If this has been answered before, please point me in the right direction and I will remove this post. But I couldn’t find one so I hope this is ok.
I recently moved in to a house (133m2) and I decided to get started with some home automation. I bought two Fibaro dimmers, a fibaro relay and a fibaro powerplug which I control via HA and a z-wave.me UZB stick.
Before spending more money I want to make sure I go down the right road. Z Wave devices are expensive, and can’t talk with Echo/Siri/Google Assistent directly.
So would it be better go for something like fibaros devices that are integrated with apples homekit directly? would that work together with HA?
Started to learn more about Sonoff Basic today, unfortunately they are too big. And I really like to power consumption feature of the fibaro.
Soo… really… the big question… Is Z-wave (mostly fibaro) the way to go?
My dad also moved in a new house and he allowed me to do the whole home automation.
Well, I’ve used Sonoff’s so far and they work great, both the “Sonoff Basic” and the “Sonoff T1”. They’re WiFi relais and switches, but in order to make them work great, you should really flash Tasmota or ESPurna (I think the latter is stabler) on it. It’s not that hard once you get it. As a first timer, I must say that the very first time it was confusing to flash, but now I know how and I plan on buying more of them.
Another device that worked flawlessly (with stock firmware, no way to flash another at time of writing) is the Broadlink RM3. It’s a IR and RF transmitter. It learns TV, HVAC, Stereo, etc remotes (IR) and then he can replay them later at request. RF works also (garage doors, etc). Please note that the RM2 has a dedicated temperature sensor to measure room temperature, but the newer RM3 unfortunately hasn’t anymore, so if you want to control HVAC and monitor temperatures in your room, the RM2 would be nicer I think. Note: It can only send IR once learned, it cannot be used as a IR receiver.
Sonoff also has temperature sensors (Sonoff TH10), again, flash custom firmware on it for increased functionality!
For the remaining sensors (water pressure and such) I bought a NodeMCU V3, flashed it with ESPEasy and hooked analog/digital sensors to it (DIY, but works nice).
These are my experiences so far (before those, a lot of money was lost on DIY crap that didn’t really worked).
I don’t know what you want to do with your home assistant, but i have a mix of everything at home
First I use many zigbee devices. I have hue lights, hue dimmer and switches. Osram smart plugs also work great and are cheap (12€). I added xiaomi windows/door and temperature sensors. Xiaomi devices are cheap and with a zigbee stick they don’t need a cloud connection.
For my shutters I have Fibaro zwave shutters. They are expensive but small, reliable and easy to configurate.
For outdoor and some rooms I use the netatmo weather station. They are great for temperature, humidity and CO2.
I also have some wifi smart plugs with power consumption. There are some great automations like, get a notification when the washing machine is finished.
So it’s up to you what you want to do and what you up to.
Thanks for the answears. I do realise i have to be more specific in my question(s).
What does the future of z-wave hold? I get the feeling that since Hue/Ikea trådlös are both using Zigbee and non of the voice assistants can speak z-wave it could potentially be depracated? Am I wrong?
would the white fibaro dimmer/switch (non zwave, but homekit enabled) devices work in HA? Can’t fint any info about it
Are there other devices (non z-wave) that gives the power of diming/switch that also reports power consumption?
I have a mix of wifi, zwave, and zigbee. My area in particular is quite saturated with wifi signals, so I get poor reliability with anything on the 2.4ghz spectrum (wifi and zigbee). If you have a lot of wifi saturation from neighbors, definitely go zwave. It’s always been rock solid for me.
Also, consider avoiding wifi and zigbee (since it interferes with wifi) if you intend to have a lot of devices on your wifi (50+)… unless you have a commercial grade router that can handle that many simultaneous connections.
But you can definitely use zigbee and wifi as your preferred protocols, just wanted to give me two cents from my own experience. If you’re not competing for airspace with a lot of neighbors and you have a really solid router, you’ll have nothing to worry about.
Also Z-wave is still alive and kicking. S2 security is just coming into being, and the new 700 series z-wave chips are in the near future. I have had pretty good success with the Zooz products as well, but I have not dived much in to power consumption except the zooz heavy duty swtiches for my washer and dryer to notify me when the cycle is complete.
You can integrate HA to e.g. Alexa via Haaska (or via the native Alexa integration in HA if you get a subscription), and then you can choose what zwave components you want to expose to alexa and block everything else by default. I use this to expose a few switches and scripts, it works great. I see this way of integrating w/Alexa as an advantage (you have full control and choice on what you expose)
this isn’t an issue unless you plan to ditch Home Assistant (or another similar package) and wanted to use these devices directly with one of those assistants, which you currently cannot. But since you have HA why worry. My z-wave gear is great with HA, super responsive and never drop out. I have them exposed to Google Assistant for voice control and couldn’t be happier
