(Smart Home)
Lofts/attics are notorious for their temperature extremes so with lessons learned from my previous layout I have come up with a plan to (hopefully) deal with these and protect the model railway.
I have been getting into home automation / smart homes recently and have decided to use the Tapo brand made by TP-Link. It appears to be cheap and easy to set up with a good mobile app. I’m using one of their temperature/humidity sensors to control a pair of their smart plugs via a hub. The smart plugs work via your wi-fi but the sensor needs the Tapo hub as well. One turns on a small fan heater when it gets too cold (less than 10 degrees C) and the other turns on a portable air conditioning unit when it gets too hot (over 30 degrees C). The heater turns off again when the temp gets up to 13 degrees.
I also have a Tapo camera set up in the roof apex looking at a digital max/min thermometer. This has IR night vision so I can see the temperature without turning the light on. The temperature/humidity sensor also reports both on the Tapo app, with graphs of historical records.
The light switch has been replaced with a smart one and there is a contact sensor on the loft hatch so the light goes on/off as I open/close the hatch. The switch can also be operated remotely via the phone app.
January 2025
The fan heater has now been replaced with two small oil-filled radiators which are much quieter and retain their heat when the power is switched off.
The air conditioning unit vents out through to the other side of the foil insulation into the part of the loft I left unconverted because of all the pipework. It seems to work well in all but the hottest of weather. I’ve also reduced the activation threshold to 27 degrees C.
