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

[HarmlessSaucer (Graham)]

Hey everyone,

I don’t know how much this applies to people, but I have a LOT of the original LightwaveRF gear in my home. When I heard they were releasing new products, which were also HomeKit compatible, I was pretty excited.

I pre-ordered a kit, and it arrived today.
I thought I would give you my thoughts so far on the LightWaveRF Gen2 kit…

First off, from the box it is very obvious they are trying to go for that “on the shelf of an Apple Store” look

–(Box Picture)–

In the box (for this particular kit) you get:

• The hub “Link Plus”
• Power adapter - VERY generic - it has two USB ports on it? Labelled low and high power?
• UK plug for the power adapter.
• Micro USB cable for power.
• VERY short ethernet cable (I guess they wan’t this right by your router then!)
• The switch itself and some screws.
• Instruction leaflets.

Now to the good stuff. Getting it plugged in:
–(Picture of the Hub plugged in)–
(Please excuse my messy rack!)

You can see it in the pic above at the front right, with the bright light round the outside! I hope you can turn this off! For comparison, the 1st generation (original) hub is on the left hand side of this image.

From here, unfortunately this is where things start to go down hill…
The LightwaveRF website has some lovely flashy images of a new app that seems to be for the Gen2 kit…

The Lightwave App

–(App pic)–

However, this simply isn’t available on the App Store:

‎LightwaveRF Home Automation

–(App Store Pic)–

Laughably, their app on the App Store hasn’t been updated in over a year! I’m not sure how many LightwaveRF users there are on this forum, but you all will know how much TRASH this app is…

I’ve emailed the guy from LightwaveRF I bought the kit from, and sent a couple of tweets asking when the app is going to come out and I can actually use my kit I just bought.
Lets hope I hear something back soon!

TL;DR:

New LightwaveRF Gen2 kit looks quite nice.
LED round the outside is super bright. Hope it turns off!
Pairs nicely with HomeKit.
The app to set it up isn’t out yet. So right now it’s unusable.

[HarmlessSaucer (Graham)]

Doh! Apparently because I’m a new user, I can only post one image in a post.
So I guess I’ll try and post replies with my other pics?

@HarmlessSaucer

–(Box Picture)–

[HarmlessSaucer (Graham)]

@HarmlessSaucer

–(Picture of the Hub plugged in)–

[HarmlessSaucer (Graham)]

@HarmlessSaucer

–(App pic)–

[HarmlessSaucer (Graham)]

@HarmlessSaucer

–(App Store Pic)–

[robmarkcole (Robin)]

Looking forward to hearing updates as the system beds in

[HarmlessSaucer (Graham)]

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:

‎Lightwave Link Plus

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

[cokelid]

Any updates? Interested to hear how this worked out…

[HarmlessSaucer (Graham)]

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.

[robmarkcole (Robin)]

So there’s no API?

[robmarkcole (Robin)]

Any prospect of an HA component for these?

[HarmlessSaucer (Graham)]

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!

[jono]

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?

[robmarkcole (Robin)]

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.

[HarmlessSaucer (Graham)]

@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:

[Guide] Control LightwaveRF (Gen 1) in Home Assistant using RFXCOM

I thought I’d throw a little guide together about how I have integrated LightwaveRF devices into my Home Assistant setup. I know there a number of people already doing it this way, but I thought I would create a post in the hope it might help others. For those of you unfamiliar with LightwaveRF, it is an automation company based in the UK, who provide cheap and simple home automation tech. One of the nice things about their solution is that they provide wall switches as direct, drop-in replac…

[jono]

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.

[robmarkcole (Robin)]

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?

[jono]

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?

LightwaveRF Gen 2 with HA?

I’m thinking of buying the Gen 2 LightwaveRF Link (hub) along with some dimmer switches, and wondered what’s the status of the Gen 2 LightwaveRF Link with Home Assistant at the moment? I looked in the past and saw people interested in HA integration and starting work on integrating the Gen 2 link with Home Assistant, but not sure if anyone actually finished working on it and got it up and running? I guess if no one completed HA integration then I could just use LightwaveRF with Home Assistant …

[HarmlessSaucer (Graham)]

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

LightwaveRF Gen 2 with HA?

Hey @jono! Sorry I only just saw your message on the other thread. I just posted a message about my progress with the Gen2 Link Plus today: In short, I’m not getting very far… Home Assistant sees it, but it shows up as one, single light device. It seems to turn on my Kitchen Light, but as that’s the only Gen2 device right now, I don’t know if that’s it just turning on “the hub” and therefore everything, or if it’s just showing the one device because that’s all I have. Either way, at the…

[MKF (Mike)]

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 !