Introduction

When we moved into our new home I started planning how I wanted to handle sensors and LED lighting projects. I needed a place where I could manage motion, window and door sensors, Raspberry Pi cameras and doorbells, and LED lighting projects.

Design

First step, identify a way to see all the data once I started collecting it. I began by using Adafruit IO. However, as I thought more about what data I was going to be sending and how I wanted to access to that information and dashboard for others, I didn't want it to be public in any way. So I chose, instead, to built a Raspberry Pi 4 based Mosquito MQTT server.

Beside sensor and camera data, I wanted a way to control any LED projects, and I wanted a hub feel where data including date, time, shared calendar events, and weather data can be easily viewed.

After fumbling around a few different options for viewing MQTT data; I landed on Node-Red.

Here's a screenshot of what it looks like.

What is Node-Red

From their website, Node-Red is:

Low-code programming for event-driven applications

I'm definitely not a Node-Red expert, however, what I've learned and implemented so far has yielded results more than I expected. I quickly found modules for communicating with my MQTT server and my WLED LED nets/Sparkle Motion board.

I have Node-Red running on the same Raspberry Pi as the Mosquito MQTT server. Set up was well documented and went smoothly. Right now the service is not exposed outside of my home network so I haven't implemented HTTPS and other security features. It's on the to-do list.

I'm not going to get into the how-to portion of Node-Red, but I will be showing some of the flows I have and providing detail on how I implemented things. Where I provide more detail I will try to include examples from the configuration of buttons, button groups, and functions. In my search for information as I learn, I'm finding a lot of pictures of flows without understanding what's actually happening under the hood.

Once configured, Node-Red runs a webserver and any device can connect from their browser of choice. Node-Red also handles different display sizes so it works on your phone or tablet out of the box.

Things to know before reviewing associated projects that display in Node-Red

@flowfuse Node-Red-Dashboard-2 provides the UI elements needed to monitor and interact with devices in your IOT set up.

While Node-Red-Dashboard-2 provides most of the UI elements you will need, for an LED indicator I chose to install the node-red-dashboard-2-ui-led node.

The flow also needs MQTT communications. These are in the node-red package and do not need to be installed separately.

Because I wanted email notifications, in the event the garage door is still up under certain circumstances, I had to install the node-red-node-email node.

Projects

All projects fall under one of three categories at this point:

• Sensors
• Cameras
• LEDs

In Progress

• LEDs: Trellis/Entryway net project
• Cameras: Driveway
• Sensors: Motion detector

Complete

• Home hub
• Sensors: Garage door sensor
• LEDs: Christmas tree and star lights