First post here, I’ve been reading quite a bit. I’ve always wanted to do a home automation project and found home-assistant. I have my Pi3 and Aeon USB stick. Ready to order some z-wave devices. That’s where I get concerned I’ll order something that’s crap.
I realize these are very newb questions, so I apologize. Just don’t want to order the wrong thing. I’m not afraid of electricity, i’ve done most of my own electrical work in my home. So the Enerwave product looks appealing but I also like just wiring up a switch.
I have several of the GE zwave switches and dimmers (12722 dimmer). They have been pretty well behaved. The only challenge I have run into is that one of my existing sets of switches was missing a common run, which I believe all zwave switches require.
I also have several of the GE switches. I can confirm that they all require a neutral AND a safety ground. It’s a real pain since the electricians building our house decided to save a little money and run two wires for all the three way switches, instead of three wire which would have given me a neutral. I have not found any vendor that works around that.
There are several manufacturers that make devices like the Enerwave device you mentioned. They are nice in that you keep using your existing wall switches. But it does make the electrical box very crowded. They also require a neutral.
As for reliability, I’ve only had them about 3 months but so far so good.
I’m not doing any of the three ways but I do have a common ground and a neutral thought out. I’m hoping the three ways have the third wire when I get there. I appreciate the feed back!
The names seem to be interchangeable so it’s confusing. But this answer is easy. Both.
The switches have internal low voltage circuitry that runs all the time. That circuitry needs to have a path back to the panel that doesn’t go through the load (light in this case). So you need a neutral (typically white wire). Some people have had success using the ground (bare or green wire), but that’s not really safe and in my case, it fed power back into the light and caused the light to burn dimly even when off. The Ground (bare wire) is there for a safe path back to an earth ground in the case of a short or something.
If you have a multiple switch box, you are normally good to go. I haven’t run into any of those that didn’t have a neutral in them. Even Single switch boxes that aren’t 3 way switches, seem to be good in my house. It’s those nasty three way switches that have caused all my problems.
Yikes… yeah I would not never use ground for that. I’m fairly comfortable with house wiring. I’ve never interchanged neutral and ground, then every house I have owned has had an actual ground to each switch and socket. I ended up ordering two of the 12729’s, one of those Enerwave RSM1’s.
Grew up on a farm but I’ve been in technology for 15 years, so now I get to bring my DIY electrical, plumbing knowledge together with my technical and programming experience. Should be fun. I’m excited, plus all these responses hopefully are a sign of a health community. I chose HA over openhab because many (in other forums) said the community was better.
I stumbled upon HA really by accident and I’ve been very happy I did. The group is great about getting back to people. Either we have a lot of independently wealthy people who don’t have to work, a lot of people out of work with lots of time on their hands, or a great following around the world that means people are online most of the time. I think it’s the latter. Although considering how much home automation costs, it may be the independently wealthy answer.
LOL… NO DOUBT… not going to lie, i have been somewhat shocked at the costs of the individual components. $40 seems to be the magic number as most devices are close to this amount. Atleast for GE stuff. I’m also going to assume some of that is licensing fees for patents and what not. I totaled up everything i want to control in my home and it comes out over $600. The most expensive component is the water shutoff for the service entry.
I’m afraid to total it up. My wife would stop me. LOL I haven’t even told her about the door hinge monitors, motion sensors and cameras I want to put up. She’s agreed so far to let me do one project a month and she gets to have input on what that project is. The good news is, she is starting to see the benefits in some of it.
My wife is OK with it. She wasn’t excited when I thought we would have switch out wall switches with the paddle type from GE. glad i found the 12729’s! My Z-Wave components don’t arrive until monday from amazon.
What’s everyone’s favorite place to order from? I came across a few online stores that I liked but stuck with amazon because of Prime.
Yeah, the cost of HA can be daunting, but there are ways of mitigating that.
I’m not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I have been slowly acquiring the hardware over the course of about 20 years, so I have a lot of parts to draw from. Started with X10 equipment. (still using the motion sensors, actually, but none of the powerline stuff). Got most of it pretty cheap on clearance or ebay. Built a lot of stuff myself. Home Automation is definitely an industry where you can supplement knowledge for money. Sure, a Hue or GE or Smartthings motion sensor costs ~$40+, but you can build one from parts for $10-$15 (or less) if you know how to solder and program micro-controllers.
Definitely don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty! Having multiple disciplines you are comfortable with is a huge advantage in this space. If you can code and build hardware, you can save a ton of cash.
That being said - there is NO WAY I am totaling anything up. It would make me feel worse than looking at the price of Bitcoin after selling what I had in 2012.
I’ve thought about building stuff, but the enclosure is what always stops me. My wife would put a stop to this real quick if I started mounting project boxes to the wall and running wires down the outside of the walls to wall power supplies or something. What are you using for enclosures? Have you found a good way of making a zwave component (zwave on a chip or something)?
I don’t use any Z-Wave equipment, so I haven’t tried building it from scratch. Mine are mostly WiFi or BTLE (still have the odd RS232 device in a couple places, as well as the aforementioned X10 motion sensors… ‘if it isn’t broken…’). I like WiFi because the networking stuff is all very second nature to me. ESP8266s are really cheap and easy to find. Battery life isn’t as great, but the vast majority are plugged in, anyways.
As for enclosures… well, beauty is relative, right?
I’ve 3d printed a few boxes and mounts to make things look nicer. I’ve dremeled off-the-shelf stuff to cram new hardware into it, I’ve hidden stuff in other creative ways…
-One that comes to mind is an arduino I had running some sensors that I stuffed into a plastic bin, then covered in 2-sided tape, added some LEDs (for storm effects) and a ton of fiber fill (like what you fill stuffed animals with, wife is a knitter), and hung it on the ceiling. Was a “cloud sensor”. (which amused me a lot more than my kids, sadly).
But honestly, if wires running down to outlets are an eyesore to you, I’m afraid you wouldn’t be very comfortable in our house
Thankfully I am lucky enough to have a very understanding wife who enjoys the fruits of my tinkering enough that the inattention to ascetic detail isn’t an issue for her.
As long as I have a book shelf or it plugs straight into the wall, she’s ok with it. I need to see if any of my friends have a 3d printer available to them. That would be something fun to try. I just have this image of a black project box, up on the side of a wall, with a wire running down to a wall wart plugged into an outlet. I can just hear her now, saying “Not No but H NO”.
Check out 3dhubs if you need a local printer. (although it will cost)
Alternatively, a lot of colleges and libraries have them these days for students/members. (many with free service - ie: just pay for material cost).
If all of that fails, the Monoprice Select Mini is a solid entry-level printer for about $200. I don’t own one, but I do have its bigger brother. Only caveat is you can’t tell your wife where you heard about it. I would hate to have her think of us as bad influences.
Although considering how much home automation costs, it may be the independently wealthy answer.
