Sharing enlightening moments of home automation
A subfloor ventilation system is probably something that most people get installed, configured and then forget about. And in many cases that might be fine, but if you had the opportunity, wouldn’t it be better to take more control over such a system? I decided to do exactly that and control the ventilation system based on environmental sensors.
Continue reading “Subfloor Ventilation Made Easy”
My old pool chlorinator motor broke and instead of forking out another $600 on an overpriced pool accessory I decided to fix it using a new reduction gear motor, connect it to an ESP and control dosing liquid chlorine via Home Assistant.
Continue reading “Smarter Swimming Pool 6: Chlorinator”
My ESP8266 based device that is measuring water temperature, water level and liquid chlorine level is happily running for quite some time now.
However, the eco-system around Home Assistant and ESP has evolved, and I just wanted to quickly share how that has changed the setup of my smart swimming pool.
Continue reading “Smarter Swimming Pool 5: Under the Surface”
My pool requires a regular influx of liquid chlorine that is stored in a large drum next to the automated chlorinator. Every couple of weeks I have to replenish that drum, otherwise the chlorine concentration in the pool water gets too low, and algae starts growing resulting in green-ish pool water. Needless to say, this has already happened a couple of times in the past and each time I had to pour in more chemicals to clean up the mess and wait a few days until the water was clean again.
Continue reading “Smarter Swimming Pool 4: Liquid Chlorine Level”
Water disappears from an outdoor swimming pool over time – naturally through evaporation or through a small leak in a pipe that is hard to detect. To some degree rain helps to balance the pool water level, but sometimes you will have to top up manually. If your pool is constructed like mine, then if the water is below a certain level, the pool pump will be unable to pull enough water, and instead you get air into the pipes with unwanted consequences. Filtering water is not working efficiently anymore, the cleaning robot might stop, the pump might be damaged (water cools it down).
Continue reading “Smarter Swimming Pool 3: Water Level”
Since my pool is purely heated by the sun, I thought knowing the current water temperature might help in choosing the right outfit – boardshorts or wetsuit – or choose to better stay out of the pool altogether.
Continue reading “Smarter Swimming Pool 2: Water Temperature”
When I bought my house I also inherited a nice outdoor swimming pool. Little did I know about pool maintenance back then and so during the first couple of months everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Anyway, I am now in a position to go beyond the static pool maintenance and am smartening up the whole thing. This post is the first one in a short series describing various small improvements I have made – starting with making the pool pump a bit smarter.
Continue reading “Smarter Swimming Pool 1: Pool Pump”