what is possible with pimatic and my setup?

---

hello all!

first… excuse my english

so, i’m really new to this theme, so please excuse me if my questions sounds too silly.

what i have:

1. max! eq3 set (3 thermostats, 3 wall-thermostats, 3 door-/window-contacts, 1 eco-button)
2. 2 hue lights (with the old bridge)
3. elgato eve plug socket
4. logitech hub
5. fritzbox 7490 (only for info if needed)
6. macbook pro so… os x/virtual pc possible (only for info if needed)

what i want (in the end):

1. control all this stuff with my iphone (if possible with ONE app)
2. control (at least) the max! eq3 set from “outside” (via myfritz or however?)
3. (only optional) integrate all in homekit

what i know:

almost nothing i just read now for hours in the net about fhem, homebridge and now pimatic and try to find the easiest way for me to find a solution. primary because i’m fed up with this horrible max! app for ios and just to have “one place” for my homeautomation and not to have 3 apps (or more) to turn off the light and turn on my tv.

so what is your recommendation how to begin the setup (if possible!)? ok, raspberry 3, check. and then?

1. what software (just pimatic? or do i need a “combination” with fhem and homebridge?)
2. what plugins
3. what ios app

thank you in advance for any advice!

@aktivomat

For 1) eq3 max! is no problem: If you also own the max! Lan-Cube, what I expect you have, it’s just to install pimatic and the additional max!-plugin. If once connected in the same network you can no longer use max! local PC app and I think also not the remote connection via eq3 internet server >> but use pimatic for that.

pimatic is always usable over your phone with standard browsers inside you local network, from outside there are several options like you already pointed on myfritz, VPN or also from direct access with properly configured network.

I don’t own the other devices but most of them sound like they also possible.
like https://pimatic.org/plugins/pimatic-hue/ or https://pimatic.org/plugins/pimatic-hue-zll/

Take a look to the page https://pimatic.org/pages/plugins/ and you’ll find some for nearly everything, and it’s growing day by day.

For your setup:
pimatic core components just need a RaspberrPi (every rev) and install pimatic like https://pimatic.org/guide/getting-started/
pimatic plugins needed is depending on the devices and how you like to connect them in hardware. Sometimes there are different ways to connect with different hardware e.g.

You can’t find the right ones without reading some more of pimatic mostly
… and sometimes you need to read some more to find a better solution some month later, or for your next outstanding project …

first of all welcome to pimatic and our comunity
thx for writing in english, that’s our forum language, so all of our users are able to read/participate!

thx @DDNRN to your explanations! gonna give my 2 cents here

well, to make a very long story short, what you have and what is possible :

1. we’re having a plugin for max!, so you are able to control max with pimatic. the eco button is not implemented but can be emulated with buttons device and rules
2. hue is integrated via plugin
3. elgato eve is not integrated directly, maybe via homekit and pimatic-hap plugin
4. integrated via pimatic-harmony-hub
5. pimatic-fritz plugin serves the dect200 power plugs and the comet heating device

What you want :

1. pimatic has a web frontend that you can reach from all internet capable devices as iphones, android, pc, mac, linux and so on. you can reach pimatic via vpn, ddns etc. a secure connection via https is possible.
2. if vpn ddns etc. is possible then no problem
3. pimatic-hap plugin will serve you well

last 3 questions:

1. well, pimatic has many possibilites and is open source. you are always able to add hardware etc. via selfmade plugins. if something is not integrated, it may be in the future.
2. see all above or the mentioned plugin list https://pimatic.org/pages/plugins/
3. ios App is not available but android. well, you don’ really need an app to controll pimatic since it has a web frontend.

hope this will help, otherwise just ask!
our very helpful community will surely come up with solutions

edit :
pimatic has the possibility to execute shell commands or scripts like bash, python etc. via special shell devices like shellsensor or shellswitch. so you are able to run hardware that is not natively integrated via plugins.
another nice possibility from pimatic is the logreader. with this plugin you are able to parse for values in logfiles and show them in the gui.
last to mention is the powerful rule system that makes pimatic to a swiss knife for home automation

For the iPhone integration, you can put the link to pimatic on the app page, looks and works like an app. With the plugin pimatic-hap you can integrate pimatic as an homekit bridge and operate the all the devices in Pimatic with Siri. I am operating pimatic with my Apple Watch.

Cheers,
Frank

Yes and controlling them by iPhone/HomeKit Works also perfect.
If you have an AppleTv you can control your device also from outside of your network by HomeKit.

So if not the pimatic-gui as HomeScreen-Link works also great…

Some Pictures follow to see some examples…

This is the Pimatic-Gui as "Safari-WebApp
(Just two images as example)

and this is what it looks like in HomeKit…

the HomeKit-Widget

and for example a thermostatesetpoint

every thing works fine with pimatic and the hole other hardware…

edit:
ah and forgotten - Siri works also when you spell your command right.
(Sometimes a bit tricky in German)

Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Chris

first of all… UNBELIEVABLE!!! thank you so much for all your comments and more than helpful informations! you all really convinced me to start the project “homeautomation via pimatic”. these screenshot from @chris just looks like exact what i’m searching for (thank you chris!). just hope i’ll be able to implement all this stuff, because i’m really no programmer… more user. but i’ll try.

so my next step is to get this little raspberry pi beast and just do it so i will just start and i’m quite sure i’ll (have to) come back soon here to this forum again with further stupid questions

just some little questions in advance:

1. @DDNRN if i have the lan-cube i don’t have to “flush” it with a special software to use it with pimatic and max-plugin? it “just works” if i’m in the same network? sorry, if i “double-ask”, but this sounds almost to easy

2. @leader21 relating to “eco button”… is this “emulation with buttons device and rules” self-explanatory?

but maybe it’s better first to start and then to ask

thank you again, c u soon and have a nice day!

Well @aktivomat “Welcome to the club!”

I for one hope to hear from your experiences as a ‘non-programmer’ with Pimatic because that would give a good indication as to how user friendly it is (no doubt you’ll figure everything out, with or without the support from this forum!)!

Enjoy the trip! (And should you get lost, you can always come here for directions )

@aktivomat said in what is possible with pimatic and my setup?:

so my next step is to get this little raspberry pi beast and just do it so i will just start and i’m quite sure i’ll (have to) come back soon here to this forum again with further stupid questions

sure! go ahead, buy a raspi 3 and an 8GB sd card.

just some little questions in advance:
if i have the lan-cube i don’t have to “flush” it with a special software to use it with pimatic

no special software flash needed. pimatic grabs the neccesary data directly from the qube. one thing to mention - the qube is in the same network, yes, but you are only allowed to have one open connection to the cube. that’s a restriction of the qube itself. so no parallel use of the max sodtware or the max internet gateway when using pimatic. but … who wants that anyways?!

2 relating to “eco button”… is this “emulation with buttons device and rules” self-explanatory?

not really self explanatory but not very hard to understand. you need to create a buttons device with some buttons. then you can use rules like when button eco-mode is presed THEN set mode of Heizug1 = eco just for example. so you are able to have several scenarios. The hardware button itself does not work in pimatic!

but maybe it’s better first to start and then to ask

sure, go ahead! and if you face any problems come back and report! we are here to help
and as @Stokstaart said - it would be interesting to have some opinions from a “no developer and fresh non pimatic user”, since most of us are using pimatic for a long time and are prestressed with other homeautomation systems already.

@Stokstaart
OK, first steps are done! And of course I want to share my experiences. To anticipate the story… finally I managed it to get pimatic running on my raspberry. YES!

BUT… it was not sooo easy. And if I’d never done anything with coding in the terminal (already some minor experiences because of setting up my NAS or repairing my MacBook), I think I’d capitulated. Because first I used the "1. Setup Pimatic from Scratch (https://forum.pimatic.org/topic/192/1-setup-pimatic-from-scratch) instruction to setup and run in two problems:

1. The old nodejs version was loaded (so pimatic didn’t work).
2. The autostart didn’t work.

OK, maybe I should had watched for newer instructions… so finally I had to do the installation with a combination out of the instructions above and the newer ones (https://forum.pimatic.org/topic/2083/v0-9-install-pimatic-v0-9-from-scratch). For a newbie like me quite confusing… for a layman maybe impossible. BUT… finally I did it! And now I’ll start with the configuration of the devices/plugins.

I already integrated my netatmo station. No problem. Great! This I did „manual“ with the „Add a new device…“ function. But I don’t understand why I couldn’t find it with the automatic „Discover Devices“ function? Anyway… the main thing is it’s working Next I’ll approach the MAX! system.

@leader21
You said it’s maybe possible to integrate the elgato eve energy plug socket via pimatic-hap. Do you have any advice by chance how this could work? I already see the „Pimatic HomeKit Bride“ (pimatic-hap) within the eve-app. So I could integrate all my „pimatic-devices“ to HomeKit. Great! But how does it work „backwards“? How could I get the eve energy plug (which is a „hardware“ power-plug with bluetooth signal) into pimatic? Thank you for any advice in advance!

Anyway… now „I’m into pimatic“… and (even if the start was hard) I’m really lookin forward to continue…

I can confirm that the mix of setup tutorials/v0.8/v0.9/upgrade is a bit confusing! (even as a more experienced user i stepped into that…)

I would like to suggest the old forumpost “setup pimatic from scratch” either be removed, replaced or combined by the new “Setup pimatic V0.9 from scratch”. (this would be something for @leader21 to do since he ‘owns’ both posts…)

One tip i whish i had known when i was starting with Pimatic:
What i always do is i connect my cloud storage (via webdav) and automount it. That way i have my scripts and back-up config files always in a safe place if my SD card would fail or i would F** the system up with tinkering…(This setup rescued me many many times…)

@Stokstaart

Thank you for your fast response! I agree, “one” updated instruction from scratch would be great for new users.

The “backup-think” is another mission I wanted to step in soon. Thank you for remembering me My plan is to do an automated backup on my NAS (QNAP). Already found an instruction in the web. I’ll give it a try. But if I fail I’ll come back to your advice.

ah, one (or three) thing(s)/error(s) i saw while installation was the following:

pi@raspberrypi:~/pimatic-app/node_modules/pimatic $ sudo npm link
npm WARN deprecated to-iso-string@0.0.2: to-iso-string has been deprecated, use @segment/to-iso-string instead.
npm WARN deprecated jade@0.26.3: Jade has been renamed to pug, please install the latest version of pug instead of jade
npm WARN deprecated minimatch@0.3.0: Please update to minimatch 3.0.2 or higher to avoid a RegExp DoS issue

can i ignore it? or any advice how to resolve it? thank you in advance!!

@aktivomat said in what is possible with pimatic and my setup?:

npm WARN deprecated to-iso-string@0.0.2: to-iso-string has been deprecated, use @segment/to-iso-string instead.
npm WARN deprecated jade@0.26.3: Jade has been renamed to pug, please install the latest version of pug instead of jade
npm WARN deprecated minimatch@0.3.0: Please update to minimatch 3.0.2 or higher to avoid a RegExp DoS issue

Yes, it is safe to ignore these warning messages.

@mwittig great! thank you!

@leader21 just another question: just wanted to create the “eco-button” for MAX!. I’ve done it almost… just need a rule-code for the attribute “synced” -> “false”. Tried everything but couldn’t find the right rule. So somthing like “set status synced of heizung to false”. I already found the device attribute. It is “$office-heizung.synced”. But I really don’t know how to create a rule which says that this variable should get “false”.

Thanks again in advance!!

ok, now almost everything is running! and i have to say: pimatic is really amazing!! i love it!

the only thing i don’t know how to integrate is the elgato energy plug socket in pimatic. but maybe for this i better will create a new topic.

anyway! thank you all for help here!