Hi all - relatively new to the iot space - have an interesting use case for (hopefully) making my life easier but not sure where to start so thought I’d try here!
I’m looking for an iot switch (non-WiFi) which I can connect to remotely via a web-call or some other method and send a signal to then “open” or “close” - this switch would then execute whatever was pushed through to open or close a large security gate we have on our property.
The gate itself has a traditional motor and battery so the switch would ideally sit inside the existing motor enclosure and simply wait for signals to come through and then execute based on what was sent through.
Wi-Fi doesn’t reach the gate and the solution also needs to work when there is a power failure and Wi-Fi is down so I was thinking zigbee or something similar.
Any suggestions or experiences would be appreciated!
Yup - the motor unit has a built in battery for emergencies - so whatever switch I connect would then also be theoretically contactable as it would be wired to the battery backup.
I think you are pretty much limited to RF devices then, unless you want to program an ESP device with ESP-Now yourself.
Most other device protocols can not work autonomous in a big way, they need a hub or coordinator to organize the network.
Zigbee might have group addressing, but you would probably have to do some tinkering to get that to work.
I’ve only diddled around with LoRa and LoRaWAN, not put anything into production, however this might a wireless system to have a look at. It is used pretty extensively in ag to monitor crops. The commercial product tend to be a bit spendy, however the DIY stuff is reasonable if you are so inclined.
I was following this company’s work for a while 1st link below, but not recently so I cannot speak their quality or Home Assistant integration, but if you search this forum for their product name I think there was/is a group working with it. Not sure what country/region you are in, however LoRa is pretty global, however you do need to pick frequency based on region. 2nd link below is to the main LoRaWAN web site, as you will see a pretty good number of products in this space. Check ebay, as there seems to be a fair secondary market for this equipment in ag and industrial markets. Good hunting!
Ohh, I forgot about LoRa.
LoRa is probably a good solution too and you do not really need LoRaWan, so just some LoRa transmitters and receivers, which can be bought pretty cheap.
The issue might be getting them into HA. I have a LilyGo board as a LoRa Gateway that runs OpenMQTTGateway and MQTT is easy to get into HA.
Heltec can also run the OpenMQTTGateway firmware.
The it is just finding a receiver and transmitter, but those two manufacturers might have boards for that too.