After just over a year of tinkering with the idea of my own home monitoring system, I’m committed to getting something representing an MVP ready over the next few months. It’s the start of the year, it is still very chilly outside. At least until it’s above -10, I’m very content sitting in front of my computer working on software. Here is what I got:
The Pain Point
I was originally motivated to start tinkering with home monitoring when we purchased our first home in 2021. The boiler wasn’t in great condition and winter was fast approaching. I didn’t have time to fix everything before the cold set in, so I resigned to at least keep a very close eye on operations. Hydronic systems are lovely for keeping you warm, but they are also pressurized liquid flowing to every room in the house, so they bring special anxiety with their failure. A freeze-up can quickly flood your home.
I think this resonates with all homeowners in the north. We want to be able to leave home for travel, or leisure and not be constantly worrying about the condition of the boiler. I recently returned from a short holiday trip and was very relieved to feel the warm air on my face when I walked in the door. – The boiler was still working. There had been no freeze-ups.
Existing Products
The market seems to be split into two segments. There is industrial monitoring equipment aimed at commercial and industrial sectors. I characterize these units as being very proprietary, complex to set up, and often just big. On the other side, there are smart home tools. These seem to primarily be security focussed and I’ve never been impressed with the lack of transparency around data protection given by the service providers. I’ve also never seen a smart home monitoring tool that expects to be connected to a gas boiler or hydronic system.
I recently saw a smart home product that could detect water leaks. It looked like a small plastic puck. Very aesthetic. But symbolic of the problem I have with this category of solutions. It was very nice looking, but could only communicate with Bluetooth. The homeowner had to be in the Bluetooth range of the device for its alarm to be received and acted on. The system these smart home products are meant to integrate into is often siloed or not coherent enough to meet the needs of monitoring a northern home heating system. It’s either the wrong sensor or the wrong communication package or too dependent on apps. I haven’t found one that I want to use in my home.
The Pitch
LiteMon offers miniaturized industrial solutions tailored specifically to the heating systems most often seen in the north. It is stand-alone. LiteMon is easier to install and cheaper than industrial monitoring solutions while also being designed specifically to monitor northern heating systems. The data collected by LiteMon is not shared with any third party, instead, it is shared back to the homeowner in monthly reporting and deleted after a year. LiteMon is configurable, allowing the homeowner to apply the knowledge of how their home works to get the most out of the LiteMon service.
How It Works
In the most basic sense, a LiteMon node is installed next to your boiler. There is no direct connection to the boiler, the temperature sensors attach with high-temperature tape, and the gas sensor measures the whole boiler room. The LiteMon nodes connect to the internet via wifi and send data to cloud storage. The storage monitors the temperatures and looks for anything out of the ordinary. If something strange is detected, then the server sends an email or SMS notification to the homeowner.
More complex monitoring solutions can measure multiple locations in the home, or connect to the boiler in a more complicated way (for instance measuring the hydronic loop pressure directly to spot leaks!)
The whole thing runs through a monthly subscription. The rate is TBD but this includes the hardware price, SMS messaging, and monthly reports on the boiler’s operation.
Road Map
As I mentioned at the top of the post, I’ve been tinkering with this idea for some time, but this has been largely unstructured. It’s time to get a solid plan.
- Move away from the current Raspberry Pi infrastructure to make use of the ESP32 family of devices.
- Firmware Firmware Firmware.
- Tough enclosures for the hardware, and oversized electrical connectors for the sensors. It needs to be tough.
- Come up with options for backup power.
- Come up with options for cellular and LORA communications to allow the monitoring of cabins.
The nice thing is that my own home is the test bed, so I suspect the insights to gain from the data to improve over time and with more experience.