I am a complete and total beginner to not only HestiaPi, but also Rasberry Pi so I have a few questions regarding this product. I am looking to somehow integrate an occupancy sensor into an open-source thermostat like the Hestia Pi Touch to control my HVAC system while I am not in a room/my home. I was just wondering what would be the best way to go about this. Could I integrate a sensor with the already built HestiaPi, or would it be easier to get the DIY kit and integrate it that way? Alternatively, would the easiest route be just to build my own thermostat from scratch using a Pi? Excuse my ignorance, but much of this process is very new to me so I am just trying to get a good idea of the best route to take to achieve my goal of a fully open-source thermostat for my home.
As I have done this in my home, the approach I followed is to detect any home member’s phone WiFi connectivity. If any phone replies to a “ping” then we continue with the home as “occupied”.
If no phones reply for x minutes, or the time is not between A and B (we turn off our phones in the night) then the home is considered “empty”.
This is obviously not a foolproof solution but is the easiest/cheapest/fastest to install and the extra 'if’s catch some cases that do not reflect the real situation.
Alternatively you can integrate any sensor you want (commercially available or DIY) as long as it is MQTT enabled. A simple modification on the Pi’s code will listen for that incoming signal, store its value and act upon.
Please feel free to ask here if you get stuck.
Thank you for your prompt reply. I very much like the look and design of the HestiaPi, so if I went the MQTT route, would the motion sensor have to be directly wired into the back of the built-in Raspberry Pi? All of the tutorials/how to’s I am finding online show that to integrate a MQTT motion sensor with a Pi it requires direct wiring from the sensor, through a breadboard with an LED, then into the Pi. This is something I am trying to avoid as I would love to keep the nice, sleek look of the HestiaPi, so any suggestions for this route would be helpful. Once again, excuse my ignorance on this topic but this is all very new and intriguing for me!