YoLink integration

papa19 · October 28, 2021, 10:53pm

@ andrew.kalek

Ignorance is the mother of all disagreements!

Anyone who does some research about Yolink and the technology behind it will agree to the following facts:

Yolink as a company has been around since 2008, operating under different names, which
designed developed and sold software infrastructure products. They were/are also involved into
internet browser-based application and database management systems.
The LoRa devices does not contain Yolink technology, but rather Yolink integrated Semtech’s LoRa
modules in their devices for good reasons.
In order to understand why Yolink would not offer MQTT service for their devices, one needs to
learn the LoRaWAN specification and the way the LoRaWAN network is designed.
The Semtech’s LoRa modules allows devices to communicate with each other.
According to the LoRaWAN specifications the Yolink/LoRaWAN network consists of the Yolink LoRa
devices connected to the Yolink hub which then connects to the Yolink network server, to which
all the devices are reporting messages and information of their status to keep them authenticated.
From there, as per the specifications, the server communicates back to the client’s app.
The hub is the gateway (node) which relay messages between the end devices and the network
server. All customer hubs connect to the same network server which now becomes the Yolink
LoRaWAN network.
Under no circumstances do I believe that a Yolink employee would get you as a customer “API
access to the YoLink ecosystem”.

Further, I can only suspect that the information is being collected into the Yolink database.

In order for local control to be achieved, a local network server need to reside into the hub’s ESP32 or the HA integration. The latter will make things a lot simpler.

There was mention of some devices communicating with each other. That is due to the Semtech’s technology design. However, the LoRaWAN specification states that the device must report to the network sever in s specific time, otherwise it will get kicked out. One could deduct that a server may already exists in the hub to maintain communication with the devices during the internet service interruption.

Andrew, my interest in a HA integration is just as high as any HA user owning a device and who want that device to work offline. We all want privacy and security for our personal network. Having integrated
cloud based hubs on a private network is just an invitation for privacy violation, hacking, spying etc. Of course, all of this happens if one is completely ignorant. The hub could have integrated in the firmware monitoring software, a proxy server and who knows what else.

Looking at their history, does anyone think that Yolink will give that up, in favor of local control due to a handful of Yolink users requesting local control. Look no further to what happened to Wink products. Everyone knows Wink just got dumped by HA. What makes you think that HA will support Yolink?

Andrew, just because you apparently get some help from Eric, it does not mean there is going to be an HA integration. As a developer, and after some research you could have come to the same conclusion as me, and not ask if MQTT is possible. With the current hardware, MQTT is easily possible to achieve. The question is if Yolink is willing to share the information with us. You have access to their API and being a developer, it should not be hard to achieve that.

You state that you are a developer and access the “Yolink ecosystem” first hand. Do you mind sharing the API and all the gathered information with all of us. After all, we all are Yolink customers. We should be treated the same as you.

I have no idea what you and Eric are up to, but these forums are for supporting HA users in a constructive and productive way. Definitively not for promoting and selling manufacturer’s products.

I understand your opinions and disagreement, but telling me what to do or not to do is inappropriate.

T

tom_l · October 28, 2021, 11:02pm

No one is getting banned.

@papa19 you have made your personal opinion clear. Now desist. Further messages of this nature may be interpreted as vilification, which is against our code of conduct.

Keep it civil folks.

mark_f · October 29, 2021, 9:49pm

I built an implementation of Home Assistant to replace a decade-long implementation of Indigo. I have migrated most of my devices over and had a Z-wave gate relay fail. I was looking for a longer range relay so that I could mount it at my property gate instead of at the end of a long wire run and stumbled across YoLink.

My hub and multiple devices arrive today. I’m eager to get this implemented in HA, and it sounds like it will initially be done via Alexa or IFTTT. I will check out the MQTT/NodeRed later this evening to see if that’s a more local and resilient solution while we wait for the official integration.

Just wanted to point out that there are more of us eager for a straightforward and (hopefully) local integration!

dk253 · November 3, 2021, 3:20am

Hey @mark_f , any progress? I too would like monitor my gate. My zigbee/remote rpi solution failed. And this looks promising (despite the bickering). I am pretty desperate to find a long range solution.

mark_f · November 3, 2021, 5:19pm

I received my hub, a motion sensor, four door sensors, and the gate relay this week. I have only messed with the motion sensor out at the location, because the relay requires a DC power supply and I have to rig up a transformer off of my gate’s AC terminals to power it. However, I am a little apprehensive because the motion sensor only responds at about the halfway point to my gate, which is approximately the same range of my Z-wave devices.

It’s possible that the battery operated motion sensor has a less powerful radio than the powered device, so I’m going to try to run an extension cord out there today and see if I can make the relay work. I would hate to go through the process of creating reliable DC power only to find out it’s unnecessary. I will report back on how things work out.

That said, this is only the first step - getting the devices to actually work. The next step is a type of integration, which I haven’t yet tackled.

Edit: I have just tried getting the relay to work at my gate, which is approximately 240 feet from the YoLink Hub. No success. I moved the hub a few times to get it away from any potential interference and I’m still having no luck. I may try mounting it in my attic at the point closest to the gate, but I’m starting to think this may not be the long distance solution I was hoping for.

mark_f · November 4, 2021, 3:27am

Another update. I was able to get the relay to work at the gate by moving my hub into WiFi mode and placing it in the bedroom nearest to the gate. It’s not ideal as it’s not with the rest of my HA and computer equipment, but it does work reliably. My outdoor motion sensor also works, so that’s also encouraging.

For now, I’m using IFTTT Webhooks to send gate open/close/hold open for X/hold gate until Y type automations, and it’s working. However, in the spirit of Home Assistant’s local and protected concept, I find using IFTTT (cloud) plus YoLink (cloud) just to open a gate that I can see out of my window a bit inefficient. I’ll be working on that as time goes on, and hopefully we’ll see a legit local-only integration before long.

B-Meadows · November 7, 2021, 1:20am

I haven’t used the gate relay but I tested the door sensors at my mother’s house and they worked over 1/8 mile away through an average suburban neighborhood without any problems. At first, I thought they weren’t working but it was just my phone losing the wifi signal as I left the house and taking a while to switch over to the cellular network. Maybe you were experiencing the same thing?

I have the door sensors using Alexa routines to toggle an input_boolean in HA and vise versa. I don’t like this workaround either but it’s been getting the job done.

nijhawank · November 9, 2021, 4:24am

Hi all,

I recently bought the YoLink water leak sensors and had been waiting for its integration in the home assistant.

Anyways, in absence of any positive communication from YoLink or YoSmart, I thought about directly sniffing the LoRa messages off air. I used a simple RTL-SDR and using some gnuradio files from GitHub - rpp0/gr-lora: GNU Radio blocks for receiving LoRa modulated radio messages using SDR (with some small changes), I could get the following messages. I am no expert in any of these but could follow things. I’m not sure if the following messages are encrypted but I get them whenever I press a button in one of my YoLink sensor (temp/humidity sensor). That way I know its the right thing.

 26 31 d0 80 9e c1 05 0b 00 44 01 01 d2 17 b9 d1 f3 05 ee 1c 41 73 14 c4 6b b8 61 cf 7e 76 01 b3 94 7f 39 25 34 e2 ad 12 cc 83 d2 (DAska~v9%4)
 26 31 d0 80 9e c1 05 0b 00 45 01 01 7d f3 2b 99 60 9e f7 4d 05 aa 99 56 2d 8a f6 2f 3d a2 b0 03 fd 5c 53 64 fb d3 f9 3b bd c0 38 (E}+`MV-/=\Sd;8)
 26 31 d0 80 9e c1 05 0b 00 46 01 01 39 7f 17 e6 22 60 80 ac 77 76 fe 4a 0c 6c ac ab 73 a0 6b d2 9c 9b 84 e5 2d ae 67 62 74 ce 07 (F9"`wvJlsk-gbt)
 26 31 d0 80 9e c1 05 0b 00 47 01 01 4b 82 db fb 7e f7 4a 70 43 10 93 ae 14 16 49 45 c5 0b 78 37 3d 5d ff d1 a8 13 cd cf 58 98 12 (GK~JpCIEx7=]X)
 26 31 d0 80 9e c1 05 0b 00 48 01 01 dc c1 b5 38 8c 1f 78 7d bf c6 51 56 c0 eb e8 bd 6d 6b 8b 82 ed cf 3b c9 30 f2 84 08 78 6b dc (H8x}QVmk;0xk)
 26 31 d0 80 9e c1 05 0b 00 49 01 01 b6 a9 f3 e5 09 70 7c 00 a3 bf de b2 30 3e 7e 09 8b 25 49 7e 25 64 75 76 23 7d b4 e0 f1 14 1e (Ip|0>~%I~%duv#})
 26 31 d0 80 9e c1 05 0b 00 4a 01 01 60 8d 48 34 ce c6 52 05 ee 55 c0 ea 16 a0 a5 eb 09 c4 60 a2 1b 88 4c d1 e3 fc 17 72 47 1b 6c (J`H4RU`LrGl)

From the GitHub - rpp0/gr-lora: GNU Radio blocks for receiving LoRa modulated radio messages using SDR I had to change the following things…
Set the center and target frequency to 910.3 (per USA)
Set the spreading factor to 7
Once I did this, I see the messages spitted into Wireshark every time I press the button on my YoLink sensor.

May be this might be useful for other people who may be more knowledgeable in decoding it.

B-Meadows · November 9, 2021, 1:07pm

@nijhawank

You may want to join the discussion in the OpenMQTTGateway forum. You know a lot more about sniffing signals than I do. The linked thread is specifically about the Yolink hub. @ 1technophile in the OMG forum would be able to help.

LoRa Gateway - Off The Shelf

maplequasar · November 9, 2021, 6:35pm

You guys, just get some zigbee sensors, these guys are never releasing this integration. Move on…

B-Meadows · November 9, 2021, 7:04pm

@maplequasar I have 30 zigbee devices. I am interested in LoRa with longer distances than zigbee or Zwave and even longer battery life.

mark_f · November 9, 2021, 10:32pm

Thanks for this. I converted my IFTTT routines to this format since I can more easily account for the state of the gate off of the outdoor sensor. Also, since I don’t subscribe to IFTTT, I was limited to three applets and they weren’t cutting it.

I also added an input_boolean that I mapped to a template binary sensor so that I can control the relay through Alexa. So far, so good, but I look forward to a more local solution.

dk253 · November 11, 2021, 1:33pm

Hey! I received my Yolink kit with hub and four door sensors. The biggest problem I’ve had is the gate which is about 150 feet from the house. I had a reasonable solution where I ran POE to the gate and installed an RPI with a Conbee II. That worked ok until somewhere, the ethernet degraded (5 years). I’ve tried Zigbee and Z-Wave with no luck.

The Yolink sensors seem to be working great. One on the gate, one on the garage (another issue getting Zigbee and Z-Wave working reliably in the garage), and one on a storage room door that never seems to completely close. I’m using IFTTT. It took me 5 minutes to get the Yolink working through IFTTT and back to my HA install.

So far, I am ecstatic! Looking forward to HA integration, but, for now, content.

dk253 · November 11, 2021, 1:37pm

One very minor issue… I cannot seem to change the “polarity” of the sensor. I would like to change the “open” state to “closed” for the gate. Yolink says its open when the opposite is true because of the way I had to install it. Other sensors allow me to switch the reading. But this is a very tiny complaint.

mark_f · November 12, 2021, 12:07am

How are you integrating with HA through IFTTT? If you are using it to set an input_boolean for state, you could map open to closed and vice versa pretty easily. That’s what I do, except I decided to use Alexa routines to replace my IFTTT due to applet limitations.

dk253 · November 12, 2021, 1:34pm

Yep… I know I can change the polarity through IFTTT and send the right event to HA. The anal part of me likes to have a little more control.

I am also hoping for the eventual API and integration. The IFTTT solution is a B+ compared to the C- solutions I had cobbled together in the past. But I still don’t have complete visibility into whether the doors/gate are open or closed. Especially if I miss an event for some reason. A stopgap might be a yolink timer that sends the current state every 10 or 15 minutes just to make sure I have the current state. But nothing beats a direct connectionbthat can be polled.

dk253 · November 16, 2021, 4:40pm

OK… so living with the yolink door sensors for a few days there are some definite issues that integration would solve. The most glaring is the latency through ifttt. The gate opened today and (not sure where the issue was but) it took 60 seconds to get the ifttt message that the gate was opened. Then I never received the “closed” message. As far as HA is concerned, the gate is still open. Hmmm.

mark_f · November 16, 2021, 5:03pm

I have statefulness issues with Alexa as well. I use YoLink’s app for more timely notifications of gate open/closed.

dk253 · November 16, 2021, 5:47pm

unfortunately, I have it tied to several automations. I also have other doors I’m watching.

dk253 · November 24, 2021, 9:00pm

I’m starting to realize that the YoLink app has issues as well. They have a feature that allows for setting the “Open Reminder”. It is always 20 seconds no matter how many times I set it. I’ve even deleted the app and reinstalled it. 20 seconds. The only thing I have found success in so far is the distance within which it can recognize that the switch is open. Add this to the fact that I cannot change the polarity of the switch (switch open means gate closed) and the app is quite useless.

Quickly turning from a B+ to a C+. Integration with HA is the only thing that would get me to buy more devices from yolink.