Domoticz for home from zero

[qbusr]

Hello everyone, I am new on this forum.
I am considering using domoticz for my home, but for now i lack the basic knowledge as i have never been playing with automatics in general. Right now, for 90%, I will start building my home. If i manage to, i would like to make it intelligent. My basic condition is to be controlled from mobile, website, etc. What would like to have is :
- lights :
auto on/off depending on time, light sensor
varying light intensity (e.g. from 17:00 till 22:00 lights on 100%, after 22:00 30%)
-switching on/off some household items (via time schedule or manual switch)
- window roller shades:
auto close/open on given hour
- floor heating
i know that i am going to need some temperature sensors (i don't know the type), and control electrovalves. I will have Dietrich MODULENS AGC…/V 100 HL heater - is there possibility (and reason) for connecting heater to domoticz ? If so, why ? To determine heating schedules from domoticz ?
- garage gate:
http://www.mirola.pl/pl/c,65,naped-chea ... -200c.html this is what i will have. I would like to control gate from domoticz but also know its state (opened/closed), this means i need some extra sensors on my gate to determine if its open or closed ? (somebody can open/close gate from manual switch or remote)
- water/electricity/gas gauges - for charts and statistic mainly
- have some user defined functions, e.g. "watching a movie" which will turn off some lights, turn on some ambient light, close window rollers.

What i am imaging is to have pc/RPi with domoticz, lan relay board (i dont know how many relays, but i am assuming ~50-60), lan input board (fot temperature, media gauges, reading states of lights, rollers, gates), lan relay board with PWM as I would like to have all devices non-WiFi. Am i correct ?

As the list of comaptible devices doesn't ring a bell for me could you tell me if I am going in the right direction and if so, what is the hardware I am looking for ? For now I've only found eth8020 relay lan board. Is there some "start your home with domoticz" tutorial ?
thanks!

[krizzz]

Hello everyone, I am new on this forum.
I am considering using domoticz for my home, but for now i lack the basic knowledge as i have never been playing with automatics in general. Right now, for 90%, I will start building my home. If i manage to, i would like to make it intelligent. My basic condition is to be controlled from mobile, website, etc. What would like to have is :
- lights :
auto on/off depending on time, light sensor
varying light intensity (e.g. from 17:00 till 22:00 lights on 100%, after 22:00 30%)
-switching on/off some household items (via time schedule or manual switch)
- window roller shades:
auto close/open on given hour
- floor heating
i know that i am going to need some temperature sensors (i don't know the type), and control electrovalves. I will have Dietrich MODULENS AGC…/V 100 HL heater - is there possibility (and reason) for connecting heater to domoticz ? If so, why ? To determine heating schedules from domoticz ?
- garage gate:
http://www.mirola.pl/pl/c,65,naped-chea ... -200c.html this is what i will have. I would like to control gate from domoticz but also know its state (opened/closed), this means i need some extra sensors on my gate to determine if its open or closed ? (somebody can open/close gate from manual switch or remote)
- water/electricity/gas gauges - for charts and statistic mainly
- have some user defined functions, e.g. "watching a movie" which will turn off some lights, turn on some ambient light, close window rollers.

What i am imaging is to have pc/RPi with domoticz, lan relay board (i dont know how many relays, but i am assuming ~50-60), lan input board (fot temperature, media gauges, reading states of lights, rollers, gates), lan relay board with PWM as I would like to have all devices non-WiFi. Am i correct ?

As the list of comaptible devices doesn't ring a bell for me could you tell me if I am going in the right direction and if so, what is the hardware I am looking for ? For now I've only found eth8020 relay lan board. Is there some "start your home with domoticz" tutorial ?
thanks!

You have quite some questions and a lot of specific ones related to certain hardware. If you are counting on receiving a detailed answer for your specific situation, i think you can wait a long time. A lot of us on this forum are already searching and improving there domoticz installation step by step. This will be the situation for you also.

But beware, Domoticz can do anything you are requesting. This is without a doubt. But it will take a lot of time to find the correct hardware to use, which protocol will u be using etc etc. That I recommend you to cut your project in pieces. Because Domoticz has the ability t work with a lot of wireless sensors, I do not think you should now take this into consideration when building your house. I mean, the pipes will be laid for your floor heating, it is just a matter of finding out which valve to use which can be switched though domoticz.

As of my situation, I am using a device created by RFXcom (there are more competitors in the market) to receive temperate updates in each room by the 433mhz protocol. This works great. Maybe the sensor to the top floor of my house I have a little bit of connectivity problems, but this can be solved by placing another domotivz slave. I mean, RPI's are quite cheap these day's!

So, break down your project in pieces, and try and find out the answers yourself. If you need help, ask your questions also piece by piece. This should be my advice.

[jorgh]

@qbusr,

Looks like a fun project to me

What i am imaging is to have pc/RPi with domoticz, lan relay board (i dont know how many relays, but i am assuming ~50-60), lan input board (fot temperature, media gauges, reading states of lights, rollers, gates), lan relay board with PWM as I would like to have all devices non-WiFi. Am i correct ?

If you are starting your domotica implementation, why not use of the shell stuff, like z-wave. As far as I can tell it should be able to accomplish all of your goals and doesn't require additional wiring (maybe an additional neutral wire for dimmers if that is not already available.) I think that would be less work and easier to implement.

Regards,

Jorg

[qbusr]

Thanks for replies.
As for cutting project into smaller pieces - this is good advice, however for now I am looking for possibilities to develop whole project and to fulfill my, not so high i presume, conditions.
As for wireless devices, for now i can put some cables wherever i want. I don't like wireless solutions, not because of some problems i had, but I rather am "cable" type. Though I know that I won't think of everthing at the start and will have to use some wireless devices in the future. While searching the internet I found some problems with z-wave, that not every module is compatible with signal extended by previous device, etc.

Before focusing strictly on domoticz I would like to play with it a little, but I don't know how to build my architecturee. For example which is better - LAN boards with relays/inputs or Rpi + Arduino + relays on GPIO pins or which is easier to set up, which involves less space in the garage, etc.
Unfortunatelly i can't find any simple tutorials on "how to do something" or "you better don' do something".