Buy a ready2use zigbee2mqtt stick - flashed, antenna mod and printed case

I finished the IR Versions of the OpenMqttgateway.

I made two versions:
OMG ESP32 IR/RF/BLE/LED
OMG ESP8266 IR/RF/LED

This is how they look:

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Oh My God, nicely done! Looks more like a consumer device than DIY.

How far will the IR reach?

Would it be possible to run Esphome on them (pros/cons)?

Thank you very much, that’s very nice.

I did some tests with an IR bulb to figure out the range.
I worked reliable within a diameter of 6m around the device (so 3m from the OMG with transparent case on top to the bulb in all directions). It worked up to 10 m around the device but not a 100% reliable.
The transparent print takes a little bit of the range (maybe around 0,5m), but it looks way nicer with the cover.
Users could also try to point all leds in their needed position to make the range better.

About ESPhome. I don’t have experience with that, but I don’t see a reason why it shouldn’t work with it. The pins that are uses are directly marked on the pcb.

Hi @h4nc and thank you for this amazing work!

I’d like to order a stick (or two), could you PM me the price and details (as I cannot yet since I just registered).

Thanks

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Hi @h4nc.

Do you still sell the zigbee sticks? I have sent you an email with questions.

Best regards
Petter

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Hi,

I made another new device: The Milight Hub

See: https://github.com/sidoh/esp8266_milight_hub

And this is how it looks:

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Thanks to h4nc for the fast and uncomplicated handling!
My stick arrived after a few days and works as it should.

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I’m now also able to flash the Sonoff RF Bridge with OpenMqttGateway.

You may ask yourself why I want to offer flashed Sonoff RF Bridges when I already have the DIY OMG IR/RF/BLE/Led device.

Well first of all if someone only wants RF (in an industrial case) the Sonoff RF may be the better choice. And because I only need to flash it and save a lot of time soldering and making the device it will be cheaper.
So I think it’s nice to have this option too.

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Hi all, Hi @h4nc!

I am happy customer and bought RF/BLE/Led device (a bit bespoke, with external wifi antenna, thanks Hans) and Zigbee stuff.
All looks great.

Still need to put my hands on Zigbee stuff: for now played only with the RF/BLE/Led device.
This I straight away flashed with EspHome (thanks again Hans for support, to flash no need to keep pressed boot while connecting to USB port).
Why using EspHome? I like to keep full control and never used OMG hence…it was easier for me.

It was very straight to program and if someone is interested I can share my code.
The only think is the board has 4Mbyte Flash hence a bit limited.
My EspHome firmware uses 92% of it and, as a result, Api and OTA do no work: I need to ask @OttoWinter if this is normal.

Shrinking down the firmware removing functions (52% used) is perfectly fine.

Issue is with EspHome I am not able to pack together:

  • BLE (this uses really a lot of space) (tracker + 2 MiFlora)

  • RF receiver / transmitter

  • usual wifi signal/status/restart/LED

it is not an HW issue (as with OMG all works!) but probably EspHome is more resource hungry?
I am not a programmer hence can’t judge properly.

Anyway: quickly tested RF coverage and looks good (with cheap door/window sensors)

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Thanks for your feedback.

Did the external antenna help regarding the range of your BLE devices?

hi @h4nc,

it definetly help unluckily as said I can’t use RF server together with BLE :frowning:

Thought maybe you tested it with OMG before switching to ESPhome. I don’t have experience with ESPhome. Hope someone is able to help you with that, so that you can enable all modules.
Keep us updated, others may be interested in this as well.

seems something is moving:

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I receive yesterday my ready2use Zigbee2mqtt-Stick and RFlink mini.
Thanks h4nc for quality of the devices and your response time to follow order and delivery!

I installed the two devices immediately yesterday.
For the RFlink mini I just installed my old config with my previous DIY version and it works immediately.
The installation and use of Zigbee2mqtt-Stick was also straight forward. Now need to setup all my devices.

The second Zigbee2mqtt-Stick will be used for debug/sniffing.

Thanks again h4nc.

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Just received the usb stick, i swapped it over from my non arial model, all connected fine after a while, but there was a issue with some bulbs not reacting to home assistant on / off button ? this happened before the last time i unpaired and paired my lights due to some network issue.

What i did which worked last time was to repair the non working bulbs back to the hue bridge then deleted them from the hue app, i then paired the bulbs back to zigbee2mqtt and all is working fine.

Now to pair my Aqua thermostat / humidity sensors which also arrived today, these sensors were picked up straight away with the zigbee2mqtt network with no issues.

By the way the signal in the zigbee map looks great with the devices mesh - ing as they should, loads better than before and working like a champ so far, cheers to h4nc for the arial mod and the nicely designed case.

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I have a newbie question :grin:

I am using a coordinator usb stick for 12 sensors, if I buy this, do I need to re-pair all of the sensors?

Is this possible to plug both coordinator and router USB at the same time to use with Home Assistant?

Thank you,

You, won’t need to repair your sensors.

I don’t know if I understand your question right, but the coordinator will be plugged in into your machine running zigbee2mqtt and routers only need to be powered by an usb port. After paring the router you can place in anywhere (within the range of the coord).

Please send me a pm if you’re still interested.

Thank you for your reply.

Pairing the router is the similar process to pair new sensor? Sorry for the newbie question :smiley:
Steps are:

  1. Buy your router
  2. Pair it to current coordinator (similar adding new device like other sensor)
  3. Grab any USB adapter, then plug the router somewhere near the sensors (even outdoor with ducktape) :smiley:

Is that correct?

Yes, exactly like that. You will have to pair it near your coordinator, like you pair enddevices.

BTW: This might me interesting for other users as well. I lately measured the power consumption (with a cheap power meter, so probably not very accurate) of a CC2531.
After an hour it only used around 12 mAh. So it might be possible to plug it into a powerbank with solarcells and use it somewhere where you don’t have a power socket. Just an idea, did not try it myself.

Thank you for the quick reply.

If we have a router, how can we know that the far-away sensors connect to the router instead of the coordinator? I searched and found zigbee mesh: Zigbee2mqtt: show the networkmap in home assistant