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Latest wide-eyed CAD discovery: low/alarm/cat6 voltage devices
Posted on 10/15/26 at 8:17 am
Posted on 10/15/26 at 8:17 am
So in my never ending quest to help my friend build out the perfect off-the-grid smart home, I've taken my battle to the batteries!
Rather than rely on zwave+ doodads that require new button batteries every year or so I just discovered you can mix wired and wireless.
So for instance, in my current projects I have eye beam sensors at top and bottom of the stair runs and a zoos valve shut off device in the garage.
I started out with wireless motion detectors for the stairs and zwave+ wireless leak detector pucks.
Dumb.
Updated plan: cheap contact sensors that will still work with the zoos and wired eye beams.
All that requires is to string cat6 throughout the basement ceiling which is still open and poke it up under the stairs and through the floor under the plumbed coffee machine, dishwasher, fridge, plumbed robot mop...
Much better. Wireless pucks may still have a use but doing it this way hardens the infrastructure again.. Even if home assistant crashes those contact sensors will still do the job and we still have a massive box of unused cat6a cable so that part is "free".
Rather than rely on zwave+ doodads that require new button batteries every year or so I just discovered you can mix wired and wireless.
So for instance, in my current projects I have eye beam sensors at top and bottom of the stair runs and a zoos valve shut off device in the garage.
I started out with wireless motion detectors for the stairs and zwave+ wireless leak detector pucks.
Dumb.
Updated plan: cheap contact sensors that will still work with the zoos and wired eye beams.
All that requires is to string cat6 throughout the basement ceiling which is still open and poke it up under the stairs and through the floor under the plumbed coffee machine, dishwasher, fridge, plumbed robot mop...
Much better. Wireless pucks may still have a use but doing it this way hardens the infrastructure again.. Even if home assistant crashes those contact sensors will still do the job and we still have a massive box of unused cat6a cable so that part is "free".
This post was edited on 10/15/26 at 8:28 am
Posted on 10/15/26 at 9:22 am to CAD703X
Eventually you’ll want to use esp32 for everything. Super robust and no batteries. I started a year ago and don’t want any smart home sensors or controllers working any other way.
Garage opener: just esp32 one transistor, and a relay. Bonus if you use frigate and already have a camera that can see the door. Then you get binary state classifier.
Irrigation: just esp32, Darlington array, relay board.
Leak sensors? Esp32 plus $2 plus passive sensor or just a couple wires.
Doorbell: screw those crappy Reolink/eufy/ring whatever. Use a real camera above door that’s actually decent, a fashionable actual doorbell button, and an esp32 can detect the ring to make an alert if you need that.
Lights: obv WLED. Wish there were more products out there though. Electric code is asinine with lighting and stuck in the 1930s.
Access: comercial construction moved to simple compatibility with wired bolts and strikes probably 30 years ago but residential hasn’t got the message and is stuck with battery garbage unless you modify or just build correctly in the first place. Easily controllable with esp32 GPIO and much more responsive.
Smart Speakers: I think people push esp32s3 too far here but it still makes a great UDP repeater to control a smart speaker if you move the brains to a docker backend and TTS (not STT) to openrouter unless you have CUDA and can run Fish Audio locally.
Garage opener: just esp32 one transistor, and a relay. Bonus if you use frigate and already have a camera that can see the door. Then you get binary state classifier.
Irrigation: just esp32, Darlington array, relay board.
Leak sensors? Esp32 plus $2 plus passive sensor or just a couple wires.
Doorbell: screw those crappy Reolink/eufy/ring whatever. Use a real camera above door that’s actually decent, a fashionable actual doorbell button, and an esp32 can detect the ring to make an alert if you need that.
Lights: obv WLED. Wish there were more products out there though. Electric code is asinine with lighting and stuck in the 1930s.
Access: comercial construction moved to simple compatibility with wired bolts and strikes probably 30 years ago but residential hasn’t got the message and is stuck with battery garbage unless you modify or just build correctly in the first place. Easily controllable with esp32 GPIO and much more responsive.
Smart Speakers: I think people push esp32s3 too far here but it still makes a great UDP repeater to control a smart speaker if you move the brains to a docker backend and TTS (not STT) to openrouter unless you have CUDA and can run Fish Audio locally.
This post was edited on 10/15/26 at 10:48 am
Posted on 10/15/26 at 10:58 am to Dallaswho
This is why I need y'all 
Sounds like a no brainer for garage door. We haven't gotten that far yet.
So would you advocate for that over the current plan? My mind is blown how you can do irrigation with an esp32 controller. I've got rachio but haven't been overly impressed with their sales pitches in the app and cloud issues. Nobody told me I had to pay to get my weather station integrated in rachio. bullshite.
I assume I'll still need most of the electrical stuff in my diagram or are the esp32 devices require an outlet? I guess the sensors don't.. Just the brain.
shite. You're going to make me change my design again.
Sounds like a no brainer for garage door. We haven't gotten that far yet.
So would you advocate for that over the current plan? My mind is blown how you can do irrigation with an esp32 controller. I've got rachio but haven't been overly impressed with their sales pitches in the app and cloud issues. Nobody told me I had to pay to get my weather station integrated in rachio. bullshite.
I assume I'll still need most of the electrical stuff in my diagram or are the esp32 devices require an outlet? I guess the sensors don't.. Just the brain.
shite. You're going to make me change my design again.
Posted on 10/15/26 at 11:09 am to CAD703X
Irrigation is easy. Literally a $4 esp32s, $1 darlington array and $6 relay board for 8 channels. BOM goes to like $16 if you need 12. Can use an old usb charger but keep your 24v transformer.
Control with home assistant or make your own python back end.
I haven’t done more than 8x outputs for esp32 but I’m sure it’s not hard and you can multiplex if only one needs to be on at a time. (Or master plus 7 bit MP gives 64 zones)
When I build an esp32 app it’s usually just GPIO control. A simple web app on port 80 that lets you turn the outputs on/off and see status, an api listener on port 5000, and UDP discovery so the back end can find it. I already have a couple minis running 24/7 so it’s just way easier for me to keep the actual logic on those unless it is very device-specific like listening for a chime or short voltage drop or probing for water presence.
Control with home assistant or make your own python back end.
I haven’t done more than 8x outputs for esp32 but I’m sure it’s not hard and you can multiplex if only one needs to be on at a time. (Or master plus 7 bit MP gives 64 zones)
When I build an esp32 app it’s usually just GPIO control. A simple web app on port 80 that lets you turn the outputs on/off and see status, an api listener on port 5000, and UDP discovery so the back end can find it. I already have a couple minis running 24/7 so it’s just way easier for me to keep the actual logic on those unless it is very device-specific like listening for a chime or short voltage drop or probing for water presence.
This post was edited on 10/15/26 at 3:47 pm
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