I recently purchased a Zigbee green power “friends of Hue” 4-button switch.
One of the things I really appreciate about it is that it doesn’t require any external power input. No more worrying about low battery or dealing with “without neutral” complications. It’s truly exciting!
I’m curious to know if there is a “list” available somewhere that includes similar devices. I’ve been searching but haven’t had any luck finding one.
Naturally, the capabilities of such devices are limited since they rely on the motion of the switch to generate enough power for sending Zigbee messages. However, I believe this concept could be extended to other interesting home sensors as well.
For example, a door/window sensor where the movement of one part in front of the other could generate sufficient current in a coil to achieve the same effect. Isn’t that fascinating?
I invite you to join me on this journey towards energy-efficient sensors!
Merci pour ce message I don’t use Hue devices, so this specific switch is of no use for me, but I like the concept and hope that it will evolve and taken up by other manufacturers.
You’ve got my curiosity on this statement. No power? Maybe it “steals” power from the lines being switched? I know there have been some thermostats advertising this ability, but reviews have been poor. For one thing, it can only steal power when the switch is on. I’d be interested to hear how this is accomplished in the Green Power switch.
Interesting. I’d like to know more about how it does that. I remember they used to sell flashlights that you’d shake to generate electricity. You had to shake a LOT to get even a few moments of light. It seems powering a Zigbee radio would take more kinetic energy than moving a switch could provide, but obviously there’s more to it than that.
Amazing isn’t it?
I’m really excited by this technology.
It will not be usable for, lets say, temp and humidity sensor, but I see a real potential in this technology.
As a drawback, it does not relay the zigbee signal so does not contribute to the zigbee meshing.
That’s the reason why I’d like to see other types of sensors that take advantage of kinetic energy.
I know about switches now, what about other stuffs?
It is pretty clever. You can get a surprising amount of kinetic energy from compressing and releasing a spring. And it’s great to see someone actually counting bits and trying to make the communications more efficient. It’s been a long time since anyone in the technology field cared about efficiency. I’m all for it!
Where I see a problem is two-way comms. I see how you can send a few bytes every time someone presses a switch, but I rarely use my smart switches. Generally either an automation controls them, or I control them from the HA UI. So no kinetic energy available. We could always go back to Tesla’s solution (the guy, not the car.)
I decided to replace the switch that controls my smart bulbs with the niko switch I mentioned earlier.
This offers several advantages: I can now control the light using voice assistants, Home Assistant’s user interface, and with a physical switch for guests who usually prefer the tactile experience.
By making this switch, I resolved the issue of the previous switch disabling the smart bulbs. However, the new switch does come at a cost of 50€ (or 50$) for the four-button version.
Clarifying question, since I read some contradicting statements (from different points of time, though): Running the latest Home Assistant version (and Zigbee2MQTT) on a Home Assistant Yellow device, can I connect ZigBee Green Power / Friends of Hue / EnOcean devices directly via the Yellow or is still a “translator device” required?
I don’t use Hue devices, so this specific switch is of no use for me, but I like the concept and hope that it will evolve and taken up by other manufacturers.
