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Saving a Fail-Safe Motorized Valve
Even “fail-safe” components have an expiration date. After eight years of flawless service, a critical motorized valve in my setup failed to close. This post dives into the internal “magic” of supercapacitors and gearboxes, why a secondary safety layer (and Loxone) saved my wallet, and a step-by-step guide to upgrading your valves with a €3 replacement part.
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Controlling Velux windows
No KUX, just Loxone Integration of Velux roof components into home automation systems has been often criticized in many smart home forums [1,2,3]. The usage of proprietary protocol is making this “black box” difficult to integrate and to interact with any other solutions. The overall architecture is a bit weird, utilizing a control unit KUX 100 Read more
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Water level measurement
The background I have been posting few updates in this forum where I listed the options I was considering for water level measurement in my rainwater tank. I somehow strongly accentuated the ultrasonic method of measuring but never actually implemented it as the price of these sensors kept this item low on the priority list. Until Read more
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Mailbox with new mail sensor
If your’e about to start wiring your new home, think of one additional cable going towards your mail box. In many cases this can be done quite easily, as the mailbox sits together with doorbell or intercom and you can either use some of the cable wires there or add few additional. This fully depends Read more
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DMX dashboard
What I missed since the very beginning was some kind of an overview of the basic status of the house. I know, tablet, I do have one wall mounted in the living room as well, but by dashboard I mean something simpler, giving me the exact info about the things I need to know before Read more
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Outdoor power outlet
Let’s start today with a more lightweight topic here. I have been searching for some nice garden power outlets, that can be placed permanently outside the house, regardless of the weather conditions. Typical usage would be anything from electric lawn mower to birthday garden party 🙂 I do not need any extra functions there, like movement Read more
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Connecting your water meter
Finishing the story about the utility meters and its connection to Loxone. After articles about the electricity and gas meters I am focusing on the water meters here. Of course, there are water meters with pulse output already on the market, but in my case I wanted to read the data from the official meter I got from the Read more