Just to add to this conversation. I understand from my contact at Aico that MQTT will be switched off in the not too distant future (I’m trying to get a timeline).
I’m planning to use their webhook capability to obtain the same ‘real time’ data. This will of course need internet based access to you HA instance to function, and I suspect won’t supply as quite much data as MQTT does, though I believe it gives the same key items of alerts and readings that are primarily being consumed from MQTT.
Am I right in saying that I need a ‘Ei3000MRF’ module to get this integrated with HA, in all my sensors or just one? I have several optical/carbon sensor placed around the house, but unable to get it to show up atm.
I don’t suppose you’d mind showing exactly how you did that please? I’m a bit worried about frying something and I’d be very grateful for some example photos/diagrams of your connections to the ESP and how you handled the various voltages involved. Did you use the ‘Alarm In’ function?
OK. I’ll reply to my own post. I got out the multimeter and satisfied myself (I’m easily pleased) that the ‘relays’ on the Ei413 do indeed work as ‘normal’ relays’ i.e. just as a switch with normally open or normally closed options. When the Ei413 gets the RF message that there’s a fire, CO excess or fault it will activate the relevant relay. So all you need to do is to attach Ground and a GPIO pin on your ESP32 to each of the relays (two wires to each relay, although the ground wires needs to be joined together before they reach the ESP because it doesn’t have 3 ground pins). The yellow jumper on the Fire relay needs to be shifted to the left, exposing one of the little pins. On the ESP32 you set up the GPIO pins as binary sensors with input_pullup and inverted: true.
If you want to use the ‘alarm in’ function, which allows your ESP to set off all the fire alarms you can either give the Ei412 a 12v signal or (and this is easier because the ESP is only 3.3v) use the ‘switch’ option. The ‘alarm in’ terminal block has two terminals labelled ‘SW’. These have 3.126v across them. If you short them, ie put a wire across the two screws the alarms will go off, so all you need to do is have your ESP control a relay hooked up to the two SW terminals. One wire from a SW terminal to the com terminal and the other to the NO terminal. of the relay. Then your Home Assistant automations can activate the relay and therefore sound all fire alarms whenever you want.
All this does require a separate 12v supply to power the Ei413 and 5v supply for the ESP and (optionally, if you use the optocoupler) the relay.
OK. This doesn’t give you all the information the Ei1000G gateway provides, but that’s silly expensive and uses a SIM card (which only works in the UK or Ireland I think).
Bump!
Also, anyone tried one of these Z-Wave bridge?