Cheap Chinese light switch with smartThings

I’d like to use these chinese light switch?

These are 220v and Z Wave 908.42 MHz and some use zigbee,

The problem is that they use their own bridge. Since smartthings works with both, technically… it should work right?

Or… it could be that… even if they work with the same frequency… won’t work with smartthings? Dos anyone know?

For Z wave, you can use any certified zwave switch for basic on/off. If the switch has additional advanced features, you might need to get the community’s help to build a custom device handler for it. Make sure you check on the official Z wave alliance product site to make sure that the device actually is certified.

http://products.z-wavealliance.org

Zigbee is more complicated. Zigbee allows for many different profiles, and they cannot all work together. The standard also allows for the use of proprietary coding which means many manufacturers can make devices that will only work with their own controller.

Smartthings uses the standard “zigbee home automation” profile (ZHA 1.2 ), so if a device is certified for that, you should be able to use it with smart things. If it is certified for a different zigbee profile or not certified at all, you may be able to pair it to smart things but not get any functionality from it. Or it may pair and work for an hour or two and then drop off the network again. You will find a number of conversations in the forums from people who’ve tried various cheap Chinese devices that were not certified for ZHA and had these problems.

I have personally had a lot of difficulty with customer service departments from various companies telling me that yes, a device was certified for zigbee home automation when it wasn’t. That’s because they don’t know what certification means. So if the device is zigbee and it’s a home automation device they will often tell you that it is ZHA certified when you asked, even though it isn’t . It’s best to ask to see a copy of the certification to be sure.

The other issue, of course, is electrical safety. Different countries have different standards. I myself only use UL certified devices, but I have particular concerns about fire safety. For the UK or Canada you would be looking for a CE certification.

I mean, the idea is to use this switch without their hub and use smart things to control them. I saw these at alibaba.com, so what should i ask to the seller in order to know if they are going to work with ST, they have no idea. But i’m pretty sure they are not certified

I understand. That was the point. If you want the device to work with SmartThings it needs to be certified for the zigbee home automation 1.2 profile. I agree that they do not appear to be.

So you would need to ask them to show you their certification for the specific device that you want for zigbee home automation profile 1.2 (ZHA 1.2), not just a zigbee certification.

But again, it doesn’t appear that they have one.

same happens with Zwave?

With zwave, as I mentioned, it’s simpler. There’s only one profile and you yourself can easily look up the certification on the website I gave above. So assuming you were able to verify the Z wave certification on the official site,the only question is whether the device is using the exact same frequency that your SmartThings hub uses.

Zwave assigns frequencies by geographical region. So there is one frequency for the US, a different frequency for the EU, a different frequency for China, etc. The frequency is set when the device is manufactured and cannot be changed afterwards, so you need to verify it before purchase.

SmartThings makes two models of its hub, one on the US frequency of 908.4 MHz, and one on the EU frequency of 868.4 MHz.

So as long as the device you were looking at is officially zwave certified and matches the frequency of your SmartThings hub, it should work for a basic on/off command. :sunglasses:

Note, though, that just as with zigbee, it’s not enough for The device to just broadcast on the same frequency. It has to be certified for Z wave so that it will also speak the same “language” that SmartThings does or they will not be able to understand each other. This is why the official certifications are so important.

I believed that the frequency was the only thing that matters, thanks for the info.

About the certification… they probably wont have any.

What options do i have?

It has to be 220v
With no neutral wire
And not expensive

That’s a complicate combination.

i already check some other posts, asking for the same, so far nothing new

Another thing to be aware of: It looks like the last picture in the link you provided has three switches in one device. It may be that this is a multi-channel device like the AEON power strip. This means it has one radio that turn on/off multiple relays within in the switch.

IF this is the case, then things get a bit more complicated as these generally need more than just a basic device type handler.

Furthermore they are a bit more complex to in corporate into standard SmartApps without a bit of jumping through hoops.

It can all be done, but it is a bit more tricky IF this is indeed a multichannel device.

at the end… i bought this

The people from aeon toldme that works with 220v 50hz.

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