i have the sonoff RF bridge. works fine indoor BUT it can barely go out 5ft outdoor. i placed the unit inside my garage and it refuses to pick up the sensors sitting 5 feet away in the driveway. it can pick up sensors inside the house fine though.
is there a RF receiver with better range than this???
i have seen the Sonoff antenna mod but i dont understand how to do it with just plain text. would be nice if someone has a video but none on youtube.
Buitd yourself a RFLink
are you sure that will have better result? im looking at the antenna on that WL101 receiver and it looks about the same size as my Sonoff.
also that whole setup seems really excessive. i think i can just accomplish the same thing using any esp8266 and that 433mhz receiver (WL101) right? since i wont be transmitting, i dont need to connect the transmitter?
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Probably. The big advantage of rflink is that it supports lots of protocols, which the sonoff does not. If you want to go the esp8266 route, check
Or buy a rtl-sdr and use the add-on
Strange. Is the sensor picked up at all - when placed close to the rf bridge? And whats running on your bridge?
yes, the sensor works fine when placed next to the Sonoff or inside the house. im guessing there are interferences in the garage or something. that’s why im hoping for something with better gain
this add on?
and just plug this reciever into my NUC’s usb port running my HA? as you can see, i bought the stick a long time ago but thought i need a rpi3 or something so i gave up on that.
Yes, this one.
By any chance a metal door between the sensor and receiver?
In addition to my Sonoff, I use OpenMQTTGateway RF Gateway on a LILYGO® LoRa32 V2.1 for extended range and protocol support. Using the included antenna I reliably pick up the weather station from the middle school more than 500m away.
directly between the sensors and the Sonoff, there is the typical thin metal garage door. maybe aluminum since it is so thin n easily banged up. as for the wall, it is about 20 inches of solid stones. lol. there are windows in the garage, but they are not in between the sensor and sonoff
Rf travels direct sight, they don’t take detours for less obstructed routes.
You can try to change the location of the sensor so that the door isn’t between the receiver and sensor
i am very happy to say your advice is working so far! BUT i am stuck on how to convert mqtt events to an entity…
i got the usb rtl stick working with HA.
in my MQTT Settings, when i subscribe to “rtl_433/17069798-rtl433/events” i can see my door sensor publish
{“time”:“2024-03-09T12:09:17.532370-0500”,“model”:“Kerui-Security”,“id”:133120,“cmd”:14,“opened”:1,“state”:“open”}
QoS: 0 - Retain: false
all of that is for Open.
the door sensor does Nothing when it is closed.
how to convert all of that code into something i can easily use in Developer Tools as and entity and state?
with my Sonoff bridge, flashed with Tasmota, i have this code in my config file but i have no idea how to edit for this RTL:
mqtt:
binary_sensor:
- name: "door"
state_topic: "tele/RF_Bridge/RESULT"
payload_on: "562AEE"
payload_off: "562AEEoff"
value_template: "{{value_json.RfReceived.Data}}"
off_delay: 10
qos: 1
Maybe ask in this topic:
getting warmer. lol
i added the Auto-Discovery and it recognized a bunch of thermometer of the whole neighbor.
sadly, for my door sensor, it can only see the make but no values
i changed the mqtt to json format and i got this value
Message 10 received on rtl_433/17069798-rtl433/events at 1:38 PM:
{
"time": "2024-03-09T13:38:13.568714-0500",
"model": "Kerui-Security",
"id": 133120,
"cmd": 14,
"opened": 1,
"state": "open"
}
in my config, i thought this would work but it did not
- name: "door"
state_topic: "rtl_433/17069798-rtl433/events"
payload_on: "133120"
payload_off: "133120off"
value_template: "{value_json.id}"
off_delay: 10
qos: 1
try this {{ value_json.id }}
no quotes and 2 brackets
i tried your method and now my HA is in safe mode
- name: "hyundai_inside22"
state_topic: "rtl_433/17069798-rtl433/events"
payload_on: "133120"
payload_off: "133120off"
value_template: {{value_json.id}}
off_delay: 10
qos: 1
I’m not seeing off_delay in documentation, where did you find it?
Remove and try again.
when door is opened, topic is published and HA should mark as On.
but when door is closed, no topic is published so i have to auto reset it to Off after 10 seconds. this sensor is not great but i only need to know when it is opened. i removed it but same result as before where the entity is stuck on unknown
The template must be surrounded in quotes, but that shouldn’t throw you into safe mode.
- name: "door"
state_topic: "rtl_433/17069798-rtl433/events"
payload_on: "133120"
value_template: "{{ value_json.id | string }}"
off_delay: 10
qos: 1