I’ve been looking into ways to create low-power battery-powered devices to connect to Home Assistant. One example is a tiny display to display the time and cost of showering, or blinking led as notification. Of battery-powered tilt-blinds. All applications where the actual power usage is low, but most of the energy would be consumed by the communication channel.
The most straightforward solution, with parts at hand in my hobby-box, would be to use ESP8266 modules, but their battery drain would be huge, if connected continuously. And by using deep-sleep mode most of the time, and polling only every now and then if something needs to be done, the response would be very slow. Not a problem for all applications, but still for some.
An alternative would be to use Zigbee, I think. Although most battery operated Zigbee elements like temperature sensors, door sensors, pushbuttons, etc. are triggered to communicate locally (because the door is openend or the humidity changes), I have the impression that the power usage of Zigbee is much lower than of WiFi. So I’d rather go that way.
But, I don’t easily find any Zigbee modules that can be used to control some DIY actuator or indicator. I had hoped to find a battery-power-optimized micro-controller with Zigbee interface. Limiting the number of components limits the power, I think. But a Zigbee module with an output that can wake up a microcontroller could also work.
Has anyone else looked into the same topic, and found some solution? I’d like to hear what this community thinks. I know there are complete Zigbee battery-powered blinds controllers, but they are quite pricey, and I’d rather build (3d print) one myself; I’m only lacking the (communication) electronics.
Hello ! I’m interested by this topic too, I found something that is maybe what we want but I’m not sure about the translation of the Chinese doc… Maybe you can help me with this. The ref is ZYZB011and it can be found on Aliexpress:
https://m.fr.aliexpress.com/item/1005003295723687.html
Let me know if you think it should fit for your needs and if you get more information about it,
Best,
Mathias
I bought a ZYZB010 (see eWeLight Light Module DIY ZYZB010 Zigbee compatibility) and it works. The trick to couple it to an Arduino of similar as input (return a signal to HA), is to have the Arduino first check the output state, and then give a pulse on the input pin when it needs to change value. That way, you can use a “light switch” as input. To use it as an output form HA, is easier, then you just connect your custom hardware to the right pin. Of course, the module first needs to paired to your Zigbee hub.