Thank you for all your knowledge, I have learned a lot by reading this community.
I just recently installed HA on my rasp3, and purchased the aeotec z-wave usb stick.
I am getting ready to move into a 3400 sqft home, I am wanting to put motion sensors in the house. I also would like to put door sensors on the doors, it has a finished basement and I would like to know when downstairs when the upstairs doors open. We will spend most of the time in the basement, I have been looking at the door sensors as well as the motion sensors. I have search on this community and have gotten several results. What would you recommend from a hardware stand point and reliability stand point?
The sensors would be spread out on the doors and motion sensors in the upstairs rooms, they will not be close together.
Where would you place the pi at in the home? Middle upstairs?
How many sensors do I need to accommodate a good z-wave network? I have used z-wave in the past, but used roughly 75 devices or so in the z-wave network at that time. I am wanting to use about 10 or so, will I have an issue with the z-wave network not being big to build the mesh network it needs?
My Setup would be:
raspberry pi 3 with aeotec usb z-wave
Lifx bulbs x 1
Philips hue -
Google Home
Motion sensors - coming soon
Door Sensors - coming soon
Thanks for all your help in advance, I look forward to contributing to the community.
You will want to have some hardwired devices. Battery powered devices do not talk to each other to relay communications. Connections can easily be interrupted and without alternate routes to the hub, you may miss important updates.
Ok, that makes sense. I will look into getting a few light switches and what not. I am sure there is a light switch that does not have neutral as the house is older and don’t know yet if it has neutral wire as I have not moved in yet.
You do have to set them up to work properly in Home Assistant - you need to change the type of binary report they give but there is info on that on the forum.
Older does not necessarily mean the lack of a neutral wire at the switch. It was common in the past to wire from the top down where each room had a central overhead light. The wiring went to the overhead light first, and then down to the switch, meaning that the white wire was in fact hot. You still may have places in your home where wiring did start at the switch.