For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By Colonel Panic
#1732464
Starting a new thread as I (& others?) might have similar questions in future ..

Curtains

Does anyone have any experience with motorised curtains?

I'd like to automate three curtains in our Sitting Room; ours are fairly heavy & wide, with a loop of cord at one end to open/close.

There seem to be two alternatives - either go for motorised tracks (possibly an expensive & disruptive exercise) or pretend they are vertical blinds and just get a motor that sits at the base of the cord loop. This would be easier to install, but perhaps this system would struggle with the heavy loads etc?

TIA
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By Flyingfemme
#1732474
A third option is on Kickstarter - search for Switchbot Curtain. Looks very simple and elegant. I’d buy some myself if they were actually on sale andnot Kickstarter. The company in question does seem to have a tack record in other home automation products, so it may well be availble soon.
Colonel Panic, Dave W liked this
By Colonel Panic
#1732480
JAFO wrote:If you don't mind me asking, why do you need to motorise curtains?

So I can turn the lights on in the evening when the house is empty, without making it blindingly obvious that no one is home.

FTAOD, it is nothing to do with being lazy :roll:
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1732486
I'm interested if you get a workable solution. We've wanted something similar for house #2 for similar security reasons.
Not sure whether it would trigger motion on PIR? - albeit given I've got a 'smart' alarm, I guess I could temporarily disarm the alarm whilst the curtains close and re-arm it.
By Colonel Panic
#1732763
I have had a “hole” in my router for some time, giving me access to the cctv DVR on my local network when I am away from home. It has worked fine and I can access the cctv on both a laptop and an iPhone app [via my external IP:80 ]

I now want to be able to access a Raspberry Pi in a similar fashion but whilst I can see it on my laptop when on 3G [via my "external IP:8189"] I am not quite sure how to do this on an iPhone app … as using my "external IP:8189" (or :80) doesn’t work.

The cctv is on 192.168.1.101
The rPi is on 192.168.1.150

In my router / NAT / Open Ports page I have an entry for the cctv, with TCP/UDP ports 80, 6036 & 554 open (not 100% sure why those specifically :? )

In my router / NAT / Port Redirection page I have two entries
- cctv = Public Port 8188 being directed to Private IP 192.168.1.101 on Port 80
… and I have just added a similar entry for the …
- rPi = Public Port 8189 being directed to Private IP 192.168.1.150 on Port 80

I chose 8189 for no other reason than it was similar to but different from the cctv. I am unsure whether to use Port 80 or something else.

What should I have done / do I need to do? All assistance gratefully received...

TIA
User avatar
By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1732808
You've done the Draytek side of things correctly. You only need the port redirection setting (not open ports), and I can access the login screen on your pi.

Works from my iPhone in Safari too (http://external IP:8189 ).... so focus on the iPhone for solving your problem.

As Steve implies, it may be that the app connects to a different port than the web browser, so you might need to map another port for the app - or configure in the app the fact you're using port 8189
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By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1732810
From a quick google, it looks like the app supports both http and https. You're only forwarding http (port 80) at the moment, so initially try unticking the 'Use SSL' tick box on the account settings page in the app.

If that's the cause, then I think the proper solution is to also map external IP port 8443 to internal IP port 443, and reenable SSL, via port 8443. (Don't use port 443 on the external as that may clash with the Draytek web management interface)
By Colonel Panic
#1732813
Thanks both; it is Open Energy Monitor's iOS app called Emoncms. Herewith a screenshot of the login page. I can use it to access my data held on their servers at https://www.emoncms.org , but I now wish to keep the data locally, hence the move away from them and back to my rPi. I have obscured the start of my external IP & username, and it doesn't work whether I put :8189 or :80.

Hmmm - I have just tried scanning the QR code instead of entering my username etc and it worked. No idea why, but happy nevertheless :oops: :D :oops: :D

With luck, problem solved!

Image
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By stevelup
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1732821
Can I suggest that instead of opening multitudes of ports on your router, you’d be better off setting up a VPN.

That way, you need to open precisely zero ports on your router, and there are no security risks.
By Colonel Panic
#1732837
rikur_ wrote:Top field 'emonpi.local' doesn't look right for external access.
What is it asking for in these fields?

The fields are Name (I chose emonpi.local), URL (I chose my external IP:8189), Username & Password, or API read key / Scan QR code (which I subsequently did by scanning a QR image that appears in my laptop's browser control panel).


stevelup wrote:Can I suggest that instead of opening multitudes of ports on your router, you’d be better off setting up a VPN. That way, you need to open precisely zero ports on your router, and there are no security risks.


Wilco - will do some reading up :oops:

PS Have you seen the "new" Ubiquiti Dream Machine? Probably more than I need, not cheap, but looks good https://store.ui.com/products/unifi-dream-machine
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