Domoticz: Review & Setup

DOMOTICZ: Review and setup.

Open Source Home Automation System.
Domoticz is a home automation system designed to control various devices and receive input from various sensors like lamps, weather stations, energy loggers, doorbels, carkeys, TV remotes, etc.

Keywords:

Hardware:
The hardware in this review tested is a Raspberry Pi 3
Arduino Mega 2560 board with a module for
RFLink 433.9 MHz board with dipool antenna.
KAKU, klik aan klik uit, power swithes.
Phlips Hue starter kit (bridge, remote/dimmer and lights).
Wheather station, Cresta for use in garden.
Wheather station, Weather Underground by develloper API.
Ziggo modem/router for access to the internet.

Software:
The software in this review tested is
Raspberry Pi 3.
The easiest way to get started is to download the SD Card image from sourceforge.
The standard way is to install NOOBS / Raspbian on a SD Card.
In the raspbian terminal type the commands:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo raspi-config
sudo reboot
ifconfig # to detect your local IP 192.168.x.y
This might do the job. Additional steps are terminal commands:
cd domoticz
./updatebeta
or
ldd /home/domoticz/domoticz
./updatebeta # the stable version of domoticz is only stable on specific (older) raspbian versions.
This should do the job.

Domoticz:
Now open a webbrowser like Midori on the Pi or Edge on a PC.
type the URL
This should open de Domoticz webpage (UI).

Additional setup / info.

Operational:
Domoticz tested versions: latest v4.9753
v3.8944 (feb 2018); v4.9753 (july 2018)
In this period of 5 months the system was down twice.
The pi uSD card is sensitive to power failures.

Static IP to access the pi from the internet.
1. Pi:
add the lines:
interface wlan0
#wifi connection
static ip_address=192.168.178.100/24
static routers=192.168.178.1
static domain_name_servers=192.168.178.1
#pi gets static address 100 by reboot.
2. Ziggo modem/router:
Advanced setup, security, port forwaring.
local ip 192.168.178.100 port range 8080:8080 extern port range 8080:8080 protocol TCP
DHCP setup
local address 192.168.178.10
100 devices up to 192.168.178.109

Turn off the Pi from remote access SSH
Do not turn off the pi by removing the power cable.
This results in uSD card fails.
So turn off the Pi by software commands.
Putty (For secure FTP = SSH)
Use putty session
192.168.1.10 (pi local adress) port 22.
un: pi
pw: raspberry
open terminal program and enter the command
sudo shutdown

Clear Browser Cache
The web frontend is set to be cached. This will speed up the application launch time,
and is perfect if you create a shortcut on the home screen of an iPhone/iPad/….
If for some reason, the page does not load correctly in Firefox / Chrome / Edge, clear this cache.

Information sources:

Henkus 2018