Home Automation Help (Temperature Sensors)

MBix on 07/01/2021 - 13:33

Hi folks,

Looking for a bit of a hand regarding Home Automation and specifically temperature sensors. I've done a fair bit of a reading regarding this, and a few comments on deals etc and have very much confused myself more. My end goal is to ask my Google Home Mini's "Hey Google, what is the temperature in the lounge room" (and any other rooms I put a sensor in)

After some reading I decided to buy a Xiaomi Mi Smart Home Hub V3 and was about to purchase AQARA Temperature Sensor however I did a bit more reading and it seems like getting Google Assistant to respond with the reading isn't actually possible easily. Apparently Siri will respond with it which is fine for my iPhone, but inside the house I much prefer asking Google. I have a Xiaomi Air Purifier 3H that actually shows the temperature in the Mi Home app, but I haven't found a way to get Google seeing this.

So that leads me to two questions:

A: Is there a way to get this setup fairly easily with the equipment I have + an AQARA Sensor

B: If not, what is the easiest and possibly cheapest way to get Google reading the temperature of certain rooms.

Any help would be fantastic.

Home & Garden

Comments

  • stratbargain on 07/01/2021 - 13:57
    +1

    You could probably use something like Home Assistant in the mix - https://www.home-assistant.io/ I'm fairly confident it would work. But be warned the learning curve is fairly high.

    • MBix on 07/01/2021 - 14:00
      +1

      It's definitely something I've been looking into it. I have a Raspberry Pi that I use for Kodi that I could probably repurpose. I think I even have one of the Raspberry Pi Zero Wireless laying around. It does seem like a steep learning curve indeed, but it does interest me at the same time.

      In saying that I was hoping for an easier solution until I had some spare time to go down the Home Assistant route, but it might just be forcing my hand sooner!

    • boomramada on 07/01/2021 - 14:39

      Using HA, "Hey Google, what is the temperature in the lounge room" not very easy/straight forward. But automatically turning your A/C on/off based on temp is something easy to set up with HA.

  • bazingaa on 07/01/2021 - 13:58
    +2

    I used to have a DHT11 connected to a RPi, good old days.

  • emblurr on 07/01/2021 - 14:48

    Sensibo sensors will do this and other things

    • MBix on 07/01/2021 - 15:57

      I definitely was looking into Sensibo, good to know they will integrate with Google Home. My Genio IR hub controls my Air Con in Tuya really well so I was hoping to avoid spending too much on a Sensibo but I might bite the bullet.

      • sutherland978 on 08/01/2021 - 15:43

        I was in the exact same scenario. Just got the sensibo sky to replace my genio IR blaster. Sensibo set up was a pain, all the remotes have weird names and the set-up wizard didn't match mine correctly initially.

        I was using a Smartthings multi-purpose sensor in the next room to remote trigger the Genio IR blaster. I can usually ask Google what the temperature of the smartthings sensor is (doesn't always work). I haven't connected it to the sensibo yet but I think if I were to do it again then I'd pay the extra for the sensibo air with the remote room sensors.

        • MBix on 08/01/2021 - 15:53

          Good to know mate. My Genio IR blaster actually controls the air conditioner pretty damned well (except getting it to change to medium speed) and now I've managed to get Siri reading the Temperature Sensor inside my Xiaomi Air Purifier 3H with Home Assistant help I'm not too sure if I'll go down the route of throwing cash at the Sensibo. Especially with the Xiaomi Hub sitting here without use for now until I can work out an easy, cheap way of getting Google to tell me the temperature readout.

  • Wt133 on 07/01/2021 - 15:09

    Hmm you can already do this with HomeKit and Phillips hue motion detectors it’s super simple. Them just ask Siri

    • MBix on 07/01/2021 - 15:58

      Yeh I was happy to find out the Aqara sensor will work fine with Siri which is okay for my iPhone, but around the house we have many Google Home speaks so was hoping to integrate there

  • Salmando on 07/01/2021 - 16:01

    I used to use a ifttt easy setup, which connected to a mijia temperature thing (via a Bluetooth bridge with… My lamp??) which was very easy to setup through the mi home app and ifttt.

    It was dead straightforward, with the exception of the Bluetooth connecting to the lamp connecting to WiFi part…

  • MBix on 08/01/2021 - 13:35

    Well!

    I bit the bullet and repurposed my Raspberry Pi 2B yesterday for Home Assistant. 11 hours of tinkering later I still don't have Google telling me the temperature but I have Siri telling me the temperature of the room where my Air Purifier is. So that's a win. It's also a loss how much time disappeared while I kept getting distracted adding/trying new and different things.

    I think I've just opened the flood gates of wasting time playing with these things :P

  • salem on 08/01/2021 - 13:57

    I'm in a similar place. I have a few Xiaomi air purifiers that record temperature, but they don't show up in Alexa as temperature sensors so I can't automate anything off the values they record using Alexa routines. Same with my Ambi Climate IR sensors/remotes for the Aircon. I was hoping to pull everything in to Alexa routines rather than add another piece to the puzzle with Home Assistant. Are there any temp sensors that will just show up in Alexa (and presumably Google home) natively without needing to go via HA?

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