Reliable suppliers

Hardware
1

I would like to start a thread that provides new members and old a list of reliable suppliers of sensors, components and equipment.

Simply put my thoughts are to categorise based upon the following criteria:

  1. Item description (1-5)
  2. Price (1-5)
  3. Delivery time (1-5)
  4. returns process (1-5)
  5. functioning as described (1-5)

5 being the worst and 1 being the best. I appreciate that everybody has a different experience but we are looking for a mean average across the board. Name and shame style!

To me it does not matter if you buy on eBay, from a European based company or direct from an individual in Shenzen.
Perhaps feedback here will help to encourage better practices by those who deliver what they say and also help those new to Home automation to make informed choices.
Your feed back on this idea is most welcome.

2

Nice idea, but you’ll have to keep it going yourself for quite a long time before it catches on.

There have been a couple similar projects - to review products, for example:

Most of these petered out quite quickly. The only “community effort” which didn’t (that I can think of) is the Home Assistant Cookbook. That eventually took on a life of its own, but only because a smallish group of people got behind it and kept it alive.

If you do give it a go, you need to put the thread in the Community Guides section - all the posts there work as wikis and can be edited by anyone.

3

As @jackjourneyman says, it’s a nice idea but an enormous job. Just as an example, the supported devices section on zigbee2mqtt.io contains 3789 devices from 446 vendors. That’s only Zigbee devices.

4

Well thank you for your feedback. I didn’t think I would have been the first to think of it! I guess it’s just let the ‘buyer beware’ as always. I honestly cannot devote the time it needs to manage it alone at this time!

5

You don’t have to have a complete database from the off. :grin:

Make a post in Community Guides outlining the format, make the first contribution, wait to see what happens.

Nothing to lose.

6

Noted and will do! I just want to contribute in a positive way!

1 Like
7

You may not have to do all the work yourself. The Home Assistant Cookbook seems to include several Community Guide posts that already existed - they have just been added to the index. A few of the index links are actually to official documentation. So it’s partly a matter of creating a single point of reference.

It helps that the Mods pinned it, of course! :roll_eyes:

First thing I’d suggest is a search to see what’s already out there.

8

Someone on Discord has started a “Smart Home Index”. Is it you??

9

Nope nothing to do with me!

But for clarity in the UK I use either Pimoroni or thepihut They have never let me down.