this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
9 points (90.9% liked)

Aotearoa / New Zealand

1653 readers
14 users here now

Kia ora and welcome to !newzealand, a place to share and discuss anything about Aotearoa in general

Rules:

FAQ ~ NZ Community List ~ Join Matrix chatroom

 

Banner image by Bernard Spragg

Got an idea for next month's banner?

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Welcome to today’s daily kōrero!

Anyone can make the thread, first in first served. If you are here on a day and there’s no daily thread, feel free to create it!

Anyway, it’s just a chance to talk about your day, what you have planned, what you have done, etc.

So, how’s it going?

all 36 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Axisential@lemmy.nz 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A year today since a mate and all around good bloke took his life. Rest in peace bud, we miss you here.

[–] Albatr0ss@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Sorry to hear that man. This happens way too often, and it's horrible. I hope you get through the day ok.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Today I'm gonna see if I can work out how to calculate the water content of air based on humidity and temperature, and implement this as a template in Home Assistant.

I guess using the August–Roche–Magnus formula? But I haven't worked out how to convert it into a template yet (it's my first time using a template).

I got sick of seeing the relative humidity rise and fall with the temperature, and since it's never close to condensing I thought I'd try to get a measurement that's a bit more stable.

Edit: I went with dew point at @SamC@lemmy.nz's suggestion.

screen shot of dew point, humidity, and temparature in home assistant

[–] SamC@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I just calculate Dew point, which is a somewhat more intuitive number.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you have a template I can copy? 🙂

[–] SamC@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I don't use HA sorry! I just have a custom built app in R that collects the data from some temperature/humidity sensors I have (and uses an R package to do the dew point calculation).

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Haha when you mentioned it, I thought maybe dewpoint was easier to calculate. It's not.

Edit: Oh, but there's this: simple approximation. That could work!

[–] SamC@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, I used the simple version originally. I switched to the harder one because it's available via the R package.

But I'm pretty sure there's very little difference in practice.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, it says +/- 1C for humidity about 50%. I've got it going, so I'll run it for a while and see if this gives me more stable data.

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been meaning to get HA up and running - hopefully it's something I get stuck into soon.

Got a lot of the kit for it, but just haven't had time to invest with the move and all that.

What type of things do you have hooked up to HA?

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Literally just the humidity/temperature sensor 😆

I've very new to it all. And today it seems I can't access Home Assistant from a browser, but the app works fine. The browser shows it fails to make the websocket connection. I tried turning it off and on again and now I'm all out of ideas 🙁

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What type of Temp/Humi Sensor are you using?

To start off, I'm looking to get all the various "smart/iot" type devices connected and controlled in one place. Don't have a lot at the moment - some heatpumps, arlec devices etc.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

To get started, I just got one of each of the plug and sensor that @sylverstream@lemmy.nz suggested in this comment.

I haven't found a use for the smart plug yet. I thought of one thing, but it was down the other end of the house. As I understand it the smart plugs act as repeaters, so I probably need to get some more and spread them around the house so it can reach where I want it.

I've considered an IR blaster as the next step, to control the heat pump.

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been meaning to learn about Zigbee / Z-Wave, but have procrastinated away every time I try to do so :)

How are you liking those sensors? Might look at getting some.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, my first experience wasn't great. It says to take the back off to take out the plastic in the battery to connect it, but getting the back off was hard. Ended up prying it off with a screw driver hoping I wasn't gonna break it.

And then (probably unrelated) the switch on the side didn't work. I thought there's no point stopping now, so I pulled the cover off and found the switch wasn't well attached to the board. It would wobble back and forth, so I got some cardboard and folded it up, jammed it behind the switch to hold it in place.

It's all working great now! But not a great first impression.

I haven't used the smart switch except to try to connect it from about 10M away from the zigbee controller, through two walls. It didn't work, but I managed to get it recognised by trying a bit closer, but haven't actually done anything else with it. I'm considering buying a 5 or 8 pack and spreading them around the house to get a good network going.

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hmm, maybe I should keep looking haha.

I'm probably a bit too paranoid, but did you have any concerns around using Mains Plugs from Aliexpress?

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Hmm, maybe I should keep looking haha.

They aren't expensive, so it probably is an appropriate quality for the price. But if you do find something better, let me know!

I’m probably a bit too paranoid, but did you have any concerns around using Mains Plugs from Aliexpress?

Not until you mentioned it just now 😆. To be fair, they are likely made in the same factories as the cheap plugboards you get from briscoes or the supermarket. These ones are CE certified, so are probably ok. Probably try to avoid anything super cheap.

We have smoke alarms in pretty much every room because I'm normally a bit paranoid about this stuff too.

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not until you mentioned it just now 😆

😂 Hopefully I haven't awaken any extra paranoia. But agree, probably all made in the same places. The certification sounds good though.

We have smoke alarms in pretty much every room

On that note, looking for some smoke alarms, and didn't realize there was such a wide variety! From the cheapo old school reliable ones all the way to really expensive supposedly "smart" alarms.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Mostly we have filled out house with mostly these ones. Mitre 10 has three packs where one is a temp only sensor, for kitchens. So you can have kitchen ones but they trigger on a sudden increase in temperature not on smoke.

We tried another brand Orca they sell as well, but they seem to fail pretty often (as in, one just would constantly make it's "fire!" noise as soon as you put the battery in. Others will just start beeping after a year or two and you can't get replacement batteries (they are supposed to last 10 years).

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago

Saw those ones when we went to Mitre10 the other week. Good to hear they have been working well for you. Those smaller footprint ones do look nicer.

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mine is a docker container on Unraid. I encountered a similar issue once with reverse proxy. I had to use the use_x_forwarded_for and trusted_proxies flags in the configuration.yaml. Can see the options here: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/http/

Not sure if it's exactly the issue you're having though.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm not using a reverse proxy currently. Just IP:port, which worked yesterday but suddenly doesn't work today :(.

As far as I can tell, there hasn't been an update since last week on the stable branch, so I've got no idea what's changed.

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There should be something in the logs hopefully to track down the problem

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There wasn't when I first checked, but now I've got loads of: WARNING (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.http.ban] Login attempt or request with invalid authentication

I've found lots of posts about this issue, but they are all related to using a reverse proxy. I'm not using one :(

[–] eagleeyedtiger@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Weird you think clearing browser cache or different browser works?

I can't remember if I had the reverse proxy setup when they made the change to requiring trusted_proxies. But I do know I had to add in the IP address of the server it's running on as trusted

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago

I had previously tried restarting the home assistant container, and had cleared my browser cache, and no dice. But now I've rebooted the whole server and now it seems to work. So now back to my original task of creating a template 🙂

[–] sortofblue@lemmy.nz 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Work pc had a meltdown so of course Microsoft decides to upgrade office on a hasty reboot.

Such is Friday!

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not like it was gonna be a productive day anyway.

[–] sortofblue@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm willing to be productive until about half three, haha

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago

That's a really solid stint for a Friday haha

[–] johnrimbauer@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Sunny Friday for me, gonna catch up on some filing and reporting and cruise into the weekend.

[–] Ozymati@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Peter Jackson has bought the land on Shelly Bay. No development. I hope he builds penguin habitat.

[–] Dave@lemmy.nz 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

More info here: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/497061/controversial-500m-shelly-bay-development-cancelled

It sounds like they may be aiming for some blend of natural habitat and recreational area. Hopefully more info will come.

[–] Ozymati@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago

I was always not thrilled about that development, it would have been in a location inconvenient for anyone who actually needs to work in the city - IMO the developments we need are ones meant for people who make the city run to live in.

[–] NoRamyunForYou@lemmy.nz 4 points 1 year ago

The weeks really flown by for some reason. Can't believe its already almost the weekend :)