Wow, that multirelay looks pretty useful. My concern with that thing though would be the timings of the relay, i.e. it can’t be open, sending an electrical signal for more than a second or else the solenoid lock is toast.
Pardon my ignorance, but is this how a setup could work with that multirelay:
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connect one cabinet lock to each output terminal on the multirelay, for a maximum of three locks.
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connect the multirelay to power. However, I’m confused because users say they use their phone chargers for the multirelay. Isn’t USB 5V? But the relay can deliver 12V? I’m guessing there’s a transformer in the multirelay?
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connect the multirelay to a SmartThings hub
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put a wireless z-wave door closed sensor on the inside of each of the three cabinets, but do NOT connect it to the multirelay input, because the inputs are hardwired to the outputs, and so I can’t query them independently unless they are connected wirelessly to the st hub.
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put a zwave keypad on the outside of the cabinets (hypothetically only one would be needed, if the locking and unlocking of the cabinets is handled procedurally by the programmer, right?). The keypad or keypads could be plugged into the inputs of the multirelay, because they are directly connected to the lock opening. But that would only work for three separate keypads (and it’d be nice to only have one).
On that note, are there any z-wave keypads that you folks would recommend? Do they make any that are touchscreen?
- then have some kind of server computer send commands to the ST api in order to program the keypad, and to connect to the multirelay to open the respective cabinet locks.
Again, my concern is the ability to program the multirelay to reliably only open for a split second. I’m not familiar with that Zooz multirelay to know its capabilities.
@ogiewon I am a programmer, and I have some basic experience with light electronics.
I don’t think I’d want to depend on an ST technology that is deprecated. I suppose I could go with Hubitat instead of ST if there’s good reason to do so.
I’d have to have some kind of machine like a Raspberry Pi to receive commands from my server, and then control the z-wave devices locally through the hubitat, right? I want to be able to control these cabinets remotely if necessary.
Thanks everyone for all the ideas. I’m clearly very green still.