We built a house 7 years ago and it’s insulated and has double glazing. I’ve installed Home Assistant with temp sensors in the bed rooms and seeing 70%+ humidity levels. Temperature is always above 16c

We ventilate it, but still it’s 70% in the bedrooms. WHO recommends 40-60%, so we’re a bit worried.

Living room is around 55% during the day when we have the heat pump set at 21c.

As it’s pretty humid outside I think it’s almost impossible to get it lower, but are there any other tips? I don’t want to run dehumidifiers. Would an HRV like system help?

  • @sylverstreamOP
    link
    21 year ago

    I have for a while been intending to uprade my stuff to something that can handle photos/videos better, but haven’t got around to it. I might need to wait until I do that, then I’ll have a spare Pi to use for HA.

    I’m guessing an RPi 1B won’t handle it. It’s running Pi hole at the moment, but I think this is about the only thing it’s capable of.

    Not sure, HA itself is not very demanding. Most demanding thing I’m running are NZB’s (extracting / par check), Photoview (to index the photos on my NAS), and Frigate (web cams with motion detection). I’ve set CPU limits for each docker container to ensure it’s not overloaded, installed a fan, and now it seems to perform okay.

    • @DaveMA
      link
      21 year ago

      The RPi model B was the first iteration of Pi’s available (they released two at the same time, A and B). It has 512MB RAM and a 700MHz CPU. It is painfully underpowered. I doubt the stuff you’re talking about would be able to run on it. But since you mentioned running HA dockerised alongside other services and having it work OK, I think I’ll do that method on my RPi4.

      • @sylverstreamOP
        link
        21 year ago

        Yeah, the RPI4 is pretty good. I had to install a fan as it got hot pretty quickly and at 85c it will throttle.

        Main issues I had were with photo management solutions, which would completely knock out the Pi. Photoview and Pigallery2 are ones that are working well on my RPI4. I still have CPU limits on those docker instances.

        Also, had to tweak a bit with the settings for Frigate. They recommend a Coral for motion detection, but they are very hard /impossible to get or very expensive. I run 2 cameras with CPU motion detection and it works well. Load of my PI is between 1 and 2 so that’s fine for a quad core CPU.

        • @DaveMA
          link
          21 year ago

          Yeah I had the same issue wirh photos. I have a plan to eventually upgrade the main board from my Framework laptop and turn the old one into a server to deal with photo/video stuff.

          • @sylverstreamOP
            link
            21 year ago

            Check power usage. I also used an old Intel Desktop PC, but found it used about $150 / year power. Rough estimate, but if you leave something running 24/7 it’s good to keep the power usage low.

            • @DaveMA
              link
              21 year ago

              It’s a laptop so should have lower power usage than a desktop anyway. But I kinda expect anything doing photos/videos will use a bit of power. I might have to see if I can get a power usage measurer that’s compatible with Home Assistant!

              • @sylverstreamOP
                link
                21 year ago

                The smart plugs I linked before have power measurement built-in. It’s Zigbee, so locally only.

                Most of the ones sold in NZ are all WiFi based, which is annoying as they depend on the cloud. Philips Hue is I think the only proper local solution, but bring your wallet if you want to go down that route.

                • @DaveMA
                  link
                  21 year ago

                  When you say Zigbee is local only, I presume if you have remote access to Home Assistant then you can use this to control them? But they don’t rely on a cloud server. That sounds ideal.

                  • @sylverstreamOP
                    link
                    21 year ago

                    Oh, for remote control to HA, I use Tailscale. So I can connect to HA from my phone anywhere by turning Tailscale on. And, I get e.g. notifications for motion sensors. Very convenient.

                  • @sylverstreamOP
                    link
                    21 year ago

                    Yes, Zigbee is a protocol for a mesh network. Mains powered devices like smart bulbs and smart plugs are routers as well to extend the coverage. Temp sensors are end devices only (and not a router). You also have Zwave but I think Zigbee is more popular.

                    Downside is that not all Zigbee devices follow the Zigbee standard, it’s a bit of a mess sometimes.

                    So… there’s a new kid, Matter and Thread. It’s very new, so not a lot of devices, but the SkyConnect dongle is Matter/Thread ready. It will come first to HASS, and afterwards to dockerized (another advantage for HASS).

                    The benefits are that it’s indeed local only (i.e. your local network) and the batteries in end devices like temp sensors will last much longer than the wifi equivalent.

                    I didn’t know about all of this 6 weeks ago, hope it makes sense.