HOME AUTOMATION SYSTEM FOR RENTAL PROPERTIES Kotiautomaatiojärjestelmä Vuokra-asunnoille Bachelor’s thesis Valkeakoski – Electrical and Automation Engineering Spring Semester 2021 Mauricio Alvarez Rojano Electrical and Automation Engineering Abstract Author Mauricio Alvarez Rojano Year 2021 Subject Home Automation System for Rental Properties Supervisors Timo Väisänen This thesis describes the development and implementation of a home automation system for rental properties. It can connect to a variety of wireless sensors, lights and other devices from different vendors with a user interface accessible from a computer or a smart phone. An additional goal of this project was to make the system locally or remotely controlled. The automation system should be flexible enough to be implemented in any type of rental property. This project targeted a typical student rental apartment in the City of Tampere and the focus of the system concentrated on lighting control, leak detection, temperature monitoring and security. An open-source home automation platform was selected based on the hardware required to run the system, the number of supported devices and the size of an active community behind the platform. The hardware to run the home automation system was selected based on its expandability options. The controllable devices and sensors suitable for this project were selected based on their cost and characteristics. The ZigBee protocol was chosen for this project. The result of this project is a fully functional home automation system that can be implemented into any rental property, which allows you to control, schedule and/or automate any ZigBee light or a controllable outlet. It also offers the possibility to monitor ZigBee sensors that provide various pieces of information such as whether a door is open or closed, the temperature, light levels and leak detection. The system can be monitored and/or controlled locally and remotely. Keywords Home automation, Home Assistant, Lighting control, ZigBee Pages 36 pages Contents 1 Introduction...............................................................................................................1 2 Theoretical foundations.............................................................................................1 3 Aim of thesis.............................................................................................................. 3 4 Research process....................................................................................................... 3 4.1 HUB hardware..................................................................................................4 4.1.1 Raspberry Pi..........................................................................................4 4.1.2 Network-attached storage (NAS)......................................................... 5 4.1.3 Desktop computer................................................................................5 4.2 Communication protocols................................................................................6 4.2.1 Z-Wave..................................................................................................6 4.2.2 RF 433.92 MHz......................................................................................7 4.2.3 Wi-Fi..................................................................................................... 7 4.2.4 ZigBee...................................................................................................8 4.3 Antennas.......................................................................................................... 8 4.4 Software...........................................................................................................9 4.4.1 Home Assistant...................................................................................10 4.4.2 Linux server........................................................................................ 10 4.4.3 Virtual machine or Docker..................................................................11 4.4.4 Portainer.............................................................................................12 4.4.5 SSH......................................................................................................12 4.4.6 Node-RED........................................................................................... 13 5 Development and implementation of system.........................................................13 5.1 Property......................................................................................................... 14 5.1.1 Controlled devices..............................................................................15 5.2 Cost calculation..............................................................................................17 5.3 Server set-up..................................................................................................18 5.3.1 Linux server installation......................................................................18 5.3.2 Docker and Portainer installation.......................................................19 5.4 Installation and set-up of Home Assistant..................................................... 19 5.4.1 Set-up................................................................................................. 20 5.4.2 SSH connection...................................................................................21 5.4.3 Back-up system...................................................................................22 5.4.4 Dresden Elektronik ConBee II set-up..................................................22 5.5 Configuration of devices and system............................................................. 22 5.5.1 Pairing devices....................................................................................22 5.5.2 User interface.....................................................................................24 5.5.3 Automations.......................................................................................27 5.5.4 Remote access....................................................................................33 5.5.5 Mobile application..............................................................................34 6 Project results..........................................................................................................35 7 Conclusions..............................................................................................................36 References...................................................................................................................... 37 1 1 Introduction Home automation holds significant potential in the overall smart home industry in developed countries. The market is gaining growth due to the rising adoption of the internet of things mostly in developed countries. Users prefer advanced standards of living where they have access to technologically connected devices, which include televisions, refrigerators, smartphones, and many other electronic devices. Some studies estimated the home automation market to be worth 45.8 Billion US dollars and project a growth on this market to reach 124.18 Billion US dollars by 2025. (Home Automation Market, 2019) The more robust systems like KNX and others, provided by companies with a lot of experience in building automations often require a change in the wiring of the property, to be able to implement home automation systems (KNX Basic, n.d.). This situation poses a challenge for rental houses or apartments where such changes cannot be done. This often leaves no options for tenants who would want to implement automations in their homes. 2 Theoretical foundations In this last decade, the smart home industry has come a long way and currently offers a wide variety of devices using various technologies. Often to control a particular device the user is required to install an application, an “app”. The issue starts when each device requires the installation of its own application to perform one task. To control the thermostat the user has one app, to control the lights the user has another app, to control outlets, another app. The homeowner’s smartphone can be filled with multiple apps, all to control different devices and all dedicated to controlling the home under normal living conditions. A better way would be to install a dedicated, centralized solution. (5 Common Home Automation Problems And How We Solve Them, n.d.) “When you add devices to your smart home, you usually have to download and use additional apps, which is frustrating and confusing. You can avoid all that—and you do not need a hub to do it. You just need one app.” (Hendrickson, 2019) 2 Often these apps are designed to transfer data to the cloud, which does all the heavy lifting. This eliminates the need of manufacturers to create and program a device powerful enough to analyze complex data. (Whalen, 2019) Cloud-based processing comes with some compromises, the biggest of which is the possibility of a privacy breach. Data travels from the devices to the cloud—data that users might not want to be revealed to the public. While manufacturers, companies and services pledge the customers that their data is encrypted and secure, there is no assurance that a device is hack proof. (Whalen, 2019) On the other hand, local control of the devices is a superior solution from the perspective of speed and privacy. A locally controlled hub that can integrate products from