The "truc" Home Automation "ecosystem": The NODE-RED controller

Did I already mention that I love NODE-RED ? I don't think I did, so: I love NODE-RED. If you haven't come across it before, google it now and then get it, install and run it and enjoy it.

I use it to centralise control of my many IOT devices and provide a "global" view of the system with a nice UI. It also provides my "update server" so that all devices automatically upgrade themselves when I change the firmware. In future it may tweet me when odd things happen and send facebook posts showing weekly summaries so I can see how my home is doing while on holiday...on second thoughts, I'm not sure I'm quite that sad yet!

One of its main benefits is that by putting all the "wiring" between the devices in one place on a raspberry Pi, the code in each device can be a lot smaller. It also allows me to "link" devices so that - for example - if one device in a zone goes on, they all do. I can also send MQTT control messages at the press of a button such as "tell all Sonoff s20's to upgrade now" or "tell all floor lamps to turn on".

I'm going to go into a lot more detail about how it does those things at a later date, once Esparto v2.0 has been released, but for now for the sake of completeness, here's a few snapshots:

1) The main "estate view"

2) The "Device" view

 3) The internal "routing" flow (one of five NODE-RED "flow"s)