@RobotSmartHouse

Robot Smart House is a passion project I (Jimbo) has created involving connecting all things together. Stemming back from Sprint’s WiMAX 4G days, I’ve been interested in connecting all things together. bring on the IOT life. Of course this comes at some risk, so I’m ad advocate of local hosting & limiting IOT and other smart home tech to the internet.

In 2012 I bought my first smart home tech… The X10 RF smart outlets, 5 of them with a remote in my bedroom at my parents house. The convenience of using the universal remote to control my Sharp 6-Disk CD/Radio, Samsung TV, cable box, and lamps is what hooked me.

In 2014 I was introduced to Alexa & built routines for my “smart room”. As a network engineer I noticed a lot of packets to the cloud and back to my internet… I didn’t like that. Too much spying going on.

In 2016, Still Living at my parents I was introduced to HomeAssistant (HASSos) & Hubitat via a YouTube Video I stumbled on. I downloaded both onto separate Raspberry Pi 3B+ and learned about both ecosystems and OS’s… I was researching and playing with both for about a month until I landed on the clear winner, the open source Home Assistant Operating System.

Once I had my mind set, I set out on a journey to connect all things smart home… Learned YAML via YouTube, Google, forums & Groups. I was Integrating Cameras & Outlets. Favorite automation was turning on my 55″ TVs input to HDMI2 for the CCTV cameras with a click of a button.

In 2018 I bought RobotSmartHouse…. and turned it into just that. Just about every aspect of my place is smart home’d. (except the bathroom, that’s mostly not)

My list of Devices used as of January 2024 (including Christmas devices)

  • 2 WAN’s (Xfinity & TMobile Business)
  • Lenovo i5 cpu PC w/ pfSense Firewall & Netgear Switches
  • Lenovo i5 cpu PC w/ Windows11 for audio server + Backup
  • Dell Optiplex i7 cpu, 32gb ram Ubuntu Linux server with HA & Plex w/ 14tb drive
  • old no-name machine with Proxmox on a i5 w/16gb ram chassis for test bench
  • (Streaming PC) Custom built desktop MSI Gaming MoBo, i7 CPU, 32gb ram, 2tb Samsung NVMe, 3060 TI GPU, 2x USB 3.0 expansion PCIe cards, 4 Monitors from GPU, 2 Streamdecks, 5 Channel Audio Mixer.
  • Laptop (not used much) Acer R15, i7 cpu, 12gb ram, 940mc GPU, 1tb SSD, new battery in 2023
  • Sonoff Basics: 22 (with 6 unused) (Tasmota or ESPHome)
  • Sonoff S31: 2 (Air Conditioner power monitors) (ESPHome)
  • Sonoff 4ch Pro: 2 (Air Conditioners) (Tasmota)
  • Sonoff LV Inching: 3 (Buttons… 2 car remote starters, 1 front door buzzer) (Tasmota)
  • Zigbee Outlets: 2
  • Hue Lights: 2
  • Leviton Switches: 4
  • Harmony Hubs: 2
  • MagicHome LED Controllers: 5
  • NodeRed ESP8266 WLED Controllers: 8 (with 4 unused)
  • VOIP Phone Lines: 2
  • ESP8266 Buttons: 3 (ESPHome)
  • Zigbee Buttons: 2
  • Zigbee Temp Sensors: 4
  • Zigbee Motion Sensors: 3
  • Zigbee Leak Sensors: 2
  • Zigbee Aquara Cube: 1
  • Roku/Amazon/TV: 3
  • Smart Lock: 1
  • Wyze Cameras: 6 (wz_mini_hacks)
  • RONGTA Receipt Thermal Printer: 1
  • Brother MFC Printer: 1
  • I’m Sure I forgot Some

If you’d like a video on any of this or have questions let me know!

Work still in progress
-JimboSliceChicago
jimbo@jimbojamesshow.com