Well that’s disappointing about the Iris sensors, they seem to be the least expensive sensors available and I got the contact sensor for $16 after discounts. I’ll just have to return it. I wonder if root is achieved on the Wink Hub 2 if there’s a way to add custom code just like the Smartthings community has done.
I’m still curious if Smartthings would be a better hub for using Home Assistant. Most people that are saying avoid it at all costs are from 6months or more ago. The reports about reliability have much improved, it’s only $50 and has the ability to run community-written code to add sensors that aren’t officially supported. I assumed Wink had this too but apparently not. If it were only used for the Zigbee devices (lighting and Iris), and you added a Z-Wave stick or WiFi for everything else, everything Zigbee may still be accessible to HA even with no internet.
I may grab a Hub this weekend and try that out and return the Wink hub if it seems solid.
As for the Lightify issues - the bulb that I had trouble with was about 10-12 feet from the Wink Hub and the Wink Hub is on a separate table away from any other WiFi devices as recommended. The bulb that worked fine is only a few feet further from the Hub and on the other side of a wall. Both bulbs have the issue of requiring 2-3 taps to turn on (even waiting 5-10 seconds after each tap). It seems like it gets out of sync and the app doesn’t know the status of the bulb at first.
I’m also currently in a small apartment (closing on a house next week which is why I’m getting into this stuff) and the 2.4 GHz is very busy (tons of WiFi networks). ZigBee can be 915MHz or 2.4GHz in the US so I’m not sure which the Lightify bulbs use.
I’m trying to find out if it’s possible to update the Lightify bulb firmware through the Wink Hub but I don’t think so, I think I do actually need a Lightify Hub to do that. Perhaps it’s old firmware causing it to flash. Either that or Wink is sending 2 commands to the Bulb when you turn them on and the first command is the wrong mode (either color or tuneable white).
I migrated away from ST because of the cloud based nature - I had it for 18 months and it was endemically unreliable because of this. Several times they promised to fix it and rearchitect their backend but it never improved much. Promises of hub v2 with local processing were watered down to just ST provided apps under various restrictions. Although I liked the Groovy support (and have written something similar for HA using Python), and the community were helpful, the basic premise of controlling your house through a cloud is flawed IMO, and it is a basic tenet of Home Assistant to run locally. I have my ZWave Stick, and my Hue hub for Zigbee and it does whatever I need locally.
I’m trying to move away from the smart lights as quick as I can. As I thought more about the problem I have with my bedroom lights being out of range, I decided just to replace my smart switch with a smart dimmer switch and use regular bulbs. The 900Mhz option is another reason I’m going to refocus where I can on z-wave devices instead of zigbee. I still haven’t found a situation where the smart lights don’t come back to bite me as soon as the switch dumb or smart gets turned off.
Before anyone else says it, yes there are ways to set the smart switches to just report to HA that they got touched and let HA decide what to tell the smart bulbs to do. That just seems like a lot of work to go through for in my case, little reward.
Everybody’s house is different so everybody’s setups and preferences are different too. I have a smaller house and I live alone so my setup and what things I buy and automate are naturally going to be different than yours.
If going this route makes more sense and with less effort, I agree with you. It’s the same reason I stopped running HA on Windows 10 and moved to the Pi in my first month (even though I’d never even seen a Pi in person before and had no idea what I was doing); I was spending more time trying to get HA to work than I was making it do cool and useful stuff.
A lot of work, for little reward.
Nice thing is that whichever route you end up going, HA supports it (or there’s a PR for it)
After trying Wink and smart bulbs, I think turboc’s setup might be the best way to go. I thought the Wink hub would get me started quickly and I could set up something without any headaches or effort but I just don’t think off-the-shelf solutions are as developed as they advertise with universal compatibility and seamless integration.
I think I’m going to return the wink hub and just dive into Home Assistant with a Z-wave stick and avoid smart bulbs where possible and only use them where I want colored lights. Hopefully the Z-wave stick with HA will allow a wider selection of sensors and devices.
The Hue Bridge is $60 which is a little pricey. Will it only connect to ZigBee Light Link devices (smart bulbs) or will it connect to generic ZigBee sensors too? If it acts as a ZigBee bridge maybe it’s worth it but I’ll probably just start with the Lightify Hub so I can make sure all the full-color bulbs I just bought have the latest firmware.
I’m using the GE/Jasco dimmers and switches. There are only a couple of issues I have with them.
They have to have a Neutral and a Ground in the box to connect to. This normally isn’t a problem if it’s just a single switch. If it’s a multi location switch then sometimes the electricians wire the light/load on the neutral side of the switch so there isn’t a neutral in the secondary boxes.
They do have dimmers especially for ceiling fans, but they don’t have one with a toggle switch, only a paddle switch (this isn’t my complaint as much as my wife’s).
I may have a way around #1 too, but I’m waiting on GE/Jasco to bless it before I send it out.
No matter how much research and planning you put into home automation, what you start off with, will change. Every home combined with differing need/desires will create unique combinations, It isn´t unusual to find someone replacing all their well-researched dimmers with another brand once the big picture is fully understood.
it’s funny thought, when you deal with existing construction, especially old construction, you never know what you will find. In my first house, we had a back porch light that in 3 years we never did find the switch to control it. It was just hardwired in, no switch. It would have been a nice place for a smart bulb. At our neighbors house we started to install a ceiling fan. We went through all the circuit breakers one by one checking to see which one turned off the fan. The fan never stopped turning. Somehow and I’m still not sure how, it was wired to two circuits and was drawing power from both. When we couldn’t find a breaker to control it, I told our neighbors to call an electrician and walked away.
Back to the all-in-one hub device, I just came across this product. No reviews yet so maybe it’s new… claims it supports Zigbee Light Link and Zigbee 3.0 for Phillips and Osram compatibility. I’m sure it would still need the device handlers to be written but maybe this will make it one step easier for HA developers?
If you end up trying it, make sure to leave a review for others! I’d be interested in trying it out as well, so let me know if you do. I won’t be trying anything yet for another few weeks until I move however.
I also did a lot of reading before jumping in on any hardware. I already had the pi3 so using home assistant was a no brainer. I mostly integrated with things like IFTTT, weatherunderground, asus+presence detection and building some simple automations. I also got a google home for christmas, yah!
I read so many bad things about different hubs. Some good things but mostly bad or poor interoperability. I decided to avoid all hubs and make HA the hub. I enabled the HUE emulation and got google home to link up and see switches and lights. I bought the aeotec zwave stick and that worked great. So many good instructions and guides on here to get things working, I love it!
I found out my envisalink card for my ademco security system (installed a few years ago) would link up to HA so added that and messed with different configurations and views.
I added a few GE 12727 zwave switches in the mix ($15 off $50 coupons for Lowes) and not only does HA see them perfectly but they are user friendly for my family as they operate just like manual switches but give me some control too. Also with the Hue emulation running they show up for use on the google home. Hello voice control! Also using TTS I can have the google home announce when HA does automations.
I’d like to add some outlets and decided to stick with zwave. They aren’t AS cheap as the wifi or 433 hz outlets but zwave integrates so well I’d rather continue using that.
Thanks for creating this thread and keep posting. I love hearing what others are doing and what products have worked for them. Thanks!
Envisalink integration with my alarm is my favorite part of my system. It’s simple to use armed-away status to say “nobody’s home” without mucking with presence detection. I use the door sensors to turn on lights (garage lights come on when you open the door or arm the alarm - because you’re likely headed for the garage). I use motion sensors to trigger spoken notifications (when I know someone’s there) and do some basic niceties like low-brightness lighting at night based on motion. Lock the deadbolts whenever the alarm is armed… arm it automatically when I go to bed.
I’m glad you brought this up. I really like how solid and reliable my ademco system is and now that I think about it adding to it is pretty inexpensive. Rather than zwave sensors I may just add more wired motion sensors so they’re “like” the rest of the setup. Thanks for the idea!
I bought the Phillips hue colour light stater kit and thought, what else can i do… looked at Samsung ST, but thought do I really need yet another hub? then I found Home Assistant, pulled out a spare RPi 2 hooked them up and I am just learning. Probably going to next buy a Aeotec Z-Stick and some motion detectors… loving the versatility so far.
Also with the Hue emulation running they show up for use on the google home. Hello voice control! Also using TTS I can have the google home announce when HA does automations.