I can make HestiaPi thermostats where people need to bring their own pi. It does just plug into the socket for the 40-pin header. It's just not as nice as being able to buy something that is all ready to go, has been tested, and doesn't require you to solve the problem I couldn't solve (buying a pi zero 2). I guess there's that one shop who will let people buy one at a time though. At least for now.

I'm pretty impressed with Nostr. I got 6 boosts and a couple replies over here, as compared to one boost and no replies on Mastodon. No solutions, but it's not for a lack of trying. I appreciate people trying to help out. 🥰 View quoted note →

Does anyone have a lead on where I can get a batch of Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W boards? I need these to continue making HestiaPi thermostats available (smart thermostat, open source hardware & software, no 3rd party servers, no need to become a sysadmin yourself). Digikey is sold out PiShop[.]us limits me to one board per order The pi hut is sold out AdaFruit is sold out Mouser is sold out until 2027 Ordering them one at a time nearly doubles the shipping fees (plus the cost to the environment). I'm willing to pay more than MSRP, but not like 50-100% more! And I want to buy at least 10 of them at a time to save on shipping costs.

I sell about one thermostat a month, and every single one I ship feels like another victory for #opensource #hardware and #software These are smart thermostats that respect people's sovereignty and privacy. They can't get turned into dumb thermostats years down the road. That's not a promise that you're trusting me to keep, it's just a fact basef on how it was designed. They don't tend to break. They're upgradable. Expandable. If you like to tinker, they can interoperate with other IoT devices that use standard protocols. It's the type of smart home future I want, which is why I put in the hours to make it easily available to people!

Tindie

HestiaPi ONE (Silent) by Eternal Sunshine on Tindie

Open source smart themostat

A little insight into the sustainability of selling sustainable, privacy-respecting smart thermostats... To earn the same as a full time minimum wage job, I'd need to sell about 172 thermostats per month. That's 171/mo more than I sell now. Of course, to accomplish that, I'd also need to have marketing budget, which means even more sales. And if I want to be paid for my work maintaining the software, and pay the projects I depend on, more money or less time per thermostat. It's not pretty. That's why most people don't spend their precious time on things like this and instead go out and get a job as an engineer for a large corporation. And I think that's unfortunate. It's why most of the goods available are made by big corporations and not individuals I am going to be the change I want to see in the world. While I might never be able to make a living at it, at least the open source products will be available beyond the DIY community I'll keep working to show people a better way. Oh, and BTW, I'm currently giving all the profits to Microsoft to advertise on DuckDuckGo (and presumably Bing). I basically break even for the cost of the hardware. And if they don't bring in enough sales to cover their costs, I'll bail on them. If you think you can do better, I'd be happy to have the profits go to an individual instead. But do realize we're currently talking $15/month. If you want to spread the good word of open hardware, partner up with me. You'll get paid for results.

How long does it take me to build a thermostat and ship it? Today it took 2.5 hours. Usually it takes about 1-1.5 hours, but if there's a problem that I need to troubleshoot & fix (as there was today), it takes longer. The value that I'm adding is not just the soldering time, skills, and consumables (solder, flux, soldering iron tips, etc.), it's that you get a fully tested, ready-to-go, #OpenSource thermostat. It's peace of mind. You won't have to deal with these issues. #OpenHardware #IoT #SmartHome #FreedomTech

Just published all the latest schematics for new PCB design. 🥳 1. Added a 5th relay 2. Switch to a ribbon cable, and 3. Replaced the reset switch (which only works with the original Pi Zero) with a power switch (which works with all Pi Zero boards). If anyone out there has a device and can test the new v1.5 SD card image, I'd love to get enough feedback to make that an official release.

I made a lot of progress with building open source hardware today. Took several hours (and is still ongoing). I'm not talking about the sexy, fun, development work. No, I mean I hand assembled several units and I test every single one before I ship it out. I rarely find any defects, but I don't want a single customer to get a unit that has any issues. Reputations take a long time to build and are so easy to damage, it's worth the extra time investment. #OpenSource #hardware #OpenHardware #FOSS

It's not every day that I order $300 worth of Raspberry Pi Zero 2 boards. 😅 People think these boards cost the MSRP of $15/each. The truth is one board is $25.82-$29.64 after tax and shipping. That's not with a power supply, SD card, case or anything. Just the board, and the higher side of that price range includes headers. This is why I order in bulk. While it does nothing about the sales tax, it does help with shipping costs. I then pass those savings on to people who want to buy a #HestiaPi

If you want to try out a HestiaPi without buying anything, as long as you have a Raspberry Pi lying around, you can! Here's a sneak peek of the upcoming release there needs tessted:

HestiaPi

Debian 12 (bookworm) image testing (v1.5-dev)

After extensive testing, I believe everything is working except for one existing bug that was never previously discovered/reported. I’ve opened ...

Obviously it won't control your heating and cooling without the relay board, and you won't be able to see the LCD UI without the 3.5" LCD, but you can run the software and interact with the web interface.

I've been bustin' my hump for a couple weeks now, but I think I'm getting close to final testing. Yeah, testing. That's the part where we make sure everything works before we ship new code. I know, what an old-fashioned concept! I'm super excited about this next release. New features after over 5 years. Try getting that from a corporation. Ha!

I had an insane push this weekend to get #HestiaPi & #OpenHAB to be compatible with a heat pump HVAC system. I'm testing it by running LEDs through the relays to see when they flip on. I have one prototype that I manually configured. I have the basics down: heating, cooling, ruining the fan, 2-stages for both heating and cooling. Next up, boosting and tons of regression testing. I rewrote huge parts of many of the roles and made serious logic/flow changes. I need sleep too!

We're getting close to releasing a maintenance update. No functional changes, but it will extend the security updates for another two years. There's more testing to do, but hopefully that will go smoothly. I hope to have another update out soon after that, which will be the same deal: no functional changes, but yet ANOTHER two years of security patches! When I say long term support, I mean it! And I'm big on stability too. No arbitrary changes for no particular reason, no breaking stuff or taking away features. It juat works. Day in and day out. #HestiaPi #thermostat #IoT #OpenHardware #electronics #OpenSource #FOSS

So it's going to be one of those days, huh? Went to assemble a new unit and after soldering in a few pins, I discovered the bin of 1x20 header pins was labeled incorrectly. They're all 1x18 pins. Whoops! At least I didn't get all the way to the end before I noticed. A couple pins lost, most were salvaged.

A rare look at the #EU version of the #HestiaPi with the 240V AC -> 5V DC power adapter (the black rectangle in the photo). Everything else is the same hardware. It also uses the same software, just different settings. I hate to ship these across the ocean, but there's literally not a single person, #hackerapace or #Makerspace in the EU who is willing to build these #OpenSource #thermostats. So I make them available, and ship them all the way from America.

I just found the @Ungovernable episode about sovereign smart home! https://fountain.fm/episode/r8I8AbFqwJc5f8Y0UvCF Brilliant work lads! If you want an easy to use recommendation for getting started, I maintain an open source (hardware and software) smart thermostat. Just connect it to the wall and go through wifi setup like any corporate device except everything remains private. Very good for those family members who don't want to feel like they have to run a server and be an IT pro. The HestiaPi runs OpenHAB out of the box, but you could build an SD image to run HomeAssistant if you prefer that. For those who do like to tinker, the forums are full of people who have customizations. Build the hardware yourself, pay someone at your local hackerspace to build one, or if neither of those work, I guess I could ship across the ocean for ya. I normally only ship to North America, but I could make an exception.

What do #Nest owners think about #Google's decision to not only kill support, but also make the smart thermostats into dumb thermostats? Is it fair for them to take away the features you paid for? Will you get another smart #thermostat from the same company again? Are you in the market for alternative #smart #thermostats? #IoT #tech #technology #PlannedObsolescence #waste #recycle #repair #repurpose #reuse

Help wanted: test the latest release of the #HestiaPi SD card image.

HestiaPi

Debian 12 (bookworm) image testing (v1.5-dev)

I have a new HestiaPi image based on bookworm that is ready for testing: As with all previous releases, this will work with either a Raspberry P...

If you have a device, plea help. We're trying to get more people to test this out. The new image should work just like the previous version except it'll get another 2 years of security updates. No new features, just stability and long term support.

Less than 2 weeks left until the old #Nest #thermostats go through their metamorphosis to become dumb thermostats. Honestly, it might be a win for the owners in terms of #privacy. But if they want a wifi enabled thermostat that is open source and will never abandon them like this, please suggest a #HestiaPi. You can make one yourself, buy a kit, or buy a prebuilt unit. If it ever breaks you can #repair it. If it doesn't do what you want, you can customize it. #FOSS #OpenSource #OpenHardware ❤️

End of support for Nest Learning Thermostats (1st & 2nd gen) - Google Home and Nest Help

Nest has announced the end of support for Nest Learning Thermostats (1st and 2nd gen). Your thermostat will no longer connect to or work in the Goo...

It warms my heart to hear from people who were about to build their own thermostat from scratch and then found out about the #HestiaPi project. Now they can get a leg up on their #thermostat and just focus on the thermostat rules instead of the #hardware, #software and so forth. Meanwhile, we get another collaborator and hopefully can integrate the new code that implements the additional features they want. win-win! #OpenSource is awesome.