Any way to add an Apollo MSR-2?

[98_Percent_Organic]

Hi, all:

I'm completely new to this and thought I did enough research before jumping into the HE platform, but I'm at a bit of a loss here. I bought a couple of these sensors and thought I would be able to use them with my C-8, but I can't figure out how to add one to my hub.

Is there a way for me to do this, or did I just waste money?

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[neonturbo]

I think the thing that would help if you could tell us what you did to try and bring this into Hubitat. What steps did you take so far?

That said, these appear to be an ESP device?

If so, there is a driver that may work for this device [Release] HubDuino v1.1.9 - Hubitat to Arduino / ESP8266 / ESP32 / ThingShield Integration (ST_Anything)

Otherwise, I would guess you need a specific driver for this device. I don't recall seeing this device mentioned previously, and it appears to be newer, so I am not sure anyone has really looked at this too much.

Neat device though! It would be great if it could work with Hubitat without too much effort.

[ogiewon]

@98_Percent_Organic

Is there a way for me to do this, or did I just waste money?

After doing a little bit of research, it appears the Apollo MSR-2 device is primarily designed to be used with Home Assistant. the MSR-2 runs ESPHome, which is very tightly integrated with Home Assistant. However, there has been some work to allow the use of ESPHome devices directly with Hubitat.

This thread seems to discuss using ESPHome devices directly with Hubitat

ESPHome + Hubitat

Anyone has experience of using devices flashed with ESPHome binaries with Hubitat without any additional hubs (and without Home Assistant)?

The other option would be to run Home Assistant, add the MSR-2 devices to HA, and then use the Home Assistant Device Bridge (HADB) to bring those devices into Hubitat.

[RELEASE] Home Assistant Device Bridge (HADB)

All new version 2 now available! Features This version subscribes only to events you select from the list of entities within the Home Assistant Device Bridge app. The version 2.x driver no longer listens to all events, thus significantly reducing the CPU load on your Hubitat Elevation hub. After upgrading, you must open the app and press the Done button. IMPORTANT: The Home Assistant Device Bridge version 2.0 app is now mandatory. The version 2.0 driver will no longer operate as sta…

As the author of HubDuino (mentioned above by @neonturbo), I would not recommend using HubDuino for this device. HubDuino does not have support for the sensors on the MSR-2 board, and it would take quite a bit of effort to try and reverse engineer everything.

[98_Percent_Organic]

Thanks for the suggestions. I thought I installed the ESPHome stuff available correctly but probably not. I also read that the Tuya drivers should work and installed those as well, but when I go to add the device using Zigbee nothing shows up.

[aaiyar]

@98_Percent_Organic

but when I go to add the device using Zigbee nothing shows up.

ESPHome devices are WiFi devices, so zigbee will not work.

(the new ESP32-C6 platform also has a zigbee/Thread radio, but I don't know of any commercially available devices that use it).

[98_Percent_Organic]

Yep. Just learned this, lol. I think I'll give up on these things and look for something else. It's too bad Hubitat has no support for these. I should have read more before jumping into the HE environment because it seems like Home Assistant is better at everything.

[user7073]

I took a little different tack on the issue. I've been using HE for a couple years and it's really been stable at managing the Zigbee and Zwave devices. The Rule machine, Button Controller, HPM and the basic apps have been rock solid and easy to use reliably. With all the posts heralding HA's success at integration, I went ahead and picked up an HA Green. I am not planning on adding any Zigbee or Zwave Hardware. First thing I added was the HE Home Assistant and HA Device Bridge apps and HA Integrations to get filtered access to devices/entities from both sides on both platforms. That appears to be working pretty cleanly. I will admit that the Home Assistant abilities in the IP/WiFi integration space are truly impressive. Letting HA do what it does best and passing just the necessary state changes back and forth seems to be working well. I just added and ESPHome Apollo MSR2 to my HA easily, and with basic automatons should be able to set HE virtual switches to let HE do the core automaton logic. Another plus with this configuration seems to be the ability to leverage HA's superior dashboards.