What Have You Added to Your Setup Recently?

💬 Lounge
41

I've added some ThirdReality contact and motion sensors.

Seeing how they work with HE, SmartThings, and Home Assistant/zigbee2mqtt.

They work well.

Battery level status is where it gets interesting; HE shows 100%, ST shows 47%, and HA/z2m sees them as mains powered devices and not running on AAA batteries.

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42

A pair of Sonoff Temperature & Humidity sensors that were just delivered today. Going to use them to see if I'm able to save any energy this summer by using dewpoint to control my AC system. (Thanks to @aaiyar for the inspiration).

Also recently purchased another pair of WiFi smart plugs with energy monitoring. Not paired with HE, but linked with my Sense energy monitor. Not really for automation purposes, but data acquisition.

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43

5 Danalock Zigbee locks, using Lutron Pico remotes for keypads. All replacing August locks. One more thing that eliminates dependency on the cloud. :grin:

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44

Those locks look like a nice easy way to automate locking. Very curious to see how that works out. Are you getting the DanaPad as well?

Unfortunately I have a mortise lock so this won't work for me. I do have a Yale and Kwikset on other exterior doors - both Zigbee as well.

45

Sorry, have to ask. Do they use smart phones? :slight_smile:

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46

Water leak protection has always been high on my list for home automation. I am curious though, what advantages would you receive using these Tuya water leak sensors over using something like Zooz water leak sensor? They're about the same cost.. the Zooz work now without any special apps or drivers and don't rely on the Cloud. As I said, I'm just curious. thanks...

47

It has a probe, current price is around the same, uses Zigbee which can be a little more responsive and easier to pair. Note: if the ZSE24 is a FLiRS device then there have been some issues reported about the mesh bogging down when the device stops responding if out of batteries for example...

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48

Indeed they do have smartphones, but, the client insists on privacy above cost and convenience.
For example, a simple amazon alexa dot might cost around $50, and is relatively easy to hook up to Hubitat for notification and control. A RPI with a good speaker and a good microphone array might cost around $250. (Just the cost of the hardware alone).
Nonetheless, the client insists on privacy above cost and convenience.

49

The Tuya sensors are zigbee, so they also don't rely on the cloud either. I don't know if they work with any generic driver (they may - I have no idea), but there are lots of people who prefer zigbee devices over z-wave devices for a few reasons, including:

  1. Zigbee meshes tend to be a lot less sensitive to misbehaving devices
  2. Because zigbee doesn't have a set number of hops (z-wave is limited to 4), compatible zigbee devices tend not to drop off the mesh very easily.
  3. Zigbee meshes run at a higher transfer rate (250 kbps), possibly making zigbee triggers fractionally faster than z-wave.
  4. Zigbee uses the same frequency throughout the world, making device availability much higher.
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50

It's a long story as to how this happened, but I call this "Yay! Spring! " It runs nightly on hubitat for a few nights after spring equinox. Setup only took about 90 minutes including rounding up 4 zigbee outlets and programming a rm4 rule. VERY high WAF, btw.

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51

Wow....

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52

My next addition I may have to invent because I can't find it.
I simply want to know when it's windy in the garden, or when there's little or no wind.
Without feeding a power supply, the cost of a weather station, and without all the extra data. I'd like an anemometer that when it's spinning above X, simply closes a contact that a regular Door/Window sensor on a 2 year battery can notify.

53

You can do it with an arduino and bring it into Hubitat using @ogiewon's hubduino.

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54

I'd like to do it without a micro controller or external power, it's for the garden, just an anemometer and a Door/Window sensor on battery power.

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55

You could use something like the EcoLink contact sensor..

https://www.amazon.com/Z-Wave-Magnets-Window-Sensor-DWZWAVE2-5-ECO/dp/B01N5HB4U5/

There is a nice wire terminal on the board..

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56

Check out PiCroft/Mycroft.

57

Yes I have one of those ready, I was hoping some bright spark could recommend an anenometer that could close those contacts with its own energy, as it spins.

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58

You will need some way to convert rotational speed into reduced resistance to use the sensor that @erktrek suggested (or any other contact sensor). Not sure how easy that is to do. Something like a potentiometer.

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59

Recall - those are dry contacts. So external current should not be applied to them.

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60

Gotcha... yea, that didn't occur to me. Makes sense. Thank you!

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