I've recently starting digging into Opensource and community around home automation. I'm fairly new to some of the lexicon within this area, but I've worked many years in opensource development. I was impressed when I started reading about this project, and was hoping someone could help clarify a few things before I purchased anything.
Stage one of the project was replace old thermostats in my new house, however quickly realized that all the popular brands required everything to becon out to the cloud. I then came across Z-wave protocol, but found that some products thermostats and hubs regardless of using Z-wave still require cloud access for functionality. Top it off most product listings are very vague about these details, so I was happy when Hubitat specifically mentioned 'cloud-free'.
I guess we're I'm getting confused is on a thermostat like the Honeywell T6 pro series.
It says it's Z-wave, however honeywell support staff says that none of their units actually work without cloud access. Are there preferred units to keep all data local? And what smart features are really being lost other than someone's cloud analytic engine adjusting my temp schedules?
I don't own one, but I think the t6 zwave thermostat is zwave only, no wifi. So if it has no wifi how does it need cloud access to work? I'm guessing you got some bad info from Honeywell. Here's a link to the manual. No mention of wifi.
FYI while Hubitat is, in fact, cloud-free, it really does like to be able to reach an NTP server when it boots. Otherwise it uses the last known time.
In my opinion? A lot of headaches. But I'm sure others will you at the end of the day the linux solution has advantages. there are many folks on here who use various interations of RPi to do all sorts of stuff.
You said "thermostatS", plural. Do you have a furnace and forced air, or radiators?
One quick (but incomplete) way to find possible models that will work with your application is to go into the Add Devices section of your HE and search by device type.
Correct, and that's a good point. I need to look up the specs of what I have currently, I have a 3 level system. 1 units that has two thermostats and is gas/electric and one just electric.
Yea, it's the age old issue in tech "build vs buy" .
Ultimately I wanted to use RPi / Adrunio to possible tie in some legacy magnetic door sensors that was left by an old ADT system that was installed. Then unify all that in RPi web-dash regardless if the RPi actually handled the hub/broadcast functions.
What kind of panel does your old ADT system use? I have my Vista20 honeywell panel integrated with HE. No Linux required CHeck out these guys too..
. https://www.eyezon.com/evl4.php
I'm not sure what the panel is, I ripped out all the ADT boards since they wouldn't give me any keycodes without paying them. Basically it's all a mix of CAT5e and some 2 pair honeywell brand wiring is all that's left.
As far as Hubitat vs a Linux based system, for me it was the "busy work" of building dashboards, mobile apps, rule machines, backup / restore, install / update / remove, ZWave and Zigbee was all done for me. Could I have built all that myself under Linux? Sure, but I wanted to dig into the meat and potatoes of home automation. Hubitat gives you the ability to run apps and drives from Hubitat along with community written apps and drivers. I jumped in with both feet and decided to try my hand at a couple of drivers in Groovy and I was able to make them work. The community is top notch for support and ideas. I never looked back!
Definitely still an option, as he's going to have to figure out what the wires go to one way or another if he's going to reuse them with an Arduino or other.
Or go with an Arduino mega and a bunch of diodes for electrical protection, and roll your own. Just depends what your time is worth to you.
Just take my advice as one who went the Arduino route, you need isolators or diodes on the wired signals or you'll fry the Arduino sooner or later during an electrical storm. Arduino's can't take much juice on the sensor inputs, and home security devices can gain quite a charge.
Just for arguments sake, I did throw on a VM of Home Assistant, it seems to have some easy to configure options. Granted not a full home-brew, but I believe it's FOSS.
CHeck out these guys too..
