My journey to a smart home

Posted by Martin Roth on Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Last Modified on Saturday, December 10, 2022

I am working in the department Digital Products and Transformation, so a Smart Home is not too far.

At first I had a test board with a few KNX components running on a test board. I connected these components with OpenHab, running on an old raspy, which worked out of the box.

Once the renovation of the first floor was ready, we installed in almost all the rooms MDT2 Glastaster:

  • to control light/dimming and heating
  • to control home theater canvas and beamer lift

We have window contacts in all the windows and in some of the rooms, these are actually connected to the heating control. In the bathroom we control the ventilation via a Steinel MultiSensor, and if the window is open we stop ventilation.

In the floor and bathroom/toilet the light is controlled automatically.

But there are many things left to do:

  • develop a backup concept for the OpenHab part and if possible with git also for the KNX installation in generarl (following the (howto)[https://www.openhab.org/docs/installation/openhabian.html#availability-and-backup]
  • create more out of the box lighting schemes - in particular for the living room
  • using the presence sensors for automatically shutting of the lights
  • coupling the AVM controlled upper part of our house with the KNX part
  • coupling our different heating systems more with the KNX installation - particularly if the wood burner is on and no window is open ventilation is not allowed …

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