Friday, December 20, 2019

Alexa still not an entry level hub replacement

I was writing up a response to someone about IFTTT and Alexa / Wireless Tag integration which will probably but useful later so I'm saving it here as it reflects on Alexa's poor support for sensors. Note Alexa's home automation interface is still better than Google's almost non existent one. (See compare below.)

Why go through IFTTT when you can integrate Wireless Tags direct with Kumo? As in as in my fridge / freezer monitoring setup which updates values as they change in my Homeseer instance which then can trigger any action Homeseer can perform. Which is just about anything. Plus IFTTT was become very unreliable this year.

Alexa Wireless Tag integration sort of works. I can ask the temperature of a sensor for example, "Alexa, what is the temperature of the freezer" and it tells me the reading from my regular sensor in the freezer. Though oddly in the device list I only see motion values for the regular tags and what appears to be temperature for the soil moisture tags. (Not all my soil moisture tags are dead.) Again oddly you can't use the sensor values in routines. Though finding anything in the Alexa device list is almost impossible since it is designed for people the just have a few things. Even stranger:

  • You can sort the device list in the web interface but not the android one. 
  • The web interface does not let you do anything with the devices on the list other than forget the device.
  • Routine management is missing from the web interface.
  • The android list interface does have some groups to narrow down the list but way to few. For example, the only way to see a list of the 12 of my 348 devices Alexa sees as "sensors" is to try to create a routine with one. 
  • My Homeseer sees 3137 "devices" as I write this. (Note a "device" is data stream or parent. As in a Hue Sensor would be seen as 5 "devices". A parent and 4 sensors, light level, temperature, motion and battery level.) Alexa only sees 348 of those (note some of the 348 are Alexa devices not in the Homeseer count) and only 12 of those as sensors from SmartThings, Wyze, Ring and Hue so far. Even then for example the Hue sensors report motion, temp and light gut Alexa only sees motion info.
  • Lack of complex triggers. For example: if no motion has been detected and door opens, turn on light. If motion has been detected and door opens turn off light. Or if any of room motion sensors are tripped reset occupancy timer. When occupancy timer hits X minutes turn off everything in room.


When you have 348 devices (that Alexa sees) like I do, it is almost useless. Amazon REALLY needs to improve their interface so it can scale if they want people to use their routine framework for any logic. So while it would be nice to have Wireless Tags usable as sensors in Alexa to, for instance, announce the fridge is too warm, I do not really see it as big deal till Amazon makes their configuration interface more usable.

To be fair when Alexa is compared to Google's Home:

Cons:


  • Google does not even have a web interface so everything must be done via phone or tablet.
  • Often skills like Harmony where with Alexa you would say "Alexa, turn on Netflix". With Google that worked then it went to you had to say "Hey Google, Ask Harmony to turn on Netflix." and then often tells me it did not recognize me and would not do it. Now it seems to be back to just "turn on" BUT for instance when I say "turn on Hero" (my PC's name) to Alexa is just works. I say "turn on Hero" to Google it starts playing something from Pandora.
  • It appears too that at some point Google Home lost some of the account links I had setup.


  • Lately the Googles (I have a Home and 3 minis) seem to say try again in a few seconds a lot.
  • To discover new devices you say "Alexa, discover devices." You say this to Google and it finds phones and asks if you want to ring them. Ask "how do I get you to discover devices", you get "I don't understand" and "I found a related how to get Alexa to discover devices"! It is also easy to do from the Alexa app with a swipe down. Instructions I found online say Google's Home should do that too but it appears to do nothing for me.
  • Google appears to allow one Harmony hub to be connected while Alexa allows many. (I have 5 currently)
  • Adding skills to Home is an egg hunt compared to Alexa. I just tried to add the Wyze skill for example and I had to search on line to even figure it out. Then while trying to link the account it just exited half way through me entering my login info.
  • WyzeAlexa sees all the cams, motion and contact sensors I have. Google sees on the cameras and contact sensors.
  • Google routines still appear to be voice command triggered only while Alexa's allow triggering using voice, time, some sensors (see above), location, alarms, echo button presses and "Guard state".

Pros:

  • The devices list in Google does seem to use the room from Homeseer. However I had to add each Wyze and Wireless Tag device to a room during the setup process manually. 

Wednesday, December 4, 2019

How to get actual help in tech groups

Another attempt at Answer to "I'm new what camera / automation should I get?"

I'm seeing multiple posts a day with people asking vague questions like:

  • What is the best security camera?
  • What is the best hub?
  • What is the best security or camera system?

Most of the responses are not any better. Lots of I use this and love it or I tried this and hated it.  With a vague question there can be not good reply other than asking for details. You do not see people asking what is the best vehicle or the best entertainments system? Ok maybe the second one from time to time but the reason you do not see people asking the vague question of what is the best vehicle is they have seem to get what you plan to do with it matters. A bike might work for some and odds are most will end up with some sort of car or SUV but there are many factors to take into account like:

  • distance you plan to drive 
  • number of passengers you may need to haul
  • other stuff you may haul or tow
  • any special needs equipment
  • your driving habits as in want good pickup or braking
  • how well the seating accommodates you and or your passengers
  • safety factors like armor or crash handling

Or in the case of the entertainment system a smallish 720p smart TV with a Netflix app maybe all one person wants while another  may want to have a large 4K TV linked to a PC or Roku with a cable like subscription to see the show they may want plus a DVD player or Plex setup for stuff that can not be streamed. Then there is surround sound, voice search and such which some would assume to be include while others deem them frivolious.

In short you need some basic specs before you can talk brands and models.

For example if you are looking to add one or more security cameras, are you looking looking to just get notified or want actionable footage. I have multiple posts on just figuring out the specs you need for a camera. Starting with "What is the best camera for X?"

A home automation hub like an entertainment or security system is even more subjective with virtually infinite options to work with. It should be obvious that any package "system" will be a starting point at best and only makes sense is it is cheaper than getting the parts you want and can use later separately. The blog where this post is located, Adventures in Home Automation, chronicles stuff I've tried to solve the problems I want to solve.  These posts might give you ideas of what you can do to solve yours. Note however this blog only goes back to 2016 after I'd already moved to Homeseer so most of the posts involve it. I started with X10 stuff back in the early 1980s adding TimeCommander Plus in the late 1990s then Insteon devices up till 2014 when keeping it all going outweighed the time savings of having it. Though I did not remove the last of it till 2016. Between 2014 when I bought my first modern home automation hub via the SmartThings Kickstarter, and moving to Homeseer I also tried 4 models of Vera hubs and 2 Lowes Iris hubs. The point being I went through a lot of them before finding that worked for me. One of the reasons I went to Homeseer was than I have 3 buildings to cover. My home, shop and barn which need their own network of devices since Z-Wave and Zigbee do not do well over distances. Note I see people claiming they can use them between buildings and even over 100 feet line of sight but I've never seen anything like that myself. I would be VERY sceptical of such claims. Going with Homeseer let me have one interface for the networks in all the buildings. Plus it is made to handle a large number devices unlike many of the popular hubs that are controlled and configured mainly via a phone app. I generally do not suggest it as a first home automation hub though because it is aimed at the market between the basic DIY hubs like Vera and SmartThings and the pro install system like Crestron and Control4. As such it tends to cost more and be a bit harder to setup than the basic DIY hubs. Though some things are actually easier to do in Homeseer than Vera or SmartThings and some things others do better. For instance Home Assistant has a plug in to talk directly to a Wyze sense hub that has me thinking of linking a Home Assistant instance to my Homeseer. Another thing to keep in mind it each hub has its way of doing things. Somethings that are point and click with one require programming with another.

So when it comes to choosing a home automation hub ask yourself:

  • Am I looking to do automation or just remote control? Automation is where things happen on their own like walking into a room and the lights come on versus you saying a command or pushing a button. You will often see both called automation and gateways like Hue and Harmony called hubs. There are even grey areas like Echo Plus which has a Zigbee interface and limited automation functionality.
  • What do you want to control and monitor? Make a spreadsheet of the hubs you are looking at and the things you want to do and fill in the cells with if it will do it and how. But do your research. "Works with" can mean anything from you plug the device in and the hub sees it to you need to build and configure a gateway system to make it work. There will be compromises not matter what you go with. For example this is my sheet of the things I've tried.
  • What skills do you have or want to have? Odds are you are going to have to learn something. Look at some examples to see what it takes to do the things with each. If programming it involved, how easy is it to learn to do. Is there a good community of supporters that can help you if you need it?
  • The whole cloud versus local debate. Avoiding the cloud is best but sometimes it is the only way or so much easier that you are willing to take the risk, at least for now.
  • Track record of company. We are just starting the shake out of companies. Look at their history and customer base.
  • How easy is it to move to another? Probably more of a device thing than hub since there really is no way to move from one brand hub to another yet. Often not even between models of a brand in some cases (SmartThings V1 to V2 for example). Buying devices supported by multiple hubs is always your best bet as is doing things like using a Hue gateway instead of pairing devices directly to the hub. Then if you need to change or replace a hub you can do so much easier.
Lastly remember most of the people posting in groups have only tried one or two things so they really can not compare much and most of the replies will be love X and hate Y.  You will need to gather, filter and weigh it all into something usable. Also I would discount anyone saying they have never had a problem. Everything has problems. Especially out on the bleeding edge where a lot of automation is. There are things you can do like avoiding the Internet / cloud services to make things more reliable but even totally local will occasionally go down.  Like the guy claiming his WiFi goes 300 feet to his security camera you have to wonder what his frame rate is and how many are getting dropped. Odds are he rarely looks at that camera and just does not notice how much it is missing. Till one day he needs the footage of course but then it will be too late. This analogy an installer told me sums it up perfectly. "I have to explain to my clients that if you have only ever ridden a horse and someone gives you a small compact car, you are gonna think it's awesome purely because you don't know you can get a Range Rover or a Truck for the same money."




Thursday, September 12, 2019

Winix AM90 Wi-Fi Air Purifier

Winix AM90 Wi-Fi Air Purifier, 360sq ft Room Capacity, Amazon Alexa and Dash Replenishment Enabled

I love my 2 Winix WAC9500 Ultimate Pet True HEPA Air Cleaner with PlasmaWave Technology filters. Been great for going on 5 years now. Been dry enough lately that the vent that pulls in cooler outside air at night into the computer room is pulling a fair bit of dust too.  So I decided to get a third. The WAC9500 is discontinued and none of the current models use the same filters. The Winix HR900 Ultimate Pet True HEPA PlasmaWave Technology Air Purifier, 300 Sq. Ft, White is the follow up to the 9500 but as far as I can see it does not clean the air much better than the AM90. It is even rated for a larger space.  So I bought an AM90 which is $100 cheaper and is supposed to work with Alexa. It also uses the filter, Winix 115115 Replacement Filter A for C535, 5300-2, P300, 5300, 5500 which I ordered once by accident for my 9500s. The filters the 9500s use, Winix 114190 Replacement Filter B for 9500, U300 Air Purifiers are also more expensive and use a plastic cassette that each replacement comes in and so makes for more plastic waste.

Setup:

The setup via the android app was so bad I almost sent it back. Note the C545 model needs it own skill and app.

To get it to finally finish I had to:

  • Get the timing right to see the direct WiFi connection. (You have to connect before unit quickly times out)
  • Have the phone forget the 5Ghz WiFi
  • Let it use the default city as the location.


Took me about 5 tries to get all the way through, having to start over from scratch even after I could see it was connected to my network.

Even trying to change the city later caused the app to completely hang during search. So I ended up leaving it on the default as useless as that is.


Note the Alexa name entered into the app (as in Bedroom) is what shows in lists in the app though in the web interface it shows as Bedroom Winix Air Purifier. You will probably want a longer name, though you can change in the Alexa app later.

Alexa integration:

For Alexa to see the instructions say you have to enable 2 skills

Since I use a password manager I find linking accounts easier in the web interface. Be sure to select Approve before clicking submit.

The Winix Custom Skill is the old "Ask Winix" style.

The Winix Smart Home Skill is supposed to let you say "Alexa, turn on WINIX", "Alexa, increase WINIX" and "Alexa, decrease WINIX" Though this did not work for me. So I looked to create a routine to alias it. After not seeing it on the list at first ( showed as a a fan named bedroom) I decided to rename it.

I tried triggers of "more air" and "increase air" to turn up the cleaner bey neither worked. The less intuitive "full power" did. I then made a matching "half power" routine to set it back to normal.

Reviews complain about WiFi connectivity so I'll have to update after I've had it online for awhile.

Sunday, September 1, 2019

Smart bulbs revisited.

In The right / best way to control a light I discussed how switches vs smart bulbs depends on install. Here I'd like to update with some of the experiences I've have with smart bulbs since then. To summarize here are my note in my compare sheet.



Note you can get some crazy cheap deals on SYLVANIA / Lightify / Osram stuff right now.
Like this $9 bulb and gateway bundle still on sale. I got a bunch to sample to eval on sale. For less than $75 I got 5 bulbs, a gateway, a motion sensor and 2 dimmers. Awesome deal except only the bulbs worked OK for me. I even bought the Sylvania Smart Home 74099 Sylvania LIGHTIFY Smart Switch 8 Functions/ 4 Buttons, White, still only $10, which did at least seem to work controlling the bulbs but is not seen by Homeseer and so can't be use as a general remote. Homeseer did see the bulbs and motion detector did turn the lights on most of the time it should though seldom off. The dimmers worked for a bit then died. They were not seen by Homeseer. So all in all pretty much a waste of money and time. Too bad give a 4 pack of white Lightify bulbs is going for as low as $16 onsale versus a 4 pack of Hues which go for around $40.  Though I did stumble a 6 pack once $50 a couple years back. Which brings us to price.

I see a lot of posts saying Hue bulbs are too expensive. I think that is mainly because people seem to compare the Hue color bulbs to white version by others. If you compare a 4-pack of white bulbs they cost about the same as Sengled Smart LED Soft White A19 Bulb 4-pack.  Or Cree 60W Equivalent Daylight (5000K) A19 Dimmable LED Light Bulb in the (6 Pack) compared at a per bulb price.  You even here people going on about the new Wyze bulbs but they are about the same price and do not work with anything other than the Wyze app.

I had planned on using then instead of upgrading the Hue gateways after Hue basically cut V1 one users off.

Other than the price I'm liking the Hue motion sensors more and more. Homeseer does not always seem to get non motion event updates from them but otherwise it is nice to have them automatically turn the lights full on and off without need of setting up events. Especially after having to redo all my lighting related events after the v1 to v2 upgrade.

The Lifx bulbs seem like a good alternative if you want to avoid getting a hub though the white bulbs cost more.  And like I've said above, the one I got for eval had a lot of issues. Still the outdoor BR bulbs with IR look interesting but if you do the math, unless you want to light your yard in color, even at the $50 sale price you can get a Z-Wave switch, 2 LED bulbs and a 2 serious IR floods for about the same price.  And the IR floods turn themselves on and off as needed automatically. If you want smart flood light bulbs, Hue has new outdoor bulbs. 2 for $50.  Still cheaper to go with 2 LED floods and a switch though.

Tp-link (kasa) bulbs cost even more and they require cloud access. I have a couple of their outlets I got on Prime sales for $5. The cloud link fails way too often.

Even the TRÅDFRI bulbs are more now.

Etekcity, while I like their smart plugs for non critical stuff. Very cheap and so they have been more reliable the the TP-link ones despite being cloud based as long as you call their API directly. Going through IFTTT stopped working awhile back. I don't know if they ever fixed it because talking directly was so easy to do. But their bulbs are more than the Hues so why?

Z-wave bulbs like Aeotec LED Bulb Gen6 Multi-White are even more.

There are more of course many others, some even cheaper than Hue but one of the main things to remember is what do they works with? So in the long run you will probably end up tossing them unless remote control via your is all you ever want.


Friday, August 16, 2019

Homeseer on a Raspberry Pi 4

I mainly got a this as a second instance so I could test MyMonitor without risking corrupting my main instance monitoring and controlling my house, shop and barn.

I started with a CanaKit Raspberry Pi 4 Starter Kit - 4GB RAM The assembly instructions are non existent though. So here is a pic with the heat sinks and fan installed.

You might also want to get Cable Matters 2-Pack Micro HDMI to HDMI Adapter (HDMI to Micro HDMI Adapter) 6 Inches

It is a bit hard to see in the picture but the red wire of the fan to pin 4 and the black to 6. See chart next to board. The main HDMI port is the one next to the USB C (connected in pic). Once all assembled you can start with the instructions.

The HomeSeer HS3-Pi Install Guide has instructions for older versions so let me add changes. The image file will not even boot in the Raspberry Pi 4 so you need to start with the option 2 instructions. So use the SD card in the kit and do the basic install of Raspbian and basic config. You probably will want to enable ssh. I also pulled info from Correct Installation of HS3 Standard on Raspberry Pi 3

ssh to hostname
As in
ssh pi@HS3-pi4
sudo apt update
sudo apt install mono-complete
sudo apt install mono-vbnc
sudo apt install mono-xsp4

After installation, make sure you update the builds. Repeat this pair of commands several times to update all of the dependencies.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Look at the install guide for the tar URL and get it with curl. For me its was
curl -O https://homeseer.com/updates3/hs3pi3_070319.tar.gz
Install HomeSeer: sudo tar xvf hs3_linux_<version>.tar.gz
As in
tar xvf hs3pi3_070319.tar.gz

The tar script creates the /home/pi/HomeSeer directory.

Instead of the way he did it in the post above, run (method 4 from Five Ways To Run a Program On Your Raspberry Pi At Startup)

Create a service config to start Homeseer on boot and stop it during shutdown. (Adapted from Autostart Homeseer on Linux)
Create the file /lib/systemd/system/homeseer.service and put the following in it.
[Unit]
Description=Homeseer Service
ConditionPathExists=/home/pi/HomeSeer/Logs
After=server.service multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/HomeSeer
ExecStart=/home/pi/HomeSeer/autostart_hs
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo chmod 644 /lib/systemd/system/homeseer.service

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable homeseer.service
sudo systemctl start homeseer.service

sudo systemctl status homeseer.service

If no typos you should see something like this
root@HS3-pi4:/home/pi/HomeSeer# systemctl status homeseer.service
● homeseer.service - Homeseer Service
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/homeseer.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Fri 2019-08-16 08:35:51 CDT; 6min ago
 Main PID: 2210 (autostart_hs)
    Tasks: 31 (limit: 4915)
   Memory: 32.0M
   CGroup: /system.slice/homeseer.service
           ├─2210 /bin/sh /home/pi/HomeSeer/autostart_hs
           └─2211 mono HSConsole.exe

Aug 16 08:35:51 HS3-pi4 systemd[1]: Started Homeseer Service.

Homeseer should now start when the system boots.

If you want to do the init.d method you will need to do this to get the screen command installed
sudo apt-get install screen

Open a browser and go to the hosts IP. For example mine is on 10.10.1.245 so the URL is
http://10.10.1.245/
The login and password were both default instead of homeseer/hsthsths3 the guide mentions.
That gets us to this screen


This is where I hit an issue. check_passwd called by this screen gets a Segmentation fault.

This appears to be a known issue. On page 4 I found a link to download the ARM version mentioned in the thread. Note you have to log in to download it.   That was not the issue though. Turns out the actual problem it looks for an linux user named homeseer with the hsthsths3 password. If the user is not found it gets a Segmentation fault. So adding a user with
sudo useradd -d /home/homeseer homeseer
sudo passwd homeseer

Once that is sorted, you should now see this

Clicking the link took me to the registration page

Note the number is your License and the other is the password.
Next fill in the user info form

Note you can ignore this and start adding your devices or restoring from a previous setup if you want.




Note found another issue. 

Lastly go to setup, check for updates and install if found.


Seems when updates try and run the system goes down and you have to manually restart it. Update: this was a issue with the After line of homeseer.service which I corrected above.
sudo systemctl start homeseer.service
Also it seems to want me to change the System password again and shows the update did not happen.

To help debug this I ended up changing updatehs.sh to this
sudo rm hslinux_zees2_3_0_0_$1.tar.gz
sudo wget -o install.log http://homeseer.com/updates3/hslinux_zees2_3_0_0_$1.tar.gz
sudo tar xavf hslinux_zees2_3_0_0_$1.tar.gz 2>&1 >> install.log
sudo chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh 2>&1 2>&1 >> install.log

and ran it from the command line. This time the update seemed to take. I'm thinking the issue is it starts the update before the system has fully shutdown. From the first few tries I can see it is running updatehs.sh and is extracting the tar like it should. So failing to overwrite a file in use would seem the only explanation. Status shows it appears to be calling systemd to shut it down but not to start it back up. But then when I ran from the command line Homeseer was already down. The other scripts start with a 20 second wait. So I created a reports folder
mkdir /home/pi/HomeSeer/html/reports
(So you can then get the latest update log at http://HOST_IP/reports/install.log)
and changed updatehs.sh to this
#!/bin/bash

counter=20
while [ $counter -gt 0 ]
do
 sleep 1
 counter=$(($counter - 1))
done
sudo rm hslinux_zees2_3_0_0_$1.tar.gz
sudo wget -o /home/pi/HomeSeer/html/reports/install.log http://homeseer.com/updates3/hslinux_zees2_3_0_0_$1.tar.gz
sudo tar xavf hslinux_zees2_3_0_0_$1.tar.gz 2>&1 >> /home/pi/HomeSeer/html/reports/install.log
sudo chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh 2>&1 >> /home/pi/HomeSeer/html/reports/install.log
systemctl start homeseer.service 2>&1 >> /home/pi/HomeSeer/html/reports/install.log
systemctl status homeseer.service -l 2>&1 >> /home/pi/HomeSeer/html/reports/install.log
This seems to work OK but I can't test it form the web interface till the next update comes through.
Note the update you get says it is for the Zee.

To finally sort the System password issue I went and changed the homeseer password back to the default hsthsths3 from the command line
sudo passwd homeseer
Then submitted the change password form with hsthsths3 in the first field and my selected new password in the others.

Other info

Speech

You will see these error in status
Aug 17 13:22:51 HS3-pi4 autostart_hs[6101]: /home/pi/HomeSeer/./speak.sh: 2: /home/pi/HomeSeer/./speak.sh: flite: not found
I'm not using speech on mine but if you want to, you might want to start here. I tried this which is a newer version but it did not seem to work for me. Though I'm not getting any sounds from other stuff either like YouTube videos so the issue is probably the Pi4. Tried this to fix the sounds but did not help.

Samba

If you want to mount to or from a Windows PC. Good for copying over images and scripts for example. Based on this post.
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install samba samba-common-bin smbclient cifs-utils
mount my main Homeseer on 10.10.1.45 on my test instance with user dea's permissions.
sudo mkdir /HS3
sudo mount.cifs "//10.10.1.45/HomeSeer HS3" /HS3 -o user=dea
copy over missing image files
cd /HS3/html/
find ./images/ -type f -print | cpio -pvmd /home/pi/HomeSeer/html
Copy over missing scripts
cd /HS3
find ./scripts/ -type f -print | cpio -pvmd /home/pi/HomeSeer


Sunday, August 11, 2019

My first home automation system.

Technically my first home automation hub was a CP-290 clear back in 1980 but my first real hub that supported both programmed events and more than just X10 was the TimeCommander Plus. In Aug of 2016 I finally took it off line and post the following to Facebook. It popped up in my memory feed today so I thought I should add it here. I never did retask it. Instead I've used door sensors with dry contacts and an alarm panel linked into my Homeseer system. Links and photo caption added.

Retired a bit of history the other day. This is my old TimeCommander Plus which was my home control at the old house for a decade and was later retasked as an alarm system in the new house. I finally let it go and replaced it with several Z-wave devices when the last Windows XP PC gave out since it was going to be a major rewrite to get it going on Windows 10 or Linux. It was almost state of the art in the late 1990s when I bought it and still works. Though these days there is just too much interference from other devices for X10 stuff to be usable. I might still make the effort to retask this yet again seeing as how current home controllers do not seem to see the point of wired inputs and outputs. I have not found anything that has close to the 16 digital inputs, 8 analog inputs and 8 digital outputs this has.
TimeCommander Plus with addons.
TimeCommander Plus with addons. The relay was for a delay system to slow hold output from the rain fall monitor it was connected to long enough so polling would not miss triggers. The extra terminals made wiring up power to all the alarm sensors form a central power source easier.

Monday, July 29, 2019

Installing Linux has become fun again

What happened

Been a "fun" week. The mom board in my main CentOS PC died.

Based on past experience I grabbed a older PC I'd been using to test deploy options for my co-hosted servers and swapped in the drives and would it not boot. Swapped back and found it too had taken this time to die. Found a slightly better PC online and got it and matching memory rush shipped. FedEx delivered it to the local fire station instead of my house. By the time FedEx got back to me about where it was I'd already called the local Frys and had them coming with and even better, and more expensive, PC. All that to give you an idea the fun level I was at when I started trying to use the new PCs to recover from my initial server failure.

So I had 2 PCs to work with 

Refurbished: Acer Desktop Aspire TC TC-780-UR11 Intel Core i7 7th Gen 7700 (3.60 GHz) - 8 GB DDR4 - 1 TB HDD - Windows 10 Home

And
Dell Inspiron 3670 Desktop PC with Intel Core i7 Processor - 8GB Memory - 16GB Optane Memory + 1TB HD - Windows 10

Plus memory that should work in either.
Crucial 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200) Desktop Memory Model CT2K16G4DFD824A

Each came with an 8 GB SIMM so one would think I was set to have a 32 GB in one and 16 GB in the other.

First off I wanted to get the data backed up which was its own adventure.


The steps boiled down to:
get the volume group id with
vgdisplay
In this case AQjjAr-C4Lg-O3qX-Y0RN-hsme-IqFf-h4PrAC
Since both the host system and the one I was wanting to back up were both centos I had to rename the second one to something else. I used centos2
vgrename -v AQjjAr-C4Lg-O3qX-Y0RN-hsme-IqFf-h4PrAC centos2
You will probably need to make it active
vgscan
vgchange -ay
Make a mount point. I used /asusl (the hostname)
mkdir /asusl
Mount root and home
mount /dev/centos2/root /asusl
mount /dev/centos2/home /asusl/home
Backup to with something similar to this. Where /Syn12/Backup is my mounted back drive and AsusL is the folder for this host.
cd /asusl
find . -type f -print | grep -v "/dev/"| grep -v "/.cache/" | grep -v "/.minishift/" | cpio -pvmd /Syn12/Backup/AsusL/ 2>&1 | grep -v "newer" 2>&1 > /Syn12/Backup/AsusL/cpio.out

Putting it back

Now to rename it back you need to put in a system without a vg named centos. This probably means the target PC booted from a "Live" CentOS image.

But this only works if that PC you are putting the drive into is an older one. Because as I found out ....

Things sure have changed

But it seems UEFI has changed a bit since the newest model Linux PC I have was made. They have added all kinds of safe guards to the Dell BIOS which block booting from anything. Add to that it seems there are also issues with the video chips in the Dell. Then too there seems to be issues with SpeedStep and TurboMode which the the Acer does not seem to let you disable. Which means the Acer probably can't be used. So I gave up on it and focused on the Dell. Oh and some have reported issues RAID / disk drivers which might be why I never got any image to boot from the DVD.
I had to "burn" those same images to USB sticks with Win32 Disk Imager to get them to boot and run.


After trying all kinds of suggested options, I finally got it to load the install program and even install onto the drive by disabling UEFI support. But then the Dell would not boot from the HD. A bit more fiddling I got it to boot from USB with UEFI enabled (with some errors) but it could not see the HD. BIOS did see it but would not let me added it to the secure boot list. The PC will only boot from the files in this list. An entry looks like this.


And you can't add any "legacy" internal devices to the list. The last magic bit was to turn off "RAID mode". Since there is really only room for one spinning drive in the system I'm not sure why it was on much less has any effect.

More issues

So at first I tried the HD from the spare PC to see it there might be something I was missing or some way to "repair" the actual drive. Once I sorted the above it seemed to install OK but I still had the issue it did not seem to want to let me add the HD boot file to mistake it for the one on the smaller drive. Granted I could maybe hack it by going through some more girations to clone the boot partition  from the small drive onto the large drive but this many days in it seemed like good time after bad. So I decided to go for broke and reinstall on the large drive. It is backed up after all. Though I'll still need to setup apps. Not only that, but install the 32 GB of memory and the ZOTAC GeForce 8400GS graphics card - GF 8400 GS - 512 MB from the old server. But the system would not even boot with the video card in there. Not sure if it is a power supply issue (which appears to only be 240 watts and proprietary) or that it is an X16 card (the specs do not  say it is an x16 slot though it is the right size and some have posted that they got X16s to work). So I stuck in an old GTX720 I had. (I do not plan to do any serious graphics on there anyway.) That at least booted. However the CentOS 7.6 installer could not start X on it. I did not want to install in text mode and then maybe not have the graphics drivers installed so I keep tweaking. I finally had to go into BIOS settings with the cable connected to the GTX card and set it to use the motherboard's Intel 630 as the primary and move the cable while it rebooted. Once installed though X does appear to use the GTX OK once I set the primary video back to auto. So probably yet another driver issue.

Below are the settings I ended up with.

Note some of these need to be changed one at a time and in order. For instance you can not disable legacy ROMS till legacy boot has been disabled and options saved. Alert will pop up if you try telling you where the conflict is.

SpeedStep disabled

Secure boot enabled

PTT off (unselected)

Disable legacy stuff


Now to reinstall the other stuff that was on there:

apcupsd

Install basic LAMP stack

Note I found I also needed to open the ports after this to get to the web server from another PC. Commands for this are:
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=80/tcp --permanent
firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port=443/tcp --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload

Webadmin

installed modules userAdmin, samba, apache, mysql, exports-nfs4, fetchmail, firewalld, 

NTP server 

to keep time check requests local and synced to same source.

Weewx 

Followed the instructions and copied over my old web pages and data which seemed to have broken httpd. Tried to repair by installing packages as httpd said they were missing:
sudo yum install mod_session -y
sudo yum install mod_form -y
sudo yum install mod_auth_gssapi -y
sudo yum install mod_auth_kerb -y
sudo yum install mod_nss -y
sudo yum install python-pip mod_wsgi -y

Create and install a self signed cert
Commented out iRedMail, RoundCube and AwsStats stuff and got http up again. This time with TLS support.

Then removed Weewx and started with fresh install because something was still missing. It appeared part of the app was looking for Python 2 stuff and other bit Python 3.  Did a manual reconfig and was up and running.
Note when you run 
sudo wee_config --reconfigure
be careful. The backspace key gets recorded and shows on the web pages as an unknown character.

Looked at the instructions on migrating my DB and template customizations from the old version I was on to the current one looked like a week's worth of work. Did not think it would have changed that much.

Using the WeeWX Customization Guide I added add the soil moisture station though it is on its last legs. To do that I needed to edit my /etc/weewx/skins/Seasons/skin.conf  and /etc/weewx/skins/Seasons/index.html.tmpl. Seasons it the default template now.

NOTE if the clock is even 1 ms slower than the console WeeWx may ignore data. Though this is usually only an issue on Raspberry Pis.

Might wait on the rest of this too. I was about to try Shinobi's NVR on that system before it cratered. Got a few things ahead of that in the queue now.

Install iRedMail


RoundCube mail


Install AwsStats 


More Gotchas

Not enough space for "grub2 to embed core.img"

I found all kinds of bad advice for this one. Mainly saying core.img needs to be light behind the boot record. I was getting this trying to setup a second drive. The issue was Windows 10 (installed on first drive) had marked the second drive GPT. Going into Windows and switching it to MBR sorted it.


Can't boot from CentOS USB newer Asus motherboard.

When installing on a new custom build with an Asus motherboard I found the above Dell hoops were different on the Asus. Easier but diff. For the Asus you need to go into the BIOS settings and set the partition USB partition to boot from. In my case it seemed I needed to use the one (of three) that did NOT have UEFI in the description. 


CentOS 8 losing support

For the new build I was going to put on CentOS 8 on it but in an odd turn of events Red Hat is dropping support for CentOS 8 but continuing support for CentOS 7.

Saturday, July 27, 2019

Transferring Hue v1 hub to v2 after the app split.

Note I'm using hub here though it is better described as a bridge or gateway. Since it is most often called a hub I'm using that here.

Wish I'd got more screen grabs but the app seemed so touchy I did not want to risk trying so I just snap pics with my other phone (on 3rd try while standing on a ladder in the dimly lit barn).

So first you had to reconnect all your v1 hubs to the new v1 only app after they stripped support for them from the main app. If like me, you interface with your Hues via third parties like Homeseer, Harmony, Alexa, Google Home ect. you might have not even noticed till you, again like me, went to add something. The instructions on line and this video look straight forward but also out of date since each app only sees a version of hub. You will notice the comments on that video mention the transfer option is gone now and not solutions have been posted. (I'll add a link to this post).

So here is what worked for me.

After doing all this below for the first hub I discovered it only works if you have multiple v1 hubs! I'd already connected 2 of my v1s because I changed my mind about which I was going to do first. Fortunately I have 3 v1 hubs so no biggie. If you only have one to transfer you might want to pick up a used one for the transfer. They are going for about $30 as I write this. Alternatively you could move each device one at a time. All depends on the number of devices you have and what your time is worth to you.

Update you might not need a second v1 hub!

While transfering my 3rd Hue v1 to v2 I still got the transfer message when readding the v1 to the v1 app even though at the time it did not see the "spare v1 hub".  So you might want to try the below without a second v1 hub first if you would need to buy one.

Before you start

If you have third party logic (could be calls routines,events, scenes actions ect.) using the devices on you Hue v1 hub(s) make sure you  note where they are used. You might need this later on as some apps will delete the references to this objects in the logic. For example this was just one of mine.

You might want to make a note of the IP addresses of your hubs too in case you need them.

Making the transfer

Make sure you have both the Hue v1 and v2 apps on your phone.
Take your phone, a small paper clip or pin and the new v2 hub to where the v1 hub you want to transfer is as you will need to press the buttons on the hubs.
Connect your phone to the same network the hubs will be on.
If needed add at least 2 v1 hubs to the v1 only app.
Do NOT add the v2 to the v2 app yet.
Put the v2 hub on the same network
Do another search for new hubs in the v1 app.
It will say it found a v2 hub and give you an option to download the v2 app.
Ignore that and you should see a transfer option even though the v2 hub does not show.
Note you may need to reset the v2 hub. If so instructions should pop up to show you show but the leave out you need to hold the rest till the lights blink. Any lights devices linked to this hub will be disconnected.

Next it wants you to reset the v1 hub.
Then you are done

Clean up

After the transfer is complete add the hub to the new Hue app.
If you had devices linked to the v2 hub you will now want to readd them. Search probably will not find them so you will probably want to use the serial number.
I later found this post describing how you can use a Hue dimmer to reset the bulb so you can scan for it.

You will probably need to add the new v2 hub to all the third party interfaces. Remember this means you will need to again press the button on the Hue hub and have access to the interface you are linking too.

Adding the new hub to third party interfaces will probably create all new device instances in those apps which will need to swapped into any logic using those devices. In my case this was more of an issue with Alexa than Homeseer.

Update 8/26/2019:

For added fun Hue pushed out an update that broke Homeseer (and probably other) integration.  The developer of the Homeseer JowiHue plugin has scrambled to deal with the change being released early. Note the 2.0.4.6 beta plugin to get things working again seems to dup all your groups and the bulbs now only seem to turn on but not off so you will need to waste time cleaning up and redoing any JowiHue device events. See the support forum for details.

Saturday, July 13, 2019

If you think your device is spying on you, then you are missing the point.

Why does this keep coming up? No one buying a $25 cam or < $50 voice assistant is a hot ad target. Much less a blackmail target. Just think about it for a second and it is obvious. It all comes down to ROI. Processing audio much less video to the point of getting data points out of it is costly. Note devices are getting more powerful all the time. Processing is moving from the cloud to the device. So not long from now it might be cost effective to pull ad data from every word heard by a speaker but right now it is not. Note too even with local recog the assistant needs a wake word / phrase to know it is being talked to to pull that voice from the stream of other voices (like a TV or radio) surrounding it.

Streaming audio, much less video, 24/7 is going to get noticed. Lots of people have looked at the traffic on these devices and found nothing unexpected. Note Wyze used to use servers in China but people complained about it right away and they switched to US servers. But in the posts I mainly see it is "someone told me that it was doing X." Or some sort of vague thing like I talked about this thing and then saw an ad for it. Usually something not all that unusual for them to see an ad for.

However IF the makers of these devices were going to do something malicious the odds are MUCH more likely they would be used as bots for attacking REAL targets. As in companies and agencies. Either for extortion or brute forcing access. An even greater worry ought to be that these cheap devices probably are not that secure and might be pulled into a third parties botnet. Either way unless it is activated you would not expect to see any significant traffic. Note though, while you might be a "real" target, there are lots of script kiddies out there that might just use you to learn on and or try stuff out before going after a real target. They hit my websites and bang against my home firewall all the time. And since they do not know what they are doing they can REALLY screw things up if they get access.

That said if you give a damn about your data security you ought to have decent network gear that lets you monitor traffic and put your IoT on a network isolated from data you care about. Allow no inbound traffic and on the IoT network only allow outbound traffic as need. As a rule cameras should talk to nothing outside your network other than any cloud storage they might be linked to. On your data network you should be using a DNS that at minimum filters known bad actors. That is just life in the 21st century. Like door locks in the 20th.

Or just hope for the best and not worry about it. There is NO point in worrying about something without doing something about it much less doing any research. After all I hear some people still happily leave their doors unlocked.

Friday, June 28, 2019

Alexa vs Google revisited.

As so many of these this started as a reply to a question on a Facebook group. In this case what is up the Google Assistant and Homeseer? After a rather lengthy response I thought I should flesh it out even more an post it here. I'm just comparing my experience living with them nt side by side features. In my opinion both Amazon and Google are trying to push hard into siloed home automation which is just wrong. Interoperability is the future and local control is a must. Expect to see local (cloud independent) voice assistants REAL soon.

I find I'm using Google Home less and less. Mainly I use Home when Alexa is one of her moods (had another badly weighted update pushed) but things seem to have peaked with Google Home.
For an example it used to be "tell Harmony to turn on TiVo."
Then is was just "turn on TiVo"
But then "Turn on TiVo" got you "Do you want to use Harmony for that?" "Yes". In diff voice "Turning on TiVo".
Then "Turn on TiVo" got you "Do you want to use Harmony for that?" "Yes." "I don't recognize your voice."
Now back to "Tell Harmony to turn on TiVo." and half the time it says it does not recognize my voice. Which is even more irksome considering how often it responds to someone on the TV or a podcast just saying Google without even the hey. Not to mention all the times I'm not sure what triggered it.

Sorry but having to remember which thing this week to ask to turn something on or off on top of the name for the thing I had to give it so it did not sounds like something else, is just is not going to get you market share. Especially if it keeps telling me it will not do stuff cause it does not recognize my voice. Granted maybe if I spent more time tweaking it I could improve it a bit but that kind of misses the point of it and I've not had to mess with Alexa other than adding devices and alias TV to TiVo after one especially bad update. Though I have to admit recently I added my "Good morning" "routine" so instead of just telling Homeseer to put the house in day mode it also tells me some fun fact and the weather.

I should note too Google is more likely to false trigger and to just not respond than Alexa if it does not know what to do. So it might be having trouble listening when you think it is down. Though Alexa is getting more like Home in that respect. I keep the notification sounds on so I know when they think they heard something but ignored it. Which is why I just do not get people that complain about Alexa saying OK. But then I work in IT so I kind of expect a certain amount of errors. Like saying "thank you" to end a follow on sequence it just makes sense from a programmer's mindset.

Anyway contrast the above with Alexa will generally get a voice command at least by the third try if I have not triggered it some other way before that. Some responses just make you go huh? Like the other yesterday when I said "Alexa , turn on video", a command to switch my main video stream from the triggered security cams back to what I was watching and unpause. Her response, "I can not find a device named lamp." Then too I started putting Echo buttons about as backups / quicker response for things like sending OK / Select to the device currently playing video or signalling the house to go into away mode. They light up green instead of saying OK so you know the command got through. Used to have an Echo button for TiVo skip too before they made that automatic. Planning on getting some more Prime day. Note you can only pair 4 to an Alexa and they are only reliable to around 20 feet though a wall. At 2 for $14 (on sale price) hard to beat for when you just need an easy to hit button. Like advancing to the next show while washing dishes with the volume up. Both seem able to pick your voice out of impressive levels of room noise but you can only expect so much.

Note too IFTTT has been having a ton of issues with Homeseer, among others, lately. So I wonder sometimes which end it is truly on. Or if maybe something in the middle is the iffy bit. Which why you always have back methods for every trigger no matter the interface. Even the local ones.

Thursday, June 13, 2019

Answer to what can I do with X?

Another post I'm seeing a lot lately, especially with Wyze adding sensors and bulbs to their line up, is what can I do with X? This of course is backward thinking, trying to find a problem for a solution. You don't hear about a great plastic surgeon and then start asking people what you ought to get fixed. You go looking for a plastic surgeon when you think surgery is the fix for a problem you have. In the same way you dive into home automation to make some aspect of your life easier that is troubling you. Odds are you are not going to be happy with the outcome of finding a problem for your solution. But you a good solution to a problem is always a joy.

So the first thing you want to do is come up with a list of things you would like to fix / make easier in your life. Don't worry about if there is something out there to do it or how hard you think it might be. That comes later. Also go overboard here. You will probably find automation is out there is more capable than you thought. For example you might be thinking you would like to be able to turn lights on and off with your voice but wouldn't really like those lights to turn of when you enter and off when you leave all own their own and only use voice control as a backup? The cost difference between remote / voice control and automation is not that much when you are talking more than a couple things.

Prioritize that list.

Next do some research to find what options you have to automate each of those options. Be sure to note costs and needed skills for each option. (Some options might require coding or even hardware modification though most probably will not.) Also lean toward local control, works without talking to a cloud service, where possible.

Now see which hubs and devices (that work together) solved the most problems for YOU in the easiest way. There will probably be compromises to be made at this point. Note you want to lean toward devices that work with the most hubs so you are less likely to need to replace them later when you upgrade. And yes you will need to upgrade or abandon your setup at some point. That is just the state of the world. See Is the cloud over? for just some of the examples of services and devices that have gone away recently. Also drives home why you want to avoid cloud services for your logic whenever possible since there have been many more outages than shutdowns.

Lastly make a plan how start and grow. Odds are you will need a logic hub (as in SmartThings, Wink, Vera, Hubitat or Homeseer not gateway hubs like Hue. Lightify or Google Home) to start even if you plan to start with just remote / voice control unless you are OK with starting over later. Depending on the logic hub you start with this might be a significant outlay in money and or time. So go for the highest priority problem on your list you think you can tackle. Note however you might want to start with an easier one if that top one requires you to learn new skills or depends on equipment needed for other solutions as well. You want to avoid having to recode, repair or replace if possible. For example if controlling lights if top priority you might want to start with a Hue gateway and bulbs and a basic voice assistant. Then you could add all the Hue devices to a logic hub without having to repair all the devices directly as you would have had to do if you bought one of the voice assistants with a built in gateway. If you had gone with "works with" bulbs or switches you would probably need to replace them when you upgrade to logic hub.

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Dakota mailbox and driveway alert system

I started this awhile back. Then the Dakota receivers became unavailable so I thought I'd wait till the new model came out. Unfortunately after talking to Guardline it appears that will not be happening. It sounds like there will be no compatible receiver coming. Probably no new model with multiple relay outs either though they hinted a model that talks to home automation might be in the works. So I figured I should go ahead and post this for those that want to snap 2500 up before they are gone. Guardline does make a model with 1/4 mile range and talks to 16 sensors but only 1 relay out. You are expected to memorize which tone means what of  those 16 areas was triggered.

Most Dakota 2500 receiver bundles are now going for several times the MSRP.  For example the receiver / contact sensor I used in my mailbox was just $75 a little while back. At the time I'm writing this the cheapest option is to get the underground bundle from Guardline directly for $240 and toss the sensor unless you need it and add contact sensor for $35. (While you can. Some are already trying to get over $80 per sensor.)  After a fair bit of research I'm not finding any decent replacement options as Dakota seems to have been to only one with multiple relay outs much less also supports contact sensors or talks directly to home automation. So you best option now for a mailbox sensor is to buy a 4000 bundle for each sensor you wish to install at like $90 a piece though those have no relay out. After distributors clear the last of the Dakota 2500 stock there might not be an option for awhile so I broke down and bought a "backup receiver" and several sensors. I wanted to add more sensors to the south field anyway with all the "interesting creatures" (deer, cows, wild? pigs, coyotes....) passing through there lately so finding them on video is easier. PIR motion sensors can be way more sensitive without the false alarms most video systems can give you since they see heat diffs. Of course you want both for best results.(See Paranoia definitely pays when it comes to recording.) Hopefully by the time one goes there will be better options. Or at least by the time both go. Kind of amazed there isn't one already.

Update: after ordering the above mentioned receiver / probe bundle I found the receivers on their own for just $70. The site is damn slow. I ordered yet another one at that price so I should be good and well covered. But they just cancelled the order.

Update: Dakota has release a 4000 series receiver (RE-4000 Plus) which has 2 relay outputs. It support 16 sensors each with its own chime type. It still not the one relay per sensor of the 2500 but better than 1 for all of them. And it still will not use 2500 series sensors of course.

Update: 10/17/2019 Google Buy had a receiver for sale for under $70 but that order too was cancelled after a week. I did find a 2 pack of motion detector on Amazon for $105 for spares. I setup the spare receiver I bought with 4 of the motion sensors I had bought previously and caught this guy on video trying to steal one. Makes me think I need some more monitoring the north property line as this is second time someone has come in that was and I did not get and alert quick enough to get down there before they were gone. How good are the motion sensors?
Motion sensor on large tree center caught this squirrel running across the clearing before jumping on the table. Though they are generally not tripped by wind or shadow since they watch IR light.


Here are the parts I used:
Dakota Alert UTDCR-2500 Duty Cycle Universal Kit, One UT-2500 & One DCR-2500 (see update above)
Dakota Alert DCMT-2500 Transmitter 2500' (Green)
Dakota Alert 2500 Wireless Motion Detector, Black (PR-2500)
Dakota Alert UT-2500 2500 Wireless Universal Transmitter
Dakota Alert DCPT-2500 Duty Cycle Probe Transmitter 2500'
Dakota Alert BBA-2500 Break Beam Alert Kit, One BBT-2500 & One DCR-2500 (Note was same price as beam sensor alone)

Step2 531700 MailMaster StoreMore Mailbox
Ecolink Z-wave Plus Rare Earth Magnets Door & Window Sensor, White & Brown (DWZWAVE2.5-ECO)
ALEKO 5BS-MC13S-M 5 Sets of Magnetic Contact Reed Switches Security Alarm Contacts For Doors Windows and Other Applications
I would suggest upgrading the door switches to
SM-226L-3Q Seco-Larm Overhead Door Mount N.C. Magnetic Contact w/ 3 Wires for N.O./N.C. Applications
And adding a deck box for parcels with signage.

Battery life

In the just weird department, the battery ran out in my first Dakota Alert DCMT-2500 Transmitter after almost a year. I stuck in a new battery and it kept tripping constantly. Even though the battery tested OK I put a newer one in and it worked fine. I'm guessing I just got a bad battery. Almost two years on now I've only needed to replace a battery in one of the motion sensors since.

Setup

Should be pretty straight forward. Just follow the instructions for setting channels on the sensors to pair the with the receiver. Wire the Ecolink sensors to the relay outs on the receiver and pair the Ecolinks with your home automation. Here is an example of how trigger Blue Iris cams when a Dakota sensor is tripped.

Pic of Ecolink insides with terminals showing.


Sensor mounted inside. Running the wire inside the shell would look better and probably hold up better but there is not easy way to do it without making some good sized holes in the shell. Note a switch on each door wired in series to sensor.

After being swiped by semi truck pulling out.

Snapped back together almost cannot tell it was hit.
I turned it around after this (effectively moving it back close to a foot) and added a more signage for all the delivery drivers that could not figure out all mailboxes in rural areas are on one side of the street.
I also have a similar set up in the parcel box just inside the gate along with motion sensors to tell me if some one / thing comes through the gate and if they decide to go up the driveway to the house.

Why 2 signs? Because with just one things like this happen.

I suggest you seal the holes in the parcel box as things may nest in there. I almost grabbed the snake that left this skin behind when I reached in for a package the day before. Note the sand looking stuff is Snake-B-Gon.

Updated version / info:

Got tired of the switches sticking so I upgraded them. I used these which had worked so well on the garage door.
Alarm Center Seco-Larm SM-226L-Q Mount Magnetic Contact, NC

I also did a cleaner job this time running the lines inside the walls instead of taping to the sides.
I removed the magnets from their mounts and glued to the doors. I added a bolt just to be safe. Note I had to  cut the door a bit to make them fit.
Note this is the door that got hit by the truck which is why the cross support is twisted.

 See how much cleaner this looks plus there is less to snag on when they deliver the mail. And screws hold it much more firmly in place that the stuck on ones I used before.

The fit does not even need to be that tight since it is made for garage doors which tend to vary over the seasons.

I decided to go horizontal with the transmitter this time. I would have liked to stick it the side channel but it was slightly too thick. I used mounting tape and single screw to let it have some give if hit hard by something.

Here is what it looks like in place. Note these pics are pre mounting on the post but to mount on the post I need to remove the screw.

Lastly here is what the wiring looks like inside viewed from the post hole. You can see the transmitter mounting screw which will go into the post once the mailbox is on the post.

Now for the bad news. I thought I'd double check the 2 spare transmitters that did not seem to work when I tried them. Since I had the mailbox in I checked the switches matched, they did. Then tried flipping them back and forth to make sure they were in place, still nothing on either transmitter. Lastly I tried multiple batteries including the one working in the mailbox still no go. I sent off and email to support to see if they have any ideas.