I’m completely new in HA and home automation world and I have been reading tons of configurations questions across different forums. I’m here mainly to ask 2 things: approval/feedback on my hoped configuration and resources/explanation in Z-Wave frequencies topic.
For the first topic my main idea is to have a mini PC refurbished with HA installed and buying a couple of USB dongles for the different protocols I want to use. Both Thread/Matter and Z-Wave are on my plans, so I’m buying the SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus-E for Thread and Zigbee as a good add, and the Aeotec Z-strick 7 for Z-Wave.
My main idea for automations at home are a lot of lights (bulbs because this is a rented home) and several plugs, light strips, open/close sensors and smart remotes.
My question in this topic is, is enough with those 2 dongles for a good controller setup? I know I need several powered devices to extend the range for them so I have Tp-Link Kasa matter smart plugs for that. Do you recommend extenders of any kind for this?
Regarding the Z-Wave frequencies and gadgets; I live in Costa Rica, I know we have a Z-Wave frequency assigned of 922.5 MHz, 923.9 MHz and 926.3 MHz. We are 120V 60Hz (just like the US) but we differ in the lib used and other stuff (checked from here Z-Wave Global Regions - Silicon Labs) so I’m not sure if I buy for example this smart controller from Zooz (Zooz 800 Series Z-Wave Long Range Wall Remote ZEN37 800LR (Battery Pow - The Smartest House) it will work correctly. I care not about the LR capabilities but for the controllers I want to use the series 800 scene controllers from Zooz fit my desires.
Mainly I want to be completely sure of what I buy because importing from the US these stuff is kinda expensive and I don’t want to waste money like I already did with the Aeotec smart things hub expecting if for work without cloud
Thanks in advance for any answer.
PD1: Now that I’m here does anyone knows of a good bulb that is cheap and have RGB capabilities? I was checking the Linkind Matter ones but would love to see any other advices.
are you buying a refurbished pc? or do you already have one lying around? if you’re buying one, why not buy a pi or ha green? i expect you’d end up happier with that (or at least i did).
i can’t speak to zwave, i have zigbee… what you describe sounds reasonable. zigbee does run on the same band as wifi and unfortunately there are varying qualities of zigbee devices and routers, so much would end up depending on the devices you subsequently get… i have some thirdreality power outlets that work as repeaters and those are doing ok for me.
I have a PC doing nothing at home and wanted to just give it a good use since I prefer to recycle stuff. Yet also, I was under the impression that a good performant machine will make things easier in the future if I for example want to add cameras or more complex systems to the setup.
if you’ve got a pc doing nothing, sure that makes sense. one possible thing to consider if you’re doing this to save money is that depending on your electricity costs, it’s actually more expensive to use your pc than to get something like a pi.
i don’t know what the cost is where you live, but as an example…
if the pc is 100 watts (most are higher), and you run it 24/7. then you’re using 876 kWh (100 x 24 x 365 / 1000). in the u.s., the average price per kilowatt hour is about $0.25. this means it costs $219 in electricity per year.
a rasberry pi, on the other hand, consumes approx 5 watts. so 1/20th the electricity. so it costs about $11 per year…
in terms of adding cameras and stuff, i would guess you will end up running ip cameras… the camera won’t actually be driven (compute processing-wise) from the pc (no?)… true with most of your systems, you won’t want to run the actual processing from your ha box. you’ll want to control it from ha.
Actually the power consumption was a worry for me with the PC too. And if processing power is not an issue maybe a Green or Yellow will be good options
Mini PC’s tend to use less power than normal PC’s, between 10 - 50 watts, chances are if his PC is not top spec it will use nearer 10w. A pi with dongles and SSD could easily start to reach that figure, and cost you a lot to buy i the first place and then run out of ability the second you ask it to handle a few cameras.
Just use what you have, if you find the power consumption an issue swap it out for something else. No point spending loads to save some.
Don’t run both Thread and Zigbee on the same dongle unless you want to tear your hair out. Multi-protocol (thread + zigbee) is no longer recommended because it was unstable.
If you want to run both thread and zigbee, you need 2 dongles (plus another one for Zwave)
Devices programmed for one region are only compatible with that region, you can’t mix them. If you are in Costa Rica, according to that SiLabs document your region is JP. To abide by legal requirements devices and controller should be programmed for region JP. This region probably does not have many devices, and any that exist are probably hard to get, unfortunately.
The region for Z-Wave controllers (700 and 800-series) can be changed in software, so you can buy a Zooz controller and switch it to whatever you want. If you are buying US region devices you can configure the controller as US, so it doesn’t matter where you are physically.
However, if you decide to use a frequency outside of your region you’ll be subject to whatever rules and regulations are specific to your country. In the US, the FCC enforces unlicensed radio usage and can fine (or worse) for violations.
