Specific alternative to Zwave sensors wanted.

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Specific alternative to Zwave sensors wanted.

Talkiet

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#220356 7-Aug-2017 17:26

I'm about to place the order for my home automation gear (Have placed order for motorised blinds and curtain tracks already) and was about to place an order for 12 aeotec nano dimmers and about 6 Aeotec 6in1 sensors.

I have one of the sensors at the moment and it works fine (after you figure out hoe to configure it) but I'm not sure they are worth $90 each.

I am (grudgingly) going to pay the money for the Aeotec Nanos as they seem to do everything I want, and I know they'll work with manual switch overrides etc...

However it strikes me that for general switches/relays and sensors, not only am I not restricted to looking at non Aeotec gear, but I could also look at Wifi devices. So if anyone has a specific recommendation for an ESP8266 based motion/temperature/window sensor then I am very keen to hear it (provided it's substantially less than $90)

I'm not going to build anything - ideally this should be an off the shelf unit. It's going to need to work with Homeassistant (OpenHAB p1ssed me off once too often) so the message transport (z-wave/wifi isn't important really).

I have a limited need for a few general mains device relays (A"lexa, turn on the electric blanket" etc) and I think that can be accomplished easily with a sonoff type switch - although possible needs a reflash.

SO, any suggestions, I want something that can detect temperature in a room, and also sit in a pantry to tell HA when the door is opened so it can turn on a light etc...

If there's no alternative, then I'll pay the monstrous Z-Wave tax but it astounds me there's no credible cheap alternative yet.

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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#1840685 7-Aug-2017 17:51

Turns out I really should do this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpjfVc-9IrQ

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

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SumnerBoy

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#1840693 7-Aug-2017 18:06

Xiaomi Mi hub + sensors. Check em out, cheap, good range, and hackable.

Talkiet

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#1840697 7-Aug-2017 18:19

SumnerBoy: Xiaomi Mi hub + sensors. Check em out, cheap, good range, and hackable.

Looks ldeal... when you say hackable - do you mean hackable to the extent that I wouldn't have to use their own gateway? Or would that need to be in the network as well? I have to admit using a cheap LED ceiling light as a donor for the fascia and putting all the multisensor crap above it seems like it would be a pretty stealthy and cheap way to have all sensors in all rooms...

But if the Xiaomi Mi stuff would talk to HA directly (zigbee USB addon?) then that's probably a good option.

CHeers - N

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

SumnerBoy

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#1840731 7-Aug-2017 19:04

You can hack the hub very easily. There is an openhab binding now which handles everything i think and i would be surprised if HA didn't have one too. Otherwise it is easy to build a simple python proxy such speaks MQTT and interface using that. That is what i did.

But you need the hub. It basically converts ZigBee to wiFi.

Blanch

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#1840734 7-Aug-2017 19:10

Talkiet:

SumnerBoy: Xiaomi Mi hub + sensors. Check em out, cheap, good range, and hackable.

Looks ldeal... when you say hackable - do you mean hackable to the extent that I wouldn't have to use their own gateway? Or would that need to be in the network as well? I have to admit using a cheap LED ceiling light as a donor for the fascia and putting all the multisensor crap above it seems like it would be a pretty stealthy and cheap way to have all sensors in all rooms...

But if the Xiaomi Mi stuff would talk to HA directly (zigbee USB addon?) then that's probably a good option.

CHeers - N

Home Assistant has just released the Xiaomi components with 0.50.

richms

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#1840786 7-Aug-2017 20:34

Some of the mi sensors have things to work with a smart things hub where people have reverse engineered their protcol, so I assume someone could make it for other platforms.

Ive found that the mi wall sockets will break my zigbee massivly tho, seem to be a repeater that then stops to repeat after a while leading to wemo lamps no longer working till I reset them and re-add them for a while. I would probably just stick to their gateway. Plus you can play chinese internet radio on the gateway and upload MP3s to use as doorbells which is great.

Richard rich.ms

sonyxperiageek

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#1840789 7-Aug-2017 20:44

In regards to the pantry door being opened and it turning on a light, why not just get a XiaoMi door sensor (or something similar) instead of a six-in-one sensor sitting in the pantry which will probably only tell the inside temperature of the pantry?

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Talkiet

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#1840830 7-Aug-2017 22:15

I have had a cunning plan. I'll build the multisensors and mount them in the cheapest ceiling mounted flush LED light. That gives me a nice fitting. Yes, I'll have to perforate it for temp etc, and account for it being on the ceiling, but that's where the expensive AEOtec multisensors would go anyway. The nodemcu boards could also take a simple switch or reed switch as well as an input.

I just bought parts to make ten of them for about $180 NZD, including PSUs... So I'll build those and put one in every room :-) That's 10 for the price of 2.

Or build them and sell them :-)

Cheers - N

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

Jase2985

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#1840869 8-Aug-2017 07:29

Interesting to see how it goes Neil.

would also like to see links to where you get everything.

Disrespective

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#1841793 9-Aug-2017 12:30

I have my whole house set up with a combination of z-wave aeonlabs multi sensors and the XiaoMi sensors, all running in tandem on OpenHAB. I have a combination of Mi door/window sensors, temp sensors, switches, and motion sensors all working great.

I can't say enough good things about the Mi sensors. They're cheap, aren't crazy hungry on batteries, and even look decent. The binding of OH works pretty darned well too so you aren't beholden on the app to do anything other than the initial bind (although this can probably be done other ways too).

Be aware that there are a sister range of sensors under the name of Aqara but the OH binding doesn't support any/many of them so don't assume they'll work just because they're made from XiaoMi.

xontech

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#1841864 9-Aug-2017 14:13

I think you lot have convinced me to give XiaoMi kit a go with my fledgling HA set up.

I'm always kinda nervous buying on AliExpress that I'm going to choose a dodgy supplier/product. Would someone who has bought XiaoMi gear from AliExpress be kind enough to let me know the supplier they bought it from? Thanks in advance.

eluSiveNZ

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#1841874 9-Aug-2017 14:29

xontech:

I think you lot have convinced me to give XiaoMi kit a go with my fledgling HA set up.

I'm always kinda nervous buying on AliExpress that I'm going to choose a dodgy supplier/product. Would someone who has bought XiaoMi gear from AliExpress be kind enough to let me know the supplier they bought it from? Thanks in advance.

I recently bought a kit, gateway + assorted sensors from "Big Elephant Store" delivery was 12 days (ymmv)

Just ordered more sensors as they work great (also using HA)

richms

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#1843011 9-Aug-2017 19:43

xontech:

I think you lot have convinced me to give XiaoMi kit a go with my fledgling HA set up.

I'm always kinda nervous buying on AliExpress that I'm going to choose a dodgy supplier/product. Would someone who has bought XiaoMi gear from AliExpress be kind enough to let me know the supplier they bought it from? Thanks in advance.

Used this store for my last lot, but all but one have delivered what was ordered. The one that nothing arrived I just did the dispute thing that tracking number wasnt working and got my refund. They were signifigantly cheaper than the others on one of the sensors and I tried to buy 8 of them so I suspect they didnt ship since they would be losing money.

edit: pay attantion to do the paste part of copy and paste it seems - https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1407262

edit again: That one ^^^ delivered fine. Not bothering to find and link the ones that didnt since they dont deserve incoming traffic. Lets just say that they have 3C in their name.

Richard rich.ms

Talkiet

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#1846776 14-Aug-2017 23:44

Jase2985:

Interesting to see how it goes Neil.

would also like to see links to where you get everything.

Well the box full of arduinos (well, NodeMCUs) arrived today and after work I spent a few minutes to see what I could do. Following some pretty easy instructions I managed to get the IDE installed, driver installed (for USB) and get "hello world" working on a webserver in about 10 minutes, and then another 5 minutes to flash on the code for the multisensor and get that talking to the mqtt broker on my network and registered with Homeassistant.

Unfortunately I have no sensors so at the moment it's doing nothing but giving dummy values to HA, but it's all working.

Then I added DHCP reservations for the MAC address of the nodeMCU in my router so I know it won't change (and enabled the OTA updating feature so I can update them when they are mounted in the ceiling without using USB)...

Just have to wait for the sensors to start arriving now but the literally only need to be connected via 2-3 jumpers each and reset the nodemcu to have them work.

Way way WAY simpler than I thought.

Cheers - N

This is the specific NodeMCU board I got...

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/New-Wireless-module-NodeMcu-Lua-WIFI-Internet-of-Things-development-board-based-ESP8266-with-pcb-Antenna/32593655688.html

I got ten of them and chose DHL shipping because I thought it might take a while to get the IDE up and get comfortable with loading up the software on them... Heh. Ordered on the 7th August and arrived today.

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

phrozenpenguin

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#1871232 22-Sep-2017 21:47

Watching this thread with interest; any updates - do you have the sensors on those boards yet?

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