LightwaveRF Gen2 Kit (UK Automation System) - Delivered today! My thoughts so far

Looking forward to hearing updates as the system beds in :slight_smile:

Update:
So, I emailed the company, and their CEO last night, with my thoughts (I didn’t hold back!)

They took my feedback, and even asked if I’d like to be added to the Beta for the application in the mean time.

It turns out, that overnight the app was launched on the App Store:

So, I’ll get a chance to get this setup tonight and we’ll see how it is!

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Any updates? Interested to hear how this worked out…

Yes!

So far… pretty decent experience, BUT…
The TLDR is, you get what you pay for.

1.) The new app is okay. It looks at least like it belongs in 2017. But it still lacks a lot of features that are shown in the advertisements etc.
2.) The hub hardware is very cheap feeling. It’s got that plastic “There’s nothing in this box” kinda feeling.
3.) The LED on the hub is SUPER bright. Unnecessarily bright. Like I’ve had to hide it because I can see it lighting up the hallway from upstairs at night!
4.) The HomeKit setup is very nice. Just as easy as any other HomeKit device.
5.) The hardware (switches etc) is just as good as before. Just a shame that there’s only one finish at the moment.

So far, I haven’t managed to find a way to connect to it through HomeAssistant, but I am going to do some packet sniffing etc and see what I can work out.

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So there’s no API?

Any prospect of an HA component for these?

Well @robmarkcole according to Twitter, they are releasing an API at some point in the near future, so I guess we may have to wait and see then!

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I’m interested in this (have the gen 1 version at the moment).

So at the moment there’s no way to integrate this in Home Assistant?

I’m curious if it’s possible to sniff the RF traffic and dispense of the expensive hub. Guessing that since his is HomeKit compatible that the codes will be secured in some way which would make sniffing a challenge.

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@robmarkcole
I get the feeling you are right- it’s probably not as easy to communicate with as Gen 1.
With Gen 1 I was originally used a network traffic sniffer to find the information sent from the LightwaveRF app to the hub locally, then just re-created this with some scripts. I then moved on to using a RFXCOM device to communicate with the devices directly.
I haven’t yet found a way to do this with Gen 2, but I’ll do a bit of digging.

@jono
As above, yea- no way as yet! Hopefully people cleverer than I will help to change that though!

If either of you are interested, I have started to put together a guide for how to control Gen 1 devices directly in Home Assistant using an RFXCOM device:

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Yep, hopefully.

I already use the gen 1 Link and dimmer switches though Home Assistant. Would be good to have the 2nd gen Link integrated.

OK so it is possible to read/toggle binary sensors/switches using homebridge. This should work to the LightwaveRF too: Triggar HA from HomeKit-devices?

Any chance one of you with the gen 2 LightwaveRF Link hub (or knowledge of it if you don’t have one) could take a look at my post here and answer a couple of questions? :slightly_smiling_face:

Hey @jono! Apologies I didnt see your reply!
I just replied to your other thread:

Hello,

I have a lightwaverf hub (Generation 2) and one two gang switch (with a two others waiting to be installed) and am struggling to get this to work with HA and hope you guys can provide some advice.

I have installed the LW hub, downloaded the App and paired the switch to the hub. This works fine in the LightwaveApp and my iPhone can see it and control in via Apple HomeKit. However, I am failing to get the lightwave component of HA to load.

I have set up the following configuration.yaml

lightwave:
  host: 192.168.1.219
  lights:
    R1D1:
      name: Wall lights

I have guessed R1D1 on the basis I have only one dimmer paired to the Lightwave hub (I am not sure how to tell which room and device number apply to any given device/switch gang).

I am using HA version 0.84.6 and when I start up I get the following error in the home assistant log file (I am using Hassio)

Log Details (ERROR)
Sat Jan 12 2019 15:27:56 GMT+0000 (GMT)

Error during setup of component lightwave
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/homeassistant/setup.py", line 145, in _async_setup_component
    hass, processed_config)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/homeassistant/components/lightwave.py", line 44, in async_setup
    switches = config[DOMAIN][CONF_SWITCHES]
KeyError: 'switches'

I am not sure why switches is being configured as I have specified lights:. I am also not clear why I am getting any error as I have tried to directly copy the basic configuration.yaml documentation for lightwave.

Looking forward to pointers of where I have gone wrong !

Take a look here, it seems you have to add a switch in the config even if you don’t have any. As you’ll see, I created a dummy/false switch and it now works for me.

As for room and devices numbers, you would think the first room you create and add a device would be ‘R1D1’, but strangely not for me (R2D1, and R2D2 in my case). To get this information you go to the LightwaveRF web app and get the info by looking at the source code of the webpage if I remember correctly. You should be able to find a link to instructions on that somewhere. If not, let me know and I’ll see if I have it written down somewhere.

jono,

Thanks for the hint. Having looked in more detail, the R1D1 syntax and message format are all consistent with the Gen 1 API. I was not clear in my original post that I am using a Gen2 hub. It doesn’t appear that the communication protocol is similar. As such, I suspect I need to use a different set of code.

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