Hi John, If you would like to look at something new, look at Zephyr OS. It has a very good documentation and makes all kinds of embedded development way easier. If you are looking for a platform to prototype, Raspberry PI Pico (2) seems a good choice as it is cheap and well supported by Zephyr community. As for if needed, I can redo my home automation presentation as I did several years ago on OpenHAB+MQTT+Zephyr basrd devices. Runs just perfectly. Feel free to ask if you have more questions, -- Dmitriy Korovkin On Sun, 17 Aug 2025 11:30:28 -0400 Nash JC - NCF via linux <linux [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org> wrote: > FWIW, I'm working on replacing home alarm system. I've more or less decided to use > 3 separate pieces: > - R Pi running motion (more below) > - ESP32 smoke/vapour > - ESP32 low temperature > > Any or all of these, given current thread about security cameras, would make a decent > discussion for next meeting. > > With "motion" I've been doing some playing with settings. It's non-trivial to get > the right set of settings, and they are highly conditional on available local > storage, the context of the need for motion detection and images, etc. I've chosen > to NOT capture video, just images, and not very frequent. Also to NOT upload more > than a few of these. And the trigger choice is still under experimentation. I'll > openly admit I've a huge body of learning to catch up on. I'll be happy to share > ideas and experience, either on list or "off list and prepare digest". > > Rest of msg is (current -- but might change) rationale for choices that might give > others some useful points to ponder. > > 1) I've never programmed in C, but the ESP32 examples / tutorials I'm using are in C > (there are some out there in Python, but I bought a quite nice starter kit and am > working through the nifty circuits and code). My plan is to adapt one of the examples. > Testing one case is easier than wondering what happens if both smoke and low temp > get triggered at same time. Hence intent to build two separate modules. > > 2) I've just become aware of MQTT for notifications, so am novice in that. > However, I've managed to get ESP32 to send me an email message. Note that mobile > phone folk have killed off email to SMS in last year, just after I tested that > option and found it very useful. Sigh. > > 3) My main concern is low temp when away for more than a day or so in winter. > Friends got a call when in bed that their furnace had died based on such an "alarm" > with their commercial home system. It was -30 out. They figure the alarm saved > them a 40-50K$ freezeup. But such alarms don't have to be "within 5 mins". Probably > 1-3 hours is OK. > > 4) Smoke is more "I'd like to know." If there's a fire, unless I'm home I can't do > much to knock it down. I'm not building a smoke alarm, but a "smoke notifier". > > 5) Intrusion alarm response is almost certain to be too slow to be useful except > in a case where someone pulls in a truck to empty the house. Professionals will be > after something special. It would be nice to know I have a Vermeer rather than > a couple of verMinders (my nom-de-paintbrush is Jan verMinder). Kids breaking in > for vandalism probably will not hang around for police, who won't get there for > at least 30 mins and likely longer. So main use is to have images. There are > plenty of issues to discuss on how many, what quality, and how / where to upload. > > Anyway, I welcome the discussion going on. Everyone has a slightly different > use case, but airing them is helpful to refine the response. > > Cheers, John Nash > > > On 2025-08-16 18:17, Dianne Skoll via linux wrote: > > On Sat, 16 Aug 2025 17:07:48 -0400 > > Spencer Cheng via linux <linux [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org> wrote: > > > >> 15 or so years ago, I did the system design for a linux based video > >> camera which could operate through a firewall as a favour to a > >> friend. > > > > My home network has a static public IP address ($4/month extra from > > TekSavvy) so once I fire up my VPN, I can access my camera from > > anywhere. > > > > I would not expose any sort of security camera feed to the > > Internet other than over a VPN. > > > > Regards, > > > > Dianne. > > > > To unsubscribe send a blank message to linux+unsubscribe [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org > > To get help send a blank message to linux+help [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org > > To visit the archives: https://lists.linux-ottawa.org > > > > > To unsubscribe send a blank message to linux+unsubscribe [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org > To get help send a blank message to linux+help [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org > To visit the archives: https://lists.linux-ottawa.org > To unsubscribe send a blank message to linux+unsubscribe [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org To get help send a blank message to linux+help [ at ] linux-ottawa [ dot ] org To visit the archives: https://lists.linux-ottawa.org