PiKVM v4

The PiKVM v4 kickstarter has launched.  With the v4 version, there are new two different versions of the PiKVM.

The PiKVM V4 Mini uses a small fanless case, and has a lower power consumption than the PiKVM V3.

The PiKVM V4 Plus has the features of the V3 version and adds support for an LTE card and additional USB host support.

Home Assistant SkyConnect

I have been running Home Assistant for a while now, slowly transitioning from SmartThings.  In subsequent posts, I will describe more of my experience with Home Assistant, but today I received a Home Assistant SkyConnect, that I am excited about setting up over this holiday break.

The Home Assistant SkyConnect is a USB Zigbee adapter that directly connects Zigbee devices to Home Assistant.  (I am currently using a SmartThings hub to connect my Zigbee devices, and using the SmartThings integration in Home Assistant)

One thing that I am very interested in for the SkyConnect, is that it is updatable through Home Assistant, and they are planning an upgrade to add Thread support.  With this upgrade, it should support Matter devices.

With Matter's multi-admin support, and when SmartThings adds Matter support, I hope that this will make it easier to finish the migration to Home Assistant.

PiKVM

 This weekend, I needed to backup a number of computers, and wipe them in preparation for recycling.  As I didn't want to disconnect the monitor and keyboard from my normal workstation, the PiKVM has been quite helpful.

The PiKVM is a raspberry pi based KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) device that allows you to control and view a computer over a network.  

I have been using the PiKVM for a while.  It has been especially helpful for setting up new computers, or managing some of the headless computers that I manage.  For backing up and wiping the computer, one of the PiKVM features has been very useful. 

The PiKVM has the ability to have images stored on the raspberry pi mounted on the connected computer.  I have a few linux distro images stored, that allows me to boot and manage connected computers.

The V4 version of the project has been announced, and should be launching soon on Kickstarter.

Sungevity

We decided to add a solar panel system to our house, and went with Sungevity.  After we got the quote for the system, and decided to go with them, the process took about about 2 months, including working with our electric service connect the system.  The individuals at Sungevity were very helpful throughout the process.

Now that the system has been installed, we can already see the impact.  Our system has been generating over 30 kWh on sunny days.

Solar Production for July 3rd

Solar Production for June 2016

Sungevity is currently running a promotion where they are giving new customers a $750 discount on their new solar systems, when referred by existing customers.

Home Automation

A few years ago, I spent some time installing X-10 devices around our house.  I (and my wife) was never really happy with the results.  The main problem that we had was with reliability.  We needed to install a phase couple in order to improve reception of between the different 110V legs.  Another difficulty when setting up an X-10 network was that there is an extra step to configure battery powered devices.  The battery powered wireless devices would need to be in range of an IR/RF to X10 bridge in order to send the signals to other devices.

I decided to try some home automation projects using Z-Wave.  Since Z-Wave uses a wireless protocol for sending commands, there aren't the problems from using a powerline protocol.  And, since Z-Wave uses a wireless protocol, it is very easy to add wireless battery powered devices.

I ordered a Mi Casa Verde VeraLite to use as the controller.  This will let you control any of the Z-Wave devices in your house, as well create custom scenes.  It also has a web server, where you can control your devices and scenes.

The first small project that wanted to accomplish was to automate turning off the lights in the garage, as these tend to be left on.  I bought a couple of Z-Wave light switches and motion sensors.  Once the devices were paired, it was pretty easy to configure a scene that would turn on the lights when motion was sensed, and a scene that would turn off the lights 2 minutes after no more motion is sensed.

I can also control these devices from an Android device using the Home Buddy application, even when out of the house.

Since these Z-Wave devices are working pretty well, some of the other projects I want to work on in the next few weeks/months are:

• Z-Wave control of garage door opener, with sensor to detect the door remaining open
• Control of lighting when watching movies
• Detection of washing machine / dryer cycle to trigger a notification on completion
• Control of other lights that tend to be left on.

Microsoft two-factor authentication

This week Microsoft added the ability for users to secure their Microsoft account with two-factor authentication.  This should help prevent unauthorized access to your account.  I think that it is great that Microsoft is enabling this extra security, as people can have their credit cards associated with their account.

I enabled two-factor authentication on my account, and by default your verification code will be sent to your phone.  You can also use a phone based authenticator to generate codes.  Microsoft has released an application that you can use on Windows Phone based phones, or you can use Google Authenticator on Android, iOS and Blackberry.

There are some things that you should be aware of before enabling this for your accounts:

1. If you use Google Authenticator, since Microsoft doesn't add a prefix to the account name in the key uri, adding your Microsoft account to the app, will replace any existing account with that name.  Make sure that you rename, in the app, any account that is named with the email address that you use to log in, before adding the Microsoft account.
2. The Xbox doesn't have the UI to allow entry of the second-factor verification code, so you will need to create an application specific password for these devices that don't accept these validation codes.

SqueezePlug

We have been using various SqueezeBox radios for several years now.  These allow us to listen to our local library of music, and streaming radio throughout our house.  We have had a NAS installed in our house for years (initially a Windows Home Server, now a ReadyNAS) and these were great to run the Logitech Media Server software, as we didn't need to leave any of our PCs up and running.

Recently, we have been transitioning to cloud services for storage, from the NAS.  We use CrashPlan for backing up our Macs and PCs.  Since we have been transitioning to Chromebooks, I have copied all of our files to Google Drive.  All of our movie content exists on the NAS, but since we have been using Vudu and Netflix for watching movies, we haven't played this content.  Since we haven't been really using the NAS for anything other serving content for the Squeezeboxes, this seems like a waste.  The electricity needed for a NAS with five 2TB drives, is overkill just to serve our music.

The +Raspberry Pi  is a great solution for this.  It is a small ARM based computer that uses 3.5 watts of power.  The SqueezePlug distribution has every thing needed for a media server, including the Logitech Media Server software, and this distribution supports the Raspberry Pi.