Origin (part deux)

So the Echo Dots and zigbee controlled lights were making my home smart, but I have a couple of lamps that were getting jealous.

I had picked up a couple of puck-style touch switches at Lowe’s a couple of years ago that I could plug the lamps into and turn them on and off using the pucks. Touch the puck for on, two more taps to increase the brightness, and one more for off. I couldn’t care less about dimming but it worked. The extra cords were annoying and I now knew that I could do better.

Did some Googling and found that Iris also made plugs. I was in business! Bought a couple and got them hooked up pretty easily to the Dots like I had with the smart bulbs. Problem was these plugs cost about $35 (got the a lot cheaper later on, but that’s another story I’ll get to).

Searched Amazon and found a Wemo plug on sale for $20. At the time that was a great price, so I got one. It didn’t require a hub so was slightly easier to set up than the Iris plugs. It worked like a champ and also gave me power readings (cool factor, but not really useful). Wanted more for my old-school, under-cabinet fluorescent kitchen lights, but even at the “low” price of $20, that was going to add up quickly.

Now that I had the basics of home automation. Could turn lights on and off with Alexa, could set timers for the lights, and could also do all of this remotely with the Alexa app. What’s next?

The price of the smart plugs was a real downer. Over time they got less expensive (even the Lowe’s Iris plugs) and I did add a couple more for some garage lighting.

I googled and did YouTube searches and came across some really inexpensive DIY WiFi devices called Sonoff. Basically, you cut a two prong extension cord in half, wire the ends into the Sonoff, download their app, set them up with your WiFi, and then connect them to The Dots in the Alexa app… all for about $6 each plus the cost of the cord if you don’t have any laying around (I did find some cords on clearance at Lowe’s after Christmas that we’re dirt cheap… normally about $12 for a 3 pack on sale for $2. I bought 3 or 4 packs.)

At that point, I didn’t have a need for the Sonoffs but ordered 6 for the cool factor and to play with. Got them in, hooked them up and ran a small fan in the garage with them. Kind of a pain in butt actually having a cord with a box (the Sonoff) in the middle of it but I was pretty pumped and wondered what I could use them for.

Then it kinda hit me, I had been wanting to start my own tomatoes and peppers for my garden, and I could use these to control grow lights. I bought grow lights, seed starter kits (peat pellets – awful things actually but they’re easy at least to get seeds going). Hooked up the lights to a couple of Sonoffs and set up a schedule in app. Worked well enough, but I was starting these in the garage where the temp wasn’t ideal. I bought some seed starter heat mats but was concerned about the higher current they may require and whether the Sonoffs could handle that. There was also the factor of having even more of the Sonoff cords cluttering things up.

Got back on Amazon and found another Sonoff model that could handle up to 16 amps (vs 10), had a ground, and even had a temperature sensor. I bought one, used a power strip as the cord, and got it set up. Worked great and I really liked the bonus of being able to monitor my garage temperature. Still use it to this day for many different applications.

One thing that always bothered me with the Sonoffs was that I had to use their app and cloud service. It was free, but I wanted more local control. I returned to google and found where these Sonoff devices could be reflashed (put different software on them) with open source software called Tasmota. I ordered an inexpensive tool to connect to my computer to install Tasmota on the Sonoffs, and after a lot of cussing, I got it figured out. Did this and got my stuff off the cloud.

Tasmota got easier over time and I discovered other inexpensive devices it could be used with. This was like going down the rabbit hole within the rabbit hole within the rabbit hole and I was getting even more addicted.

This is what eventually led me to expand my smart home to include temperature and humidity sensors in my house and automating my garden watering.

This blog post is getting pretty long, and you’re probably pretty bored if you’ve read this far so I’ll finish up the Origin story here. I may have left some things out (I know I did!) and got some things out of chronological order, but the idea was to tell you how I got started in this wonderful mess!

I’ll try to keep future posts shorter, more topic specific and include photos and links. This will let you follow what I’m doing, and have done, while also maybe filling in some gaps in the Origin story.