Sticker shock

neonturbo · August 3, 2020, 2:45am

True, Zooz switches and dimmers are less than $25 each at the smartest house site. Inovelli are not much more, and even a GE switch is about the same price.

How cheap in both quality and cost would a wifi device have to be to be less expensive than any of those?

aaiyar · August 3, 2020, 2:52am

Feit WiFi dimmers at Costco are $20 for 2. I don’t know what the build quality is like, but they are UL listed.

So I can see the cost appeal of WiFi switches.

steve.maddigan · August 3, 2020, 3:08am

Yup. Especially in Canada. The only way to get Zooz stuff is through amazon and even when the smartest house has sales, the amazon prices stay at $50+

Yes the sonoff zigbee stuff is about $20 Cdn on amazon. I have bought four of the inline and two of the plug in modules so far and they are working very well.

But I still have a my 17 Teckin SP10s that I have converted to Tasmota via OTA and I am using @markus driver. Also work very well and they go on sale for a four pack for $44 on amazon. Very hard to beat that pricing.

I think I paid $60 for my Leviton zigbee plug in dimmer. Crazy. And I just paid $60 for another zen31 RGBW controller. Wifi magic RGBs are like $10.

Brons2 · August 3, 2020, 4:22am

Thanks for the advice. I have:
Wyze - 12 devices
Geeni - 5 devices
Feit (As mentioned) - 2 devices
Roku - 4 devices
LG ThinkQ - 1 device
Amazon Fire Sticks - 2 devices

I am very interested in the Sonoff sensors as mentioned, just haven't bought them yet because I wasn't sure what I was going to have them actually talk to. I want to create some door opening automation but when you only have half the pieces you need, you're not going to get very far.

Very interested in devices with OTA Tasmota flashability. The time commitment required for taking devices apart and soldering in leads sounds like a lot of time away from the family.

Don't know this smartest house site you mentioned having the Zooz switches for less than $25 but I'll check it out. Ideally I'd prefer more in the $10-20 range but $25 is not too bad.

aaiyar · August 3, 2020, 5:34am

I don’t know about your other switches, but this post (and the ones following it) will help you get your Feit switches into Hubitat:

Evilborg · August 3, 2020, 5:44am

I have written many WiFi drivers.... what devices do you have and do you know if there is a API?

steve.maddigan · August 3, 2020, 1:55pm

Zooz main website is

And if you click on buy the first link is to their online store:

https://www.thesmartesthouse.com/collections/zooz

They are actually having a sale right now but again only ship to US addresses.

Many esp8266 devices can be converted to Tasmota OTA (over the air) without soldering but it requires a raspberry PI and it’s a little bit of a process to get setup.

adamkempenich · August 3, 2020, 2:22pm

What ThinkQ device?

You may be able to integrate these with Echo Speaks.

Feit

Some (all?) Feit devices use Smartlife/Tuya's API. I have an integration for switches on that API if you're feeling technical. Aaiyar's link is good, too!

Roku

Edit: It's supported!

Wyze

There's somewhat of a support for this ... You can install their different firmware for RTSP support and add those to a dashboard for browsers supporting it. Not sure if others have done more.

Brons2 · August 4, 2020, 1:10am

Flashed one of my Feit Electric dimmers to Tasmota OTA.

Didn't require a Pi, I used an older laptop running Antix Linux, a lightweight Debian distro. Surprisingly easy to do.

I recommend using this guide rather than fooling around with booting from SD cards and such on the Pi:

Now, to get it into Hubitat. Good news is, the physical controls on the switch still work fine.

tomw · August 4, 2020, 1:51am

Thanks for sharing that guide. I'll probably use that rather than the RPi method if I ever add more Tasmota-capable devices.

I use this driver for Hubitat for the switching functionality: [RELEASE] Sonoff Basic (Tasmota) - Standalone driver (now updated for MQTT) . I just use the basic HTTP version, not MQTT.

I have a modified version of that driver that I use for dimmer functionality. Send me a private message if you want to give that a spin.

Brons2 · August 4, 2020, 5:06am

I went ahead and installed the Markus drivers because the documentation seemed so good but now I'm kind of stuck. I posted on that thread asking for help. The device installed but I only get the parent, no child devices. The thread linked earlier in this thread lists these settings, but I have no idea where to put them. Are these done on the HE or on the device web page?

Console: reset 5
WebGUi: Configure->Configure Module->Module Type=Tuya MCU (54)
Console: TuyaMCU 21,2
Console: TuyaMCU 11,1
Console: DimmerRange 10,1000
WebGUI: Configure->Configure Other->Friendly Name set
Power Cycle

steve.maddigan · August 4, 2020, 12:35pm

Hi. I see that you got a reply from @markus on the other thread.

Yes you have to install his version of the Tasmota FW and then everything is configured through HE.

frankmichalski · August 4, 2020, 2:02pm

I thought the price was a bit high but when I looked at the bonus of not using the net to go out and then back to the device and not having to pay wink $5 for each of my hubs in a year the extra cost vs wink hub price is worth it to me. My garage/Man cave is 150 feet from the house and is metal so the devices in the building are not seen so I needed a second hub. Now I have to figure how to link the 2 hubs to be seen as one network.

aaiyar · August 4, 2020, 2:09pm

HubConnect would be the best way to do this.

Brons2 · August 5, 2020, 8:15pm

Frankmichalski,

I meant the price of the individual components, not that of the HE box itself. The price seems reasonable for the capabilities that you get in the HE box. I've been pretty impressed so far how modular that it is. In fact I'm surprised there's not a subscription fee, or a premium tier, on top of the price of the box.

I will be getting more Zigbee and Z-Wave devices, I just don't want to throw my existing devices out if I can avoid it. I'm off to a good start with Tasmota, just need to get it dialed in now.

But for things like door sensors and motion detectors, and other things that are battery operated, WiFi is not a good option. You're going to be replacing or recharging batteries a lot more often using WiFi for these sensors, or the batteries will have to have higher capacity, thereby making the sensors larger. There's not really a low power option for WiFi. Yes, I know companies do make WiFi sensors but I just don't think they're an ideal technical solution. IMO, and $0.02.

Abhijeet_Ghosh · August 6, 2020, 8:48pm

@Brons2 tasmota can now be done over the air using tuya convert. I was more afraid of damaging my plugs when prying them open then doing soldering. For switches and not dimmers or Dimmable bulbs, try this

The community might have something else, too.

You might also try creating a simulated alexa switch. It works with hubitat

github.com

bjpierron/SmartThings-Alexa/blob/master/devicetypes/bjpierron/simulated-alexa-switch.src/simulated-alexa-switch.groovy

/**
 *  Copyright 2015 SmartThings
 *
 *  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except
 *  in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at:
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 *  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed
 *  on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License
 *  for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
 *
 */
metadata {

    definition (name: "Simulated Alexa Switch", namespace: "bjpierron", author: "bjpierron") {
        capability "Switch"
        capability "Sensor"
        capability "Actuator"
        capability "Contact Sensor"

This file has been truncated. show original

And have alexa trigger a routine when the contact sensor is turned on or off

If you go with tasmota, I have tried many options and have found which ones are better than others.

Brons2 · August 7, 2020, 4:21pm

Yes, I have already converted a couple of devices using OTA Tuya-Convert on my Linux laptop. Then I install @Markus HE8.3.1 firmware to get it on Hubitat.

Brons2 · August 10, 2020, 4:08pm

Why can I not reply to the following thread:

I found that Ecolink Zigbee door/window sensors model 4655BC0-R are detected and work as a Generic Zigbee Contact Sensor, but are not listed as compatible in the list of compatible devices.

*The system detects them as a Generic Zigbee motion sensor, but if you change the type to Generic Zigbee Contact Sensor, they work perfect.

stephack · August 10, 2020, 4:50pm

Is the Reply button grayed out or something else?
@bobbyD will get u sorted in time.

Brons2 · August 10, 2020, 6:07pm

I PM'ed him and got it straightened out. I can now post there.