Tutorial: Local Cloud 1st Time instructions [01 Oct 15]

Tutorials
145

Hi @kennethlimcp , thanks for this tutorial!
Unfortunately, written in 2016 all this might be outdated.
The last active message is from October 2018…

I would like to try this out for the following application:

Since a few years, I am developing a distributed Home Automation system, based on one Photon per room.
It controls all systems in our home:

  • Heating
  • Ventilation
  • Lighting
  • Monitoring & Access Control
  • Apple Home control (Controlled via Siri)

When this system is fully working, trouble free, I’d like to launch a KICKSTARTER project to share it with the particle world…

Since long, I was thinking about disconnecting it from the Particle Cloud as the system won’t be able to work without internet connection. And here, we sometimes get service interruptions which make the system completely useless…

Today, however the drop in the bucket happened:
We are blocked completely because Particle paused all my devices until October 8th or wants me to pay for an upgrade. The cost of that is prohibitive for me, during this development period… I am using a lot more Particle messages now for monitoring. This is causing this problem of course. From the moment the Photons function perfectly, I can reduce the frequency of these messages so that the “sandbox” volume will suffice…

For this (and other reasons) I want to be independent from the Particle Cloud for the future.

Now I’d like to check out the possibilities of a local cloud for my setup, and I would like to experience if the following possibilities exist:

  • Can this local cloud still be installed on a Raspberry Pi? (I have already one in use running Homebridge for this system)
  • Can I still use the particle cloud for uploading firmware, while using local cloud for messaging and publishing variables?
  • How easy/difficult is it to switch my orchestra of Photons between Particle cloud and local cloud?

Many thanks on beforehand for helping me solve this problem for the future!

Greetings,
FiDel
:wave: :older_man:

146

I was a Spark and then Particle user for many years. I first started with the Spark Core (still running and controlling my front door) and subscribed to this thread in (checks…) July 2014.

I’ve had the cloud deployed since then and I’ve hacked on the community cloud codebase and followed through the git commit history. The cloud codebase is, IMHO, quite hard to get to grips with and manage - as evidenced by the very low number of external contributors.

My experience of actually using the community cloud (and Particle’s attitude towards it) over all this time is…

… last year I moved to using Rasperry PI Zeros and Mosquitto

I really tried to keep all my Photons, Core, Xenons, Argons as a part of my setup but after a lot of effort I decided to move on.

Honestly the dropping and disinterest in the local cloud is the only significant disappointment I’ve had with Particle and I hung on in there for years hoping the community could revitalise it - but no luck.

Good luck with your project - but please think hard before asking others to fund a product that relies on the community cloud. :frowning:

2 Likes
147

Thanks for sharing your experience!
As I mentioned: “When this system is fully working, trouble free, I’d like to launch a KICKSTARTER project”…
Till now, indeed, the dependence on the web is my main stumbling block…

:pray:

148

@FiDel Reading what you’re wanting to do, it sounds like using Home Assistant and ESPHome would be a much better approach as Particle is very much centered around their own cloud infrastructure. While you could try and spin up a local version of Particle’s infrastructure I’d advise you think about what your actual end goal is, and then proceeded accordingly.

1 Like
149

Thanks for your tips @TrikkStar !
I didn’t know these systems. Will certainly study this!