Node-RED

#1

Hello,

One of the installers I work with has asked me if I know anything about getting Velbus to work with the Node-RED user interface.

I don’t, so if anyone has any experience or thoughts on the subject I’d love hear them.

Many thanks in advance,

Stuart

#2

Domoticz has a similar way of flow programming. Google for “domoticz events” should show some examples.

#3

Thanks :slight_smile:
The only problem is that Domoticz doesn’t (appear) to have built in full integration with Velbus (yet).

NodeRED seems nice and has an extremely active community, but the word from the core team is that they don’t have time to (officially) create the required files to add Velbus as a supported hardware range.

I’ve been advised to reach out to their community to find a programmer who might be interested in taking up the challenge.

I’ll post any news here.

Best wishes,
Stuart

#4

I’m writing an interface for velbus so you can use a webservice to send commands and poll for the status of the channels.
Code can be found here: https://github.com/StefCoene/velserver
Maybe it’s useful in your project .

Stef

#5

Hello Stef

I’d be really interested to know more :slight_smile:

I’ll take a look at your site and get back to you if (more likely when) I need more information.

Many thanks,

Stuart

#6

Hi

I’ve had a look and it’s all seems like a nice environment to work​ in, as long as it’s a personal project with very loose deadlines.

As an ‘out of the box’ solution for an installer, it just doesn’t seem to work with Velbus.

I’m prepared to be corrected​, so if anyone​ has stories to tell, I’d love to hear about them.

Thanks,
Stuart

#7

Didn’t all good OSS projects started as a home-build solution to solve a problem?
Even the linux kernel was started like that.

If you are willing to pay my bills, I can turn my personal project with very loose deadlines in a more professional project with strict deadlines :wink:

Stef

#8

Nothing would give me more pleasure than to pay for your time to develop your software :slight_smile: and turn it into a revenue source for you.

But unfortunately I just don’t have the money :frowning: to invest in another UI.

I’ve always said, there are only two limits in this world…

The power of your imagination

And the size of your wallet.

#9

Well I have managed to use NodeRed for my velbus installation. I use Domogik that has good Velbus integration for controlling my Velbus through a web-ui and with Domodroid as an android app. The developers are great, always helpful and ofcourse if you can like me code a bit, you can contribute to their sources so we all benefit. The nice thing about Domogik is it has ‘scenarios’ in which you can put some simple logic and I’ve combined it with my own arduino sensors/relays that speak MQTT. Domogik to combine velbus with arduino and esp8266.
However as the scenarios were somewhat limited in possibilities (currently no timed wait functionality) I added NodeRed to it as Domogik gives a nice rest and mq interface to your Velbus devices that you can use in NodeRed. The same rest interface gave me also the possibility to integrate it with the IFTTT (if this than that)-service opening a whole box of goodies to make my house ‘smart’ e.g. Hey Alexa, turn on the light in my toilet :wink:
PS: To be complete: I only used the NodeRed to control a velbus relay through a rest-call towards domogik. Just for 1 particular use case I had set it up and my experience in NodeRed with Velbus is 1 evening, but it was a good one ;-). So doing the whole Domogik setup just for getting it in NodeRed might be overkill on configuration and probably not all velbus devices are supported (I just have relais, dimmers and input modules).
PPS: My opinion: a Velbus to MQTT bridge would open velbus instantly to many open source projects: NodeRed, Domoticz, Openhab, homekit2mqtt for HAP-NodeJS (Apple Homekit emulation so you can drive it with IOS and its Siri assistant)…