UCMPI to Upgrade or Not

[wexfordman]

Hi,  I am/was one of the original beta testers, and have a UCMPI with CM3 with just 4gb of memory. I have the UCMPI running openhab, with the primary aim of inegrating my alarm system and HA devices (velbus priarily) into google assistant. 

Most of my HA logic is done directly within comfort, and has been for years, is very very stable, and rarely if ever requires changes etc, so i am pretty happy, in fact I would almost insist that most of the HA logic is kept within comfort purely because it is so reliable and stable. 

So, the UCM PI for me, is an interface to google assistant and priro to this, I was running Openhab on a seperate RPI to integrate velbus togoogle assistant, but migrated all of this over to the UCMPI to get rid of hardware and consoldiate everything. 

I still retain another RPI with the community edition of alphawerks as this had been providing google assistant interface of comfort (alarms, sensors etc), but has now started to play up a bit, and overall its a very complex setup just to link in alarm status, and sensors for comfort to google assistant. 

Anyway, over the christmas period, Ive been tinkering, and trying to get my UCMPI running Openhab to expose comfort to Google Assistant, but have failed miserably. 

My first obstacle was upgrading to openhab3, which I have managed to do, after finding out through the guys on the slack forum, that I was low on disk space, 4Gb is quite tight.
I now have issues with node red, which has failed, and have been trying to re-install it, but think I am running in to disk space issues again. 

So, after the above rant, I suppose my question is, do I need to upgrade my disk space, purchase a cm3+ and migrate to that before looking to add and fix my issues ? 

When really, the UCMPI to me was a method of integrating comfort to google asisstant , it hasnt acheived that for me (and I admit, this is mostly down to my own lack of knowledge and time to delve into the system), so is this the best route for me ? 

Are there other options that people see to integrate comfort to home assistant, perhaps I go for a basic RPI install of Home Assistant ?
All I really want to do is remove smartthings and Alphawerk Community edition from my setup.
I think the UCMPI is great, and well done to Matt and Alphawerk, but while I work in a technical field, and would be reasonably good at getting a grip on things, the learning curve and time required to get it working is just too steep for me at the moment, and that is the main reason the UCMPI hasnt delivered for me.
Regards,Eamon

[Swiss-Toni]

I Undersytand the issue of the CM3 I bought the CM3+ but have not yet used it as I actually thought that there was a problem with my original UCMpi turned out it was my lack of experiance with R-Pi that was causing the problem the learning curve is quite steep and have only touched on very basic levels of the PI myself. I do believe it does that it may offer more sollutions for future proofing but as I said my skill level is not proficient to determine that yet, I would say stick with it as their will be an answer to your issues there (not sure where).Hugh

[Sota]

Hi Eamon, I\'ve no experience with the CM3 as I started with the CM3+ with 32GB eMMC. With very little other than the standard install, I\'m using just 2GB of that. So would imagine trying to shoehorn Openhab 3 into 4GB would be very tight.
It\'s a while since I used Openhab (I use Home Assistant now), but I do remember that it generates lots of additional data such as log files and databases. So I suspect that even if you do get it working, you will run into problems in the future.
With a CM3+, you would be fine for space, but also you avoid maintaining an additional device and you don\'t risk running into the issue of corrupted SD cards which plagued me with Openhab and Home Assistant. Also, you gain the advantage of a built-in UPS in the Comfort box.
For me, I chose a separate box for Home Assistant as it\'s not really supported in the UCM/Pi environment and I prefer to keep my security system separate from HA which is contantly being upgraded and rebooted.
Pat

[wexfordman]

Thanks all for the replies,
I suppose first off, as Hugh said, its a steep learning curve, and again my first objective with the UCMPI which I think I have nearly 2 years now, was to get some level of decent integration of comfort to google assistant, and its just not there. yes, Node red looks great, and I think I could get my head around that if I saw the value in it, but I havent seen a use case for it for me just yet. 
Ive read here a good few people have utilised Home Assisstant external to the UCMPI, and I have tried that, but struggling with the integration to comfort bit.
With regards the UCMPI at the moment, sorry, but I think the support for it just isnt quite where it should be, and for a product out now 2 years, it seems to have progressed very little, its a complicated and difficult piece of kit to figure out and integrate, and quite troublesome.
For example, even looking at the firmware via comfigurator, the latest firmware comfigurator tells out is 7.116, whereas in fact its 7.125, and you need to downlaod that seperately and install, it just seems to me this has fallen by the wayside.
The UCMPI should not require in depth knowledge of linux, docker/containers MQTT etc in addition to learning node red, there is just way too much here for most people without a lot of time, or a decent amount of coding experience to use the ucmpi.
Overall, quite dissapointed at where its at now, sorry Matt and Slychui, but it just hasnt got to where it could be.
I am now looking for a bit of help to move away from the UCMPI and see if HA on a seperate RPI using HASSOS is the best way to go, and how can I finally get it talking to comfort, allowing me to trigger responses etc, and arm/disarm.
If the UCMPI really was to go somewhere it needs drastic improvment, a more user friendly interface, and perhaps even HASSOS installed and operational out of the box.

[wexfordman]

Pat, your HA instance, is it hass.os and how do you have it talking to comfort ? Could you give me some guidance on doing it?

I think, you are running hass.os and its talking to the ucmpi ?

[slychiu]

For example, even looking at the firmware via comfigurator, the latest firmware comfigurator tells out is 7.116, whereas in fact its 7.125, and you need to downlaod that seperately and install, it just seems to me this has fallen by the wayside.

Sorry about that, the latest fimrware for UCM/Pi has been updated to 7.125. I thought it was already done

[Sota]

Eamonn, I\'ve replied to you on the Slack forum.

Pat

[strickers]

This was an interesting topic. Why have you taken it offline so no-one else can see the information?

[Sota]

Sorry about that @strickers! Basically Eamonn is up and running with Home Assisant OS on a separate Raspberry Pi and his Comfort alarm is connected to this via Node-RED on the UCM/Pi.
If there is any other information you need, I\'ll be happy to oblige.

[wexfordman]

Sorry guys, should have updated as well, as patt said, and thanks for the help, the implementation was Hassos on a seperate RPI and the ucmpi pretty.much bare bones with node red.

Seems very stable so far.