[bluelu]

I'm currently working on something similar for the a new house I'm building, but for the inside.

I plan to have multiple ESP32 nodes with sensors (luminosity, temperature, pressure, moisture, presence detector), ble scanning (in order to detect who is in the room), and microphones for voice control (picovice porcupine library for stop word detection, then google speech 2 text). For the microphones, I'm still waiting for my mems microphnes to directly include them on the sensor node, or I will use an additional board like the esp32-korvo which works very good (already tested). For audio playback in the rooms, I'm planning on using the up2stream amp devices with ceiling speakers. As for powering it, I'm still unsure on what to use. I first ordered some olimex POE esp32 isolated (so you can power them from both POE and USB at the same time). However the ethernet interface will go up/down in an endless loop after a few minutes of sending data over mqtt. Strangely, the non ISO version works though as it seems, I haven't run it though in a box (higher temperature). So I'm still unsure if I use POE or a 220V->5V converter in each case, or feed them directly with 5V from a central place (which would require more cable length planning)

I did some programming at first, but then quickly switched top https://esphome.io/ which allows you to include your sensors without writing any code. It has support for all kinds of sensors, integrated API, mqtt, webserver, etc... and you only have to configure one yaml file which will then automatically generate the C code and compile/upload your firmware. No need to reinvent the wheel!

It's also easy to include your own components in case you want to do anything custom. The only disadvantage is that it's still based on esp32 idf 3 (in case you are adding components, I would prefer to do it for the new version and not the old one), but the v4 was only released a few weeks ago.

[harperlee]

Perhaps this is too off-topic but I was just looking into home automation and perhaps someone might have good advice: I have an old (~25-30 years) radiant ceiling heating system with 15 thermostats that are starting to malfunction and I need to replace. I don't want to break the bank just doing this, but I'd love to have the ability to read temperature and command on/off on each of one.

I'm going through ESPHome right now, but in any case, any recommendations on very low-key but reliable thermostats that are amenable to hacking with them would be super welcome!

[ralphhughes]

If you need to control mains AC loads, I highly recommend something like the Sonoff Wifi switches. They're similar to the wifi "Smart plugs" you can get these days but are aimed at fixed wiring installations and they're safety tested. You can also get versions with built in temp\humidity sensors in the switch, then re-flash the Sonoff firmware with esphome and control all 15 from a single raspberry pi running home assistant. This would allow you to set temperatures for individual rooms over the internet.

[borgel]

Do the new models still make it easy to reflash? I thought I saw something about them being somehow locked down.

[harperlee]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to comment :)