Quickfix: Zigbee/Z-Wave USB on QNAP

20/10/201707/10/2018 Frederik Granna 9 Comments

I am running Home Assistant as a docker installation on my QNAP TS-251+ NAS and wanted to add Z-Wave/ZigBee capabilities to my home automation using the HUSBZB-1 USB Stick, a combined Z-Wave/ZigBee controller. Got mine for ~45EUR incl. shipping and import tax from amazon.com.

Stick arrived today – plugged into the NAS – checked if detected as USB-Serial – NOPE 🙁

A quick “lsusb” dump told me that the device has been detected, but the drivers where not loaded, so no /dev/ttyUSBx – QNAP is not loading the modules by default.

FIX:

insmod /usr/local/modules/cp210x.ko
insmod /usr/local/modules/usbserial.ko

1 2	insmod /usr/local/modules/cp210x.ko insmod /usr/local/modules/usbserial.ko

Re-plug the stick and you (should) have two new devices: /dev/ttyUSB0 and /dev/ttyUSB1 🙂

And if you want to use a Aeotec AEOEZW090-C Z-Wave controller, log in to your QNAP and run

insmod /usr/local/modules/cdc-acm.ko

1	insmod /usr/local/modules/cdc-acm.ko

Conbee:

insmod /usr/local/modules/ftdi_sio.ko

Basic D-duino code (OLED, WifiManager)

25/03/201725/03/2017 Frederik Granna Leave a comment

In a previous blog post I introduced to you the D-duino ESP8266 boards. In this blog post, I’ll show you a small Arduino code which is providing the basic functionality for my next projects.

What’s in the box

I am using the awesome WifiManager library. I will handle the configuration and connection to a WiFi network. If the ESP is unconfigured or the AP is not reachable, it will start an access point by its own. You can connect to this AP and a caption portal will open. Scan for networks, select one and enter the password. The configuration will be saved in the EEPROM. No need to set the credentials inside of your code.

Over-the-Air update is also implemented. This makes it very easy to update the code without connecting the MCU via USB to the host. It’s also faster than serial uploads.

Last part is of course the OLED display. I am using the ESP8266_SSD1306 library. It has some very nice features like progress bars, several graph commands (lines, shapes etc.), pictures and of text.

New IoT stuff: D-duino-B and D-duino V2

23/03/201725/03/2017 Frederik Granna 2 Comments

While looking for a OLED display for my WiFi connected Temperature/Humidity logger, i found some very interesting boards on “Tindie”: ESP8266 MCUs with integrated OLED Display and USB connection. I ordered one of each flavour: a D-duino-B and a D-duino V2

Update: Basic D-duino code (OLED, WifiManager)

DIY IoT Central – Home Assistant / InfluxDB / Grafana

12/03/201713/03/2017 Frederik Granna 2 Comments

Get started with Home Assistant, InfluxDB and Grafana.

Laying the Foundation

Create several directories to persist configurations, logs & data

You’ll most likely use different directory names – keep in mind that you have to update the docker-compose.yaml too

/share/Container/home-assistant	Home Assistant configuration
/share/Container/influxdb	InfluxDB Data & Config
/share/Container/grafana/log	Grafana Logs
/share/Container/grafana/data	Grafana Data

Basic configuration

InfluxDB

Generate the default config for InfluxDB

docker run --rm influxdb:1.2-alpine influxd config > influxdb.conf

Now move the influxdb.conf to your config directory (in my case /share/Container/influxdb)

Home Assistant If no configuration is found, Home Assistant will create a basic configuration itself after the container has started.

Use a ESP8266 to control your A/C via MQTT

22/02/201722/02/2017 Frederik Granna 2 Comments

We had some very (very!) hot days here in Sydney, up to 40 DegC over several days. After a day in the office, you open the door to your apartment and… 50 DegC 🙁 I looked for a solution to cool down home right after i left the office – with my phone – using MQTT 😉

Hardware

I am using three components for my project. The MCU, an adapter board and the IR-LED

NodeMCU

ESP8266
4Mbyte ROM
On-board USB/UART

Grove Base Shield for NodeMCU

5 Digital connectors
2 I2C sockets
1 Analog connectors (A0)
Power indicator LED

Shop | Wiki

Grove – Infrared Emitter

Voltage: 3.3-5V
Distance:10m

Shop | Wiki

Software

The Basics

The project is based on the Arduino core for ESP8266 and uses several additional libraries. I am using the platform.io IDE for development. The advantages are the fully integrated build and deployment process (via USB or over WiFi), the library manager and the code completion and linting. You can download my complete platform.io project here.

You’ll also need an MQTT server like RabbitMQ to send commands and receive the status. If you are familiar with Docker, you should read my previous post Dockerize RabbitMQ to get a server up and running in no time. If not: There are several binary pages on the RabbitMQ Website.

Install rtl-sdr on a C.H.I.P

17/02/201717/02/2017 Frederik Granna Leave a comment

Check your hardware

First you should make sure that your rtl-sdr stick is properly connected to your c.h.i.p and that your power source is suitable to drive the chip plus the rtl-sdr. Some of them are consuming more than 500mA (which is out of spec for USB2.0) which can cause the system crashing if under load.

Connect your rtl-sdr to the c.h.i.p, login and run lsusb -t. You should see an output like the one on the screenshot below. The last two lines are the rtl-sdr stick.

Setup a C.H.I.P in Headless mode (no screen)

16/02/201717/02/2017 Frederik Granna Leave a comment

So you got your C.H.I.P but unfortunately you can’t connect to a Display and you don’t have a keyboard available? This guide should help you to get started. You will connect the C.H.I.P to your wi-fi, update the software and install a vnc server to use the gui.

Initial connection

Connect you C.H.I.P via USB to your Computer.

Open your favourite terminal program and connect to the comport with 115200 baud. For windows you can use putty. On OSX i suggest using cu.

On OSX i am using this command sudo cu -l /dev/cu.usbmodem1423 -s 115200

If you’re connected and you don’t see any login screen just hit enter once

OSX: Use a GUI (X11) app in Docker

20/02/201620/02/2016 Frederik Granna Leave a comment

Prerequisites

First install socat via brew:

brew install socat

1	brew install socat

_{If you don’t have brew installed, just follow these instructions.}

Next is XQuartz. Download the DMG from http://www.xquartz.org/ and install it.

Preparations

Start socat:

socat TCP-LISTEN:6000,reuseaddr,fork UNIX-CLIENT:\"$DISPLAY\"

1	socat TCP-LISTEN:6000,reuseaddr,fork UNIX-CLIENT:\"$DISPLAY\"

Now start XQuartz. Go to Preferences and enable “Allow connections from network clients”:

Now find the ip address of our VM. Open virtualbox and go to the settings of your VM. Click to the “Network” Tab.

In my example, the interface we’re looking for is “vboxnet2“.

Lookup the ip by executing “ifconfig vboxnet2” in the terminal.

Now we’re ready to start Firefox inside of a docker container 🙂

docker run --rm -it -e DISPLAY=192.168.99.1:0 ianblenke/xfce firefox

1	docker run --rm -it -e DISPLAY=192.168.99.1:0 ianblenke/xfce firefox

This will download a minimal image (~200MB) and start Firefox

New toys – ESP8266 Modules

26/11/201522/02/2017 Frederik Granna Leave a comment

Yeah, new hardware to tinker with: a ESP-01 and a NodeMCU Board 🙂

Specs

The ESP8266 is a powerful and cheap SoC (System on a Chip) with onboard WiFi (b/g/n) capabilities. It has 16 GPIO pins, UART, i2c, SPI and QSPI for external flash memory.

ESP-01 Module

This very cheap module consist of o ESP8266, A PCB-Trace antenna and an external 1MB flash chip. It’s not breaking out every GPIO pins – just 2 (GPIO0 & 2).

This module has 8 pins: VCC & GND for power, RXD & TXD for serial communication, RST for reset (yeah, really :p ), CH_PD for chip enabled/disable and GPIO0 & GPIO3. This chip is intended for small projects or as a Serial-Wifi bridge.

Be aware: The module has no onboard logic-level-converter. So if you hook up this board to more than 3.3v, you will most likely see magic smoke !

You can get these board for ~3-6 AUD$ from eBay.

NodeMCU v2

This module is a complete development board. It is utilising a ESP-12E which is basically a ESP8266, 4MB flash and an antenna on one small pcb. This pcb is soldered to the devboard which is powered by usb (3.3v step-down-converter), a USB-Bridge for easy programming and 2 buttons (reset and flash). You can use 10GPIO pins for your own projects – every of this pins is able to provide you i2c, 1-Wire and pwm functionality.

Again: The module has no onboard logic-level-converter for the GPIO pins!

It comes preflashed with the NodeMCU firmware (www.nodemcu.com) which enables you to program this module in LUA. It costs about 8-13 AUD$ on eBay.

Outlook

As i have some experience with Arduinos, i’ll most likely try to use the Arduino IDE to program this little friends – (https://github.com/esp8266/Arduino)

My first Project will be a Wifi-Remote-Controller (infrared bridge) for my Daikin AC

The best for last: A complete Docker-RPi-RTL-SDR ADSB/ACARS Solution

20/11/201501/10/2016 Frederik Granna 58 Comments

After my last two blogposts [1][2], many of you asked “Why Docker on a Raspberry?” if you can install all the software directly (“There are so much tutorials“). Yeah, that’s right – but think how much work you have to invest to get the following setup running:

Raspberry Pi 2 & 2 RTL-SDR Sticks
- Nr 1 is monitoring ADSB via dump1090
- Nr 2 is monitoring ACARS on 2 frequencies via acarsdec
FR24FEED (www.flightradar24.com) is taking the data from dump1090 and feeds it to FR24
FlightAirMap (PHP/MySQL) is taking the data from acarsdec and dump1090 to generate a comprehensive statistic and live map of your received data.
A Mysql server for storing the Data behind FlightAirMap