Rockchip-Intel TV Box Homeseer and Home Assistant installation

24th of May, 2019
 
Windows 7 embedded SAPI / Speaker / Neospeech Kate connection to loopback address running HS3 on Ubuntu 18.04
 
WW7EStart.jpg
 
1 - remote via RDP to W7e Virtualbox
2 - install dot net 4.X to Win7e (needed for speaker dot ext)
 
ddotnet.jpg
 
3 - run speaker dot exe and configure it to Homeseer 3 running on new box
 
sspeakerconfiguredandworking.jpg

4 - configuration auto start of speaker dot exe
 
aautostartspeaker.jpg
 
5 - shut off UAC for start of speaker
 
UUAC.jpg

6 - reboot W7e Virtualbox and validate connection.
 
SStatusofW7e.jpg
 
24th of May, 2019
 
Here are HTOP and Webmin utilization pics with Intel BeelinkBT3 Pro running:
 
1 - Homeseer 3 with Omni, ZWave, X10 and mcsMQTT plugins plus speaker dot exe
2 - Docker, STunnel4, Webmin, Home-Assistant with OmniLinkPlugin, MQTT, Alexa plugin (for TTS and Alexa commands)
 
hhtop.jpg
 
wwebmin.jpg
 
Pushing a bit on the eMMC space here.  CPU utilization is fine. 
 
Using the Intel BeelinkBT3 Pro provides you with a tiny low energy use Homeseer 3 and Home-Assistant micro server.
 
Note: to do this you should be proficient in Linux (Ubuntu) command line and Windows use, Oracle Virtual Box, Windows 7, Docker, HA and plugin docker installation.
 
Adds to Windows 7 embedded Virtual box are:  (managed and access via RDP).
 
1 - dot net 4.0
2 - SAPI and Neospeech voice fonts
3 - R2 autostart
4 - Homeseer Speaker
5 - Leviton PCA (optional)
6 - Upstart (optional)
7 - Homeseer 3 Touch Designer (optional)
 
Here Windows 7e is running on a 10Gb virtual box partition and assigned 2Gb of RAM.
 
Next testing adding PCA to Windows 7 embedded.
 
Note if upgrading Intel 4Gb DDR3-64Gb emmc mini TVBox to one which includes an SSD slot then you can turn this box in to a micro NAS in addition to the automation pieces of it.  MicroNAS will allow you to move run VBs from NAS drive. Only thing I do not like is having the USB ports on the sides which could be fixed by using a USB hub and a right angle connector.
 
TVBox.jpg
 
The BeeLink BT3 Pro purchased here was $65 with free shipping.  Best prices I have seen is via Gearbest (~$100) and Amazon ($150)
 
Prices for the above mentioned box are between $100-$150 USD depending on where you find them.
 
Using an Intel CPU on a TV Box allows for use of Oracle Virtual Box.  Using an ARM CPU on a TV Box does not work with Virtual box.
 
Both of the above boxes are levels above the RPi, Pine64, Rock64, RockPi4 devices and make for optimal low powered automation servers. 
 
The Intel TV Boxes that I am referencing are similiar using:
 
1 - Intel Atom x5 - Z8350 CPU (quad core Atom)
2 - 4 gb of DDR3
3 - 64gb emmc
4 - USB 3.0 and USB 2.0
5 - VGA and HDMI ports
6 - Gb NIC
7 - Blue tooth
8 - WLAN
9 - come with licensed Windows 10 Home
10 - optional SSD slot
 
GPU's in these boxes are OK with 1080 but not OK for 4K HD video streaming. (worthless to me to run KODI).
On another note the cheaper newer Arm based TVBoxs make for excellent KODI 4K boxes.
 
28th of May, 2019
 
Adding Homeseer plugins, events and scripts to Homeseer 3 Lite (limited to 5 plugins) and the Homeseer Touch now is included with base and not counted as a plugin.
 
Testing
- Omni Plugin
- ZWave plugin
- X10 plugin
- UPB plugin
- WeatherXML
- mcsMQTT
- CheaperRFID
 
Home Assistant
- MQTT and modded Wifi devices with Tasmota and Espurna - Switches, garage door opener, temperature hubs
- Alexa devices for TTS and running automation events
- OmniLinkBridge MQTT plugin
 
Adding to Windows 7 embedded stuff.
 
[sharedmedia=gallery:images:1175]

 
 
 
 
 
4th of June, 2019
 
Just to post / document here relating to one combo S912 Octocore automation box running Homeseer / HA.
 
I tested it here a couple of weeks to work fine then shipped it to an automation peer.  I had issues with SSH always getting disconnected and blamed the local ISP.
 
Well it turns out that the box overheats after running some 10 minutes and then shuts down after a bit.
 
Looks like a defective box. Thinking maybe the heat sink moved on it during shipping.  It has a large aluminum heatsink covering the CPU, GPU and DDR3 RAM.
 
Rather than take it apart I asked peer to send it back to Amazon for a refund.   
 
Today I have 3 of the S912 Octocore boxes running Linux here and they have been fine.  I do see a temperature spike to around 70 ° C when streaming HD 4K movies. 
 
The Intel Beelink BT3 Pro box never goes above 50 ° C.
 
21st of June 2019
 
I have had issues with one of the TV Boxes configured as an Ubuntu 18.04 server.  Odd networking issues.
 
Redid the box today using an older Armbian Kernel.
 
Armbian_5.44_S9xxx_Ubuntu_bionic_3.14.29_server_20180729.img.xz
 
1 - write the above image to a micro SD card
2 - boot it and ssh to the IP
3 - login with root / 1234 and follow the instructions
4 - update and upgrade
uname -a

Linux HS3-ATL 3.14.29 #26 SMP PREEMPT Sun Jul 29 11:26:15 MSK 2018 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux
 
 

/ ___|/ _ \__  ____  ____  __
\___ \ (_) \ \/ /\ \/ /\ \/ /
 ___) \__, |>  <  >  <  >  <
|____/  /_//_/\_\/_/\_\/_/\_\
                             

Welcome to ARMBIAN 5.44 user-built Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS 3.14.29   
System load:   1.13 1.27 1.22      Up time:       1:08 hour        
Memory usage:  5 % of 2733MB     IP:            192.168.244.250
CPU temp:      36°C               
Usage of /:    5% of 29G        

Last login: Fri Jun 21 10:20:40 2019 from 192.168.244.232


 
Installation of software to be used.
 
1 -    Webmin
A -   apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl apt-show-versions python
B - wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.910_all.deb
C - dpkg --install webmin_1.910_all.deb
2 - Mosquitto
A - apt update
B - apt install mosquitto
3 - STunnel
A - apt update
B - apt install stunnel
 
21st of June 2019 - continued
 
4 - Install Docker-CE
A - sudo apt install -y apt-transport-hxxps ca-certificates curl gnupg2 software-properties-common
B - curl -fsSL hxxps://download.docker.com/linux/debian/gpg | sudo apt-key add -
C - sudo add-apt-repository "deb [arch=arm64] hxxps://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu $(lsb_release -cs) stable"
D - sudo update
E - sudo apt-get install -y docker-ce

5 - Install Home Assistant

A - install Home Assistant for Arm64 Ubuntu
docker pull homeassistant/aarch64-homeassistant
B - create an homeassistant config directory
mkdir -p /opt/home-assistant/config
C - install HA configuration and update if necessary
docker run -d --name="home-assistant" -v /opt/home-assistant/config:/config -v /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro --net=host --restart unless-stopped homeassistant/aarch64-homeassistant:latest
D - install users and group - do this for every sudo user on your Ubuntu build
Added users homeseer and username to sudo
sudo usermod -aG docker ${USER}
E - shut down HA docker
docker stop home-assistant
F - rebooted box

6 - Install Mono for Homeseer
a - sudo apt install gnupg ca-certificates
b - sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF
c - echo "deb hxxps://download.mono-project.com/repo/ubuntu stable-bionic main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-official-stable.list
d - sudo apt update
e - apt install mono-complete
f - apt install mono-vbnc
g - mono -V

Mono JIT compiler version 5.20.1.19 (tarball Thu Apr 11 08:59:52 UTC 2019)
Copyright (C) 2002-2014 Novell, Inc, Xamarin Inc and Contributors. www.mono-project.com
 
 
7 - Install Linux speech for Homeseer (speech) and HA if used.
a - apt install flite
b - apt install libttspico-utils
 
8 - Install Docker OmniLinkBridge
  • Clone git repo and build docker image
    git clone hxxps://github.com/excaliburpartners/OmniLinkBridge.git
  • cd OmniLinkBridge
  • docker build --tag="omnilink-bridge" .

    ISSUE HERE:
    docker build --tag="omnilink-bridge" .
    Sending build context to Docker daemon 1.864MB
    Step 1/10 : FROM mono:latest
    latest: Pulling from library/mono
    no matching manifest for linux/arm64/unknown in the manifest list entries

Forgot what I did to fix this the last time.

So instead copied docker omnilinkbridge from a running S912 TVBox to new box.
1 - docker save -o tarfile imagename
2 - docker load -i tarfile
  • Configure at a minimum the controller IP and encryptions keys. The web service port must be 8000 unless the Dockerfile is changed.
    mkdir /opt/omnilink-bridge
  • cp OmniLinkBridge/OmniLinkBridge.ini /opt/omnilink-bridge
  • vim /opt/omnilink-bridge/OmniLinkBridge.ini

[*]Start docker container
  • docker run -d --name="omnilink-bridge" -v /opt/omnilink-bridge:/config -v /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro --net=host --restart unless-stopped omnilink-bridge

[*]Verify connectivity by looking at logs
  • docker container logs omnilink-bridge

 
 
 
 
Back
Top