i already played around with nodered, but also not really my cup of tea (YET ;)) so switched back to yaml for now. especially had some issues with and and or conditions, and the flows itself (my stupid brain lol)
at the moment, im firstly looking in howto handle my zwave devices. i have a secondary stick in my HA system, which works ok, not everything has been recognized obviously (batterypowered) and the lifeline is assigned to my HS3 system. I am thinking of going the Mqtt way with my zwave devices, but want it to standarize it as much as possible or use the marthoc way. Not really sure yet.
@bartb - Welcome to the club. I also have a fairly large Z-wave network that I’ve decided to leave on HS3 for now. I started using marthoc’s solution and even added some additional device type support, but then I decided to go the MQTT route instead.
@devastator - Thanks for the tip on NodeRed. With HS3, I’d drop back to scripting when I needed to handle more than a couple of conditions. Now, with HS4, I’d be forced to change a ton a scripts due to the device model changes.
There is well working Visonic integration Bart! Which caused me to turn off your application (which i used for a long time).
Some insights in my zwave migration. I bit the bullet and moved from hs3 zwave to ha new zwave integration. I’d wait if I was you. It’s not really responsive (yet). Another thing is that the addon / docker latest version sometimes gives some issues.
For the rest: keep trying with node red! If you need some help: you probably have my email.
btw does somebody have an example on howto configure mcsmqtt to send all relevant data to mqtt (for my zwave devices) so it will be autodiscovered by the HA MQTT. Not very fond of the need to type in every mqtt entity in de config .yaml
@bartb - Can you tell me what devices aren’t being picked up? I need the “Device String” from the Advanced tab of the device. I can look into adding support for those. Also, can you clarify what you mean by change the cover/shutter direction?
As for mcsMQTT, I only send selected devices to HA so I did it manually. An editor that specifically supports YAML formatting helps a lot. I’ll take a look at mcsMQTT and see if it’s possible to configure it to allow auto-discovery in HA. If there’s something wrong with the export format, I’ll contact Michael to see if he’s willing to fix it.
If for some reason you opt to try this with HS4, keep an eye out for the mcsMQTT plugin pegging your CPU at full utilization. I didn’t take the time to investigate the issue as I needed control of that machine back as soon as possible. There must be something different enough in HS4 that the plugin simply isn’t handling properly.
i mean the;
Z-wave Electric Meter
Z-wave kW Hours
z-wave Volts
Z-wave Amperes
Z-wave Watts
Z-wave Alarm
and the question regarding the covers/shutters, is that my up and down commands are reversed but i think thats my issue, i also have that with zwave integration in ha. in homeseer the seem just fine. so i guess i need to rewire and change my Homeseer config as well.
But what i do miss, is the level operator when using the cover entity. If i leave these covers btw as multilevel switch they work as expected (direction ok and level available). but then i could not use them for example with google asistant as cover e.g.
Happy to see fellow HomeSeer refugees here. I too am a recent convert. After having used HS3 for five years, the bad direction of HS4 and the lack of innovation in the development of HS made me look elsewhere. I’m a huge proponent of open source software and had been looking at Home Assistant for a while but the fact that many integrations and automatons required YAML configs made me hesitate. One weekend I jumped in and with the help of the awesome HA documentation and community was able to figure out the basics of automatons and integrations. I realized how flexible and powerful the HA platform is. Have not looked back.
I’ve moved my 50 node Z-Wave network mostly composed of HS WD100+ dimmers to zwave2mqtt on docker with HA discovery…and the HA container on docker as well. I have many Tasmota devices and was using mcsMQTT in HS3. The transition to HA with the Tasmota “setoption19 1” HA discovery has made migrating these devices extremely easy.
I’ve created the Alexa skill manually and it works great for voice control. Sonos and Ring integrations are working well too and I’m tweaking my automatons to experiment with the possibilities. Working on IP Camera integraton now.
Some things I’ve learned during my HA journey that I’d like to share:
Don’t tweak zwave settings constantly. Troubleshoot on a node by node basis. HA’s OpenZwave Beta is a great start. But, I’d wait until its ready for prime time. Use zwave2mqtt for now since it’s more mature and stable.
Use a good YAML aware editor for config files - such as Visual Studio Code. Makes a big difference.
Don’t upgrade with every new release.
Have a good backup/restore plan…and test the plan to make sure it works.
Don’t put all configurations in one file. Split them up using a file/folder organization structure that makes sense to you.
Use templates. I’m still learning them and realize how powerful they are especially in automations.
Share and learn with the HA community - forums and Discord. I’m learning new things every day.
Well it sort of is half way there. The HA Discovery is added by publishing another single ‘config’ topic per device that categorises the device and describes the values. All this config topic does is point to the existing MQTT topics / payloads. It includes no status data.
The config topic could be published by any client but obviously HS has the pertinent information. It can include template information if needed
This seems like a task well suited for an HS script. It could either be used as a “run once” or as a recurring event. Given a list of dev refs, the script would gather the pertinent information, format as needed, call mcsMQTT to publish the device info, and then loop through the list.
I’ll work on putting a script together a little later today. Please note that this script will only work on HS3, as I have no time to go figure out the new HS4 device object model.
I am not using HS3 currently (although I have a licence) but I have done exactly this for the Hubitat Elevation (similar to SmartThings) hub and it works well creating and linking HE devices to HA. I might be able to help if you hit a problem.
I’m also going to look at the reverse … allowing HE to discover devices that use the HA MQTT Discovery and create them in HE.
but not every zwave device is pickedup yet.