I've returned! A new project with an old house

[NormandyHA]

I'd been a member for a very long time, but had not posted since I'd joined over 5 years ago. This was partly due to career, kids and move to a new home for us (but built in the '50s).

I'm at the point that I'm installing an upgrade to an older Vista 21ip setup. Basically rip and replace with an Elk M1 Gold, M1EXP, various keypads and sensors. I'm also deploying Z-wave lighting control, 700 series along with a HomeTroller Pi G3 setup (using the UltraJones M1G3 plugin).

Should have this all done within the next month or so, but I'm so glad for this excellent forum/resource.

Glad to be back!

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

Welcome back! I'm getting back into automation a bit myself (though nothing like my old setup).

Is the UltraJones M1Gold plugin still active/supported? That would be the only thing stopping me from interfacing it with HomeSeer. I haven't checked (as I no longer have an Elk system) but is there another HomeSeer Elk M1 Gold plugin?

 

[NormandyHA]

Welcome back! I'm getting back into automation a bit myself (though nothing like my old setup).

Is the UltraJones M1Gold plugin still active/supported? That would be the only thing stopping me from interfacing it with HomeSeer. I haven't checked (as I no longer have an Elk system) but is there another HomeSeer Elk M1 Gold plugin?

It's still supported, but UltraJones considers it feature complete as a HS3 plug-in. It works fine with HS4 however, but means that it's not using the same GUI design language as HS4.
Plug in installed successfully on my HomeTroller Pi G3 with HS4.

 

[NormandyHA]

Besides HomeSeer, it also looks like Home Assistant also has an Elk M1 Gold plugin. https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/elkm1/#elkm1-configuration-and-version. The GitHub link on that page shows that the source code was touched as recent as 26 days ago, but I suspect it's jut keeping it compatible with the code releases of Home Assistant rather than any new features.

I've a Home Assistant Yellow kit on pre-order. It's cheaper than purchasing the Raspberry CM4 directly, so I can reuse it for Homeseer if I decide that wins the automation show down between them. However, without that in hand, I cannot say how that works.

From others, I understand HomeSeer is far easier to setup and manage. Home Assistant seems to require a lot of admin work, probably because code releases change so often.

 

[pete_c]

Here utilize Homeseer 4 and Home Assistant on the same box (and OmniPro 2 panel). Always here a Linux and Microsoft person. (and today BSD).

Home Assistant has become very plug n play these days and can be upgraded and modified today with the GUI.

Homeseer 4 running in Linux Mono still has a Windows look to it.

I utilize Homeseer Jon00 Links add on to Homeseer 4 to give me more of a HS3 interface.






Currently a mix here still running X10, UPB, Zigbee, ZWave and now modded Tasmota WiFi.

Never liked running HS off an SD card. I moved first version of HS3 running on an RPi over to an Intel based Linux computer with a hard drive many many years ago.

New HS4 box is:

1 - Lenova Tiny M900 with 32Gb of RAM, built in WiFi, Gb and Blue Tooth using a Lenova laptop style power supply. (now street price is around $100).
2 - Base OS is Ubuntu 22.04
3 - For VMs using Oracle VirtualBox
4 - Homeseer 4 is running in native Linux with Mono
5 - CumulusMx (Davis weather station) is running in native Linux with Mono
6 - Home Assistant is a VM (Virtual box - 4-6Gb of Ram - 2 would suffice)
7 - W7E (or W8E) or W2016 Server is another VM (Virtual box) running Microsoft SAPI multiple speech fonts and multiple instances of Homeseer speaker. (IE still utilize SAPI TTS speech and now combining it with Alexa TTS).
8 - Mosquitto Broker in native Linux
9 - Monocam reverse camera proxy for Alexa devices managed by Home Assistant Alexa Media player app.
10 - Intel / Windows embedded touchscreens running Homeseer Touch and Homeseer SAPI and OmniTouch Pro (for alarm panel).

Historically and still using RPi's, TVBoxes (Armbian), Rockchip boxes (Armbian) (tested to run HS and HA).