless locks you’ve been eyeing at Lowes, but it only supports Z-wave? Purchase a Z-wave USB radio, plug it into your HA device, and pair your newly installed lock. What about Virtual Assistants? Sure, HA supports all Virtual Assistants, including ones you probably have never heard of. HA is then where the automation magic happens. Using one of several methods, you can create automation rules that make your smart home truly smart. Do you want your outside lights to come on an hour before sunset? Easy, create just that rule. Take it a step further, purchase an outdoor sensor that measures how bright it is out and make an automation that turns your lights on when the sensor drops below a certain level. Does your wife like to open the windows in your house during the spring but leave the thermostat on so that your heat the outside? Purchase a supported smart thermostat and integrate your burglar alarm with HA, and now you can’t create a rule that turns off your HVAC anytime your windows are open for longer than five minutes.

Hopefully, this helps you understand home automation and smart homes. Later this week, I’ll post more on Home Assistant and how I use it to make my house a smart home.

 

 

Review: IsoAcoustics GAIA Speaker Isolators

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IsoAcoustics GAIA is a series of speaker isolators designed to minimize the impact of the listening environment on a speaker’s performance. Specifically, it isolates the speaker from internal reflections generated by the flooring supporting the speaker. The result is greater sound clarity, an expanded sound stage, and reduced vibrations in the surrounding listening environment.

I discovered GAIAs in a Facebook post while researching how to reduce vibrations in my Home Theater space in my finished basement. The basement is constructed of concrete below grade and wood/brick above, with a concrete floor covered in Luxury Vinyl Plank (LVP) flooring and a drop ceiling with sound-absorbing tiles. The walls are well-insulated and treated with Acoustic panels from ATS Acoustics. Even with the amount of insulation and acoustic treatment, I still had vibrations I couldn’t track down. I eventually determined that they resonated from within the subwoofers (2 x Martin Logan Dynamo 1600x) and tower speakers (2x Martin Logan 60xti).

In talking with people in the Facebook group, the recommendation was to decouple the speakers from the concrete/LVP flooring by installing some isolation technology. I first experimented using the rubber feet that came with the speakers and then the included spiked feet. Neither of these seemed to help, so I was skeptical. However, I did some research and found isolating the speaker from their environment is a common practice in professional recording studios. Methods range from installing bases for the monitor speakers to sit on to building the studio on top of giant spring/rubber isolators.

I received many suggestions, but the one repeated the most was IsoAcoustics GAIA Speaker Isolators. After consuming as much information on the product as possible, I ordered some for my subs and towers.

IsoAcoustics is a Canadian manufacturer of isolation products for the audio industry and has been in business since 2012. The founder, Dave Morrison, has been designing and building radio and television studios for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) for 20 years. The GAIAS are feet that replace your speaker’s existing feet and are constructed with a dark stainless steel shell and a thick rubber-like foot that protrudes from under the surface. The rubber-like foot can move up, down, forwards, backward, and left to right. It has a concaved bottom that provides a suction cup-like surface to provide some resistance to sliding on the floor.

The feet are straightforward to install. Remove your old feet, and install the new ones. There is one caveat. The feet have the IsoAcoustics logo on them, and it serves an essential purpose. The feet are directional, so the logo needs to be facing the same direction as the drivers in your speakers. So, the logo either needs to be facing forward or backward. The feet come in a kit of 4, enough for one speaker. There are three sizes of feet; which one you choose depends on the speaker’s weight. The IsoAcoustics site provides a tool to determine the correct size. Don’t simply buy the largest feet. GAIA 1 supports up to 220lbs, GAIA II supports up to 120, and GAIA III up to 70. Due to the nature of the rubber foot, under or oversizing the foot could have unintended consequences.

For my needs, I ordered GAIA III for my subwoofers and GAIA II for my tower speakers. Each comes with 4 feet, three mounting bolts covering the most common hole sizes for feet, and a tool to help with installation. If the supplied bolts don’t fit your speakers, IsoAcoustics will ship you the ones that do.

After installation, I realigned my speakers for my sitting position, grabbed my remote, and sat down. I expected to hear a slight difference in how my system sounded. However, the results blew me away.

I put my copy of Top Gun Maverick in the 4k player and watched the opening sequence. I was amazed at the details I could hear. The change in sound was remarkable. The bass was no longer muddy, the mids were crisp, and the sound stage was more defined. I could hear movements transitioning from left to right that I could barely hear before. Most importantly, the audible vibrations I had become obsessed with were virtually eliminated. I had seen this movie ten times before, but I became consumed by the details of the soundtrack I could now hear.

Listening to music had the same result. I picked Hotel California from the Eagle’s live album, Hell Freezes Over. The quality of the sounds was equally impressive. The mix between left and right is more defined, allowing one to better hear each instrument individually during the first 2:08 of the song.

I highly recommend these to anyone looking to improve the overall sound quality of their Home Theater. As of the writing of this article, GAIA III was $199, and GAIA II was $299, so they are not cheap. However, considering the cost of other alternatives and the impressive performance of the product, I feel it’s worth the money.

Product Links

DIY Control Panels

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Control Panels for managing your smart home

Touchscreen control panels offer you, your loved ones, and your guests easy and convenient access to your smart home. Companies such as Control4 offer several touchscreens variations, including wall-mounted and tabletop devices. However, there are several drawbacks to these:

  • Cost
  • Proprietary ecosystem
  • Control

For me, the last one is the biggest. If you want to make a change, such as adding a new device, you need to go through a sytems integrator to make the change for you. This drawback can be particularly annoying if you’re tech-savvy enough to make the changes yourself. 

I use Home Assistant (HA) as a smart home controller in our house. HA has a built-in dashboard called Lovelace, which allows you to build web-enabled interfaces for controlling your smart home. So for me, jumping into a propriety ecosystem also didn’t make sense. 

I need a device with a touch screen that can access my smart home controller via a wifi network. After much research, I couldn’t find a cost-effective, open-source control panel. So I did what any sound engineer would; I built my own. 

I developed a solution consisting of a Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8″ tablet mounted to the wall using a VidaMount On-Wall Tablet Mount. My biggest challenge was getting power to the tablet. I solved this by installing a recessed outlet with a USB port and wiring it to a light switch in the room where the control panel was going. I then installed the VidoMount over the recessed outlet, connected the tablet to the USB port of the outlet, and installed the tablet.

Here is a list of the parts I used for the control panels and installation. I’ll provide the steps I took to do the installation and some pictures.

You will also need some drywall anchors, wire nuts and approximately 18″ of Romex electrical cable.

All together, these parts cost me less than $500 plus labor per unit installed. Control4’s equivalent T4 8″ In-wall unit (SKU: C4-T4IW8-XX) can cost upwards of $1100 before install labor and programming.

Before we discuss installation, here is a quick note:

  • If you’re not an electrician and you are uncomfortable with touching your home’s electrical systems, hire one. Please use common sense and turn off your electricity before doing any of the work listed below.

Step 1: Turn of the room’s electrical breaker

Step 2: Remove your existing light switches from the gang box

Step 3: Locate a space about approximately 12″ above the rooms light switch. Ensure its approximately 1″ from any studs. Take the VidaMount, remove the front bezel and place the mount on the wall at this location. Ensure that the mount is level. Using a pencil, trace the inner portion of the mount on the wall. Then using the pencil, make the 4 screw holes. Install drywall anchors at these locations.

Step 4: Take the Arlington electrical box, remove the bezel and place the box, open side facing the wall withing the tracing you just did for the VidaMount. Using your pencil, trace the outside of the electrical box.

Step 5: Using a drywall saw, cut along the tracing you did for the ELECTRICAL BOX only. You should end up with something similar to this:

Step 6: Take your Romex cable and run it between the light switch electrical box up though the wall to the hole you just cut.

Step 7: Take the Arlington electrical box and insert the Romex into the hole that is locate in the box of the electrical box.

Step 8: Insert the electrical box into the newly cut hole until its 9/10ths of the way in. Install the outer bezel and then1st tighten the bezels screws. Then tighten the mounting wing screws until the bezel is pulled firmly against the wall. If you tighten the mounting wings screws 1st, you run the risk of pulling the box completely through the wall.

Step 9: Install the Leviton outlet by properly wiring the Romex to the outlet and installing the outlet into the Arlington electrical box. The switch side of the Romex should then be wired the electrical supply side of the light switch. If you wire to the side that goes to the lights themselves, turning the light switch off will disconnect power to the tablet.

Step 10: Install the VidaMount over the top of the Arlington electrical box. Do not over tighten the screws. The bezel for the electrical box will cause a 5mm gap between the VidaMount and the wall. This is OK. Over tightening the screws will cause the VidaMount to warp and create issues when installing the tablet.

Step 11: Connect your tablet to the USB cable and then connect the USB cable to the outlet. If you want, you can coil the USB cable and tuck it into the recessed area of the electrical box.

Step 12: Install the tablet into the VidaMount and then install the VidaMount’s bezel. Note. Depend on how your USB cable is constructed, you may need to shave some plastic off of the inside of the bezel in order to install the tablet and cable. This can easily be done with a knife or Dremel.

Step 13: Turn on the room’s electrical breaker. If all is well the panel should be charging.

Welcome to Bodiddely

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Thanks for visiting Bodiddely!

Bodiddely is a home automation and technology blog. Over the years I’ve spent a great deal of time building fun home automation as well as other technology projects for my home. Bodiddely was created so that I can share all the information I’ve share in countless forums in a single place and yes, possible earn some ad revenue to fund my gadget addiction.

Please enjoy, I welcome constructive feedback and I’m happy to allow others to share.