RPi Zero W sensor

[DomoJev]

Is anyone using a RaspBerry Zero W as a sensor?

These things are pretty cheap and feature WiFi. So I thought to use one to read my energy meter with and communicate its readings to domoticz over wifi.

Or is there a cheaper option? My domoticz server is not near to the energy meter and I have no intention to pull extra wires between both sites. I thought about using an Arduino for it, but a RPi Zero W seems cheaper.

[franzelare]

i do

i added a camera in the small housing (normal raspi camera module), plus a LUX sensor (dirlled a small hole in the housing) and added a temp/pressure sensor (all fits inside the standard housing if you wire it up nicely)
on the GPIO i use some inputs for door contacts.
all runs using python scripts that send the data to my domoticz server

I also use ESP 12E units runing mysensor, but the pi zero w has a much better uptime through wifi, needs less reboots due to loosing connection

[Vulpecula]

I think the RPi Zero W is still a little bit overkill. Better is an ESP8266, something like a Wemos D1 mini Pro. See http://www.esp8266thingies.nl/wp/

[BenHeneghan]

I think the RPi Zero W is still a little bit overkill. Better is an ESP8266, something like a Wemos D1 mini Pro. See here http://www.esp8266thingies.nl/wp/

Interesting, thanks for the link!

[franzelare]

i have a few of the Pi zero W units at home, what i see is that sometimes they loose track of time when they are powered off for half a day or so

in order to counter this i added the following line to /etc/init.d/rc.local
sudo date -s "$(curl -s --head http://google.com | grep ^Date: | sed 's/Date: //g')"

this greps the time from google.com and sets the time on your system based on your localization