For me their sensors have been reliable, responsive, and have great range. And they helped me solve some issues in the past. However, I have “cloud anxiety” about any device that requires someone else’s computer to function.
It’s US$200+shipping, which I feel is overpriced.
It’s supposed to provide local-only control and App support. I wonder if it’s truly local only, or does it still depend on their servers to add new devices and notifications. And obviously, does it have a local API for integration with HA?
I’m waiting for a response from Yolink.
And while I am still experimenting with the newer z-wave 800 series sensors that might be an alternative to Yolink sensors, the Yolink sensors have worked very well in harsher environments such as my freezers and attic. And it would cost me $$$ to replace the Yolink sensors with z-wave sensors and I still wouldn’t get the same temp operating range.
Yes, this is expensive, but I think of the times I’ve said “I’d gladly pay a bit more to own the data not be the data”, and decided this is one of those cases. I just ordered one through Amazon.
I just ordered one to give it a try, I’ve been begging them for this for over 2 years and told them I would pay good money for local control. I’m using yolink on my farm of 4 chicken houses and currently use one hub per chicken house as each house is 500 feet long and has metal siding. I wonder if this hub will talk with the others or if I will need one for each house?
I received mine today. It works in so far as I can see it in the Yolink app, create a “Local Network”, and attach devices to that network. Now we just need an update to the integration so we can access this info in HA! I’m more than happy to test such an update, if that would be helpful.
I found where to enable MQTT in the “Local Network.” Does anyone have a clue how to access the MQTT information?
Just got mine in and played with it a little. It looks like I will need one for each chicken house as it does not see my other hubs unless there is something I am missing. It appears that you can not have a sensor connected to both the local network and a the cloud. Tested one plug and got it working on network but it may have deleted the automation I previously had for it on the cloud. Also so far can not get it off the local network and back on the cloud.
Did do one test and was able to get a cloud sensor automation to trigger the local plug.
Ok I was able to re associate the plug to the cloud. It took a combination of time (hour or more) and possibly turning off the local hub. Then of course you have to turn plug on and off and maybe unplug and plug it in a few times.
Also it did delete the automations I had for this device so anyone adding this to an existing system be aware of that.
I received a YS1606 “local hub” yesterday, with a discount, after bugging them for years and years to make a local unit.
I connected it via Ethernet, just like the previous hub. Swapping the hub was easy - scanning the QR code in the app, and removing the old hub in the app.
After that, here is what happened.
adding a device still requires the app - no HTTP/HTTPS interface over Ethernet, as far as I can tell. I knew this would be the case before purchasing the local hub.
the app still requires internet. When scanning a device QR code, if Internet is offline, it complains that it’s an invalid QR code. This is very unfortunate.
things seem to work reliably and quickly, same as with the previous hub, while the hub is connected to the Internet via LAN
once I block the hub’s IP address from Internet access in pfSense, everything changes. The device updates happen randomly, with lots of lag, or not at all, in either the Yolink app, or in Home assistant . Unblocking the hub does not fix this problem, unfortunately. You also have to turn it on and back off.
Edit: this is because by default, the hub does not work transparently in local mode. It didn’t come with any documentation, and the support page for Yolink as of this writing still does not have the doc for it listed.
it turns out the hub has a battery backup, so you can’t automate the reset with a smartplug to cut and restore AC power
Edit: actually you can, by removing the battery. Not sure what I was smoking that day.
so, I used a screwdriver to physically remove the 18650 battery. The device lost power, even though it was still plugged in to AC. It just cannot operate without the battery. Frankly, I don’t know what happened that day. Maybe I flipped the on/off switch accidentally while removing the battery.
So, the one and only way to turn the hub on or off is to be physically present, and flip the on/off switch on the back.
So, I put the 18650 battery back in there, and unblocked the hub from pfSense, restoring its Internet access.
Things started working normally again (as in 3, and with the old hub)
I then unplugged the coax cable from my cable modem, to cut Internet from my entire LAN/WLAN, simulating a Comcast outage, but still keeping the modem connected to the router.
Things behaved the same as in step 4 - unreliability on both the phone app and in HA.
I then turned off both Wifi and bluetooth on my smartphone, leaving mobile data on.
To my great surprise, the Yolink app on my smartphone continued to receive some device updates from the door sensor on my desk as I pulled the magnet apart - with the same unreliability as in 4 and 11
I thought at first that the YS1606 hub was falling back to cell when Internet went down.
But it turns out if I power my YS1606 off (with the switch), the app still gets the (slow/unreliable) updates over cell. So, it’s not the hub doing the updates to cloud via cell.
It must be the Yolink sensors themselves using LoRA, connecting to some other LorA devices in my area, that are then linked to a bridge connected to the Internet, which uploads to Yolink servers. I dislike that is all going on under the hood, and not actually under any kind of local control.
I think there are still problems with the YS1606 hub that need to be fixed, likely some bugs to be worked out. It’s a new unit.
the inability to register new devices without Internet access also makes it difficult to call this a “local” hub.
The use of the 18650 battery should be optional, also. This is a hardware design fault.
It looks like I also need to RTFM. Like most products, there are no printed instructions in the box for the YS1606. I expected the new hub to be a plug-in replacement, and just work without the Internet connection. That is clearly not the case. I found a PDF doc which has a section about creating a separate local network. Perhaps there is still hope.
Thank you for sharing your experience with the local hub. Based on your initial information, I won’t be purchasing this local hub or anymore Yolink devices. It is clear their intent is to remain a cloud-based solution. And that’s Yolinks choice. So I’ll need to find alternative devices to replace the Yolink sensors over time.
Speaking from my own experience, everything is working perfectly fine for me over Matter. I have no idea how to bring them in using MQTT or anything else(if it’s possible right now) so I just moved devices over to the Local Network and turned on Matter.
After that I commissioned the hub into HA and brought in all the devices attached to it. I blocked it from the Internet and everything still responds correctly and quickly in HA. In the Yolink app I get no updates though since it’s cloud dependent I guess.
How are you connecting over Matter? Yolink is wanting me to do something with JSON (that is the code on HA correct? I only use the gui as I am clueless on coding). I asked if they knew a way to do it with the GUI they said there is not.
Do you not see the option when you go into the Local Hub, click on Local Network at the bottom, and then go to “Integrations”?
That’s where it’s at in the app and when I toggle Matter on it gives me a QR code and the pairing number. So I just added it to Home Assistant that way.
Yes, that is my inclination as well, but I’m still going to check with Yolink if there is a way to get past these issues, as they are marketing it as a local hub. I sent them a lengthy e-mail.
Unfortunately, my new local hub got bricked last night. I’m not sure how. Perhaps it tried to update the firmware while it was unblocked from the Internet, and I was trying to power cycle it. I don’t know. But holding the factory reset button, regardless of amount of time, never changes the status LED’s color. And it no longer shows up in my pfSense DHCP server logs. I will need to get a replacement before I can give it another try. Actually, it came back to life. I’m not sure what happened to it. But I was pleasantly surprised.
I will still do so, because of the investment I have in existing Yolink sensors. I really like the fact that they take standard AA batteries, and am able to use rechargeable Eneloops or other NiMH in most of them. And they have excellent range, much better than Z-Wave. Thus, I’m still keen on getting them to work, if it’s truly possible to get them to function locally.
Could you please provide a few more details on how you actually set it up with Matter ? I do not see the word “Matter” on the product box. I actually did not know that Matter was supported. I never noticed any mention of Matter in the Yolink app when I set it up yesterday. I still don’t see it. But I’m visually impaired. Apps on a 6.8in smartphone screen are getting increasingly difficult for me to deal with due to macular degeneration. I can however mirror it to my PC with a bigger screen. Ultimately, this is a case of me not reading the manual, though. But I genuinely don’t know what instructions I should follow to make it all work locally.
I do unfortunately still get updates in the Yolink app, when my smartphone is connected to cell network only, even though my Yolink local hub is now bricked, as well as powered off, and my previous generation Yolink hub is functional, but also powered off.
Edit: it looks like lots of things need to happen to prevent the sensors from uploading their status to the Yolink cloud.
disconnect any non-local hub
setup the local hub with a local network in the app
add the sensors to the local network in the app
press the set button on each sensor to repair it with the local hub, and unpair it from third party sensors
block the local hub from internet access in your router
And once the local hub is working and bug-free - and also possibly integrated into the HA integration - I rely upon the virtualarm service so I wonder it that goes out the window then…
@madbrain@beamfarms This is a snapshot from Yolink’s online instruction manual. This is not my personal Local Hub information for anyone who might be worried for me.
Anyways, this is what I saw when I was in the app before. Ever since updating to 0606, the QR code doesn’t appear anymore. But the 11 digit pairing code is still there though.
Point is that I didn’t have to do anything extra, it was always available for me. So if it’s not there for you guys then you’re going to have to ask Yolink about that. Sorry I can’t be of more help.
That is a big help, thank you. I wonder why yolink did not mention Matter to me when I asked about away with out messing with json? Like I said mine just says matter stopped when I swipe it on. I’m going to try a few hard restarts and removing and adding the hub to my account a few times. I’m also going to ask yolink directly about matter.
Got it going with matter. I didn’t have any devices connected to the local hub. After adding a plug to matter it gave me the qr code. It works and with out internet although not as responsive as I would like. If I cycle it rapidly it gets out of sync but eventually catches itself. Hoping they eventually make a better easy way to sync it with HA.
