Moxy - Homelab IoT Platform

Overview

Moxy is a Homelab IoT "Platform" (for lack of a better term) that blurs the lines between hardware and software in the homelab. Here are the principal components of the platform:

• Centralized server power management using relays and current sensors
• Environmental sensors reporting real time metrics from the homelab
• Physical "dashboard" to display guages using old-fashioned panel meters, backlit by neopixels for extra color indication

<sub><sup>Physical front panel interface: PWM-controlled panel meters, LCD screen, and rotary encoder



Home Assistant interface: communication coordinated via MQTT</sup></sub>

Hardware Schematic

Prerequisites

Server-side

• MQTT
• Python 3
• I2C - to connect to microcontrollers and ADCs for sensors, analog meters (pwm), and LCD screen
• GPIO - for controlling relays and rotary encoder input
• Home Assistant

Device-side

• 5 ADC pins
• 4 PWM pins
• 16x2 I2C LCD Screen
• 4x 30V 10A relays w/ optocouplers
• 4x ACS712 Hall-effect current sensors
• DHT11 temperature + humidity sensor
• MQ2 gas sensor
• Arduino-compatible microcontrollers

_{^{10A Relay Modules on (left), 20A hall-effect current sensor modules (right), XT60 output connectors (top right)}}

Installing as a service

A bash script is included to assist in creating services for server-side components in systemd. See below for helpful commands on managing the services.

Linux installation

1. Modify service definitions in service_definitions directory to reflect the location of the Python executables
2. Copy config.ini.sample to config.ini and replace values for your MQTT broker
3. Run ./install_systemd_services.sh - if successful, script will automatically start tailing journalctl logs to verify the services started successfully

Helpful Commands

Tail all logs

journalctl --follow _SYSTEMD_UNIT=moxy.relays.service + _SYSTEMD_UNIT=moxy.sensors.service + _SYSTEMD_UNIT=moxy.panel.service

Tail individual log

journalctl -u moxy.{serviceName}.service -f

Restart all services

systemctl restart moxy.panel.service
systemctl restart moxy.sensors.service
systemctl restart moxy.relays.service