wildneg:
Does anyone know if there is a company or place you can buy your own controls to make something using any of the supported protocols?
I’m looking for some control board with an actuator or such so I can build my own ‘smart devices’. I really want to build inexpensive baseboard diffuser I can control. Or many other things. I can supply the power and such but just need a starting point with some developer control board/communication board and allow me to attach outputs (and even inputs if needed).
If I understand your question, this used to be done with the thingshield, but that was discontinued last year.
Nowadays most people use the ESP 8266, which is a Wi-Fi unit. Very inexpensive, typically less than $10. And since it is Wi-Fi, it will work with both the US and UK versions of the hub.
UPDATE 2022-08-17 - Per this recent SmartThings announcement, the Groovy IDE will disabled on September 30, 2022 . My best guess is that any existing ST_Anything devices will probably cease to operate at this time, or shortly thereafter. It has been a good 7+ year run for ST_Anything users. I want to thank you all for making ST_Anything a successful project! My son and I really had a lot of fun creating it together, and have enjoyed hearing how you have all used it in so many creative ways.
As many of you probably already know, I have moved on from ST and have ported ST_Anything over to Hubitat as “HubDuino” . If you have devices running ST_Anything that you ‘can’t live without,’ at least you know you have options. Another option for ESP8266/ESP32 users would be to use ESPHome along …
Some people also use Spark Photon
The title says it all. I have created a device type to interact with the Particle Photon/Core. I have also created a Photon/Core firmware that will interact with this and use the Neopixel.h library.
Firmware and device type can be found here:
This creates an extremely cheap set of RGB lights that can interact with Smartthings.
What you will need:
Photon/Core $20
WS2812B rgb light strip
These worked great for me http://www.amazon.com/Addressable-Strip-WS2812B-meters-meter/dp/B00JSJSBZK/ref=lp_9219252011_1_1?srs=9219252011&ie=UTF8&qid=1443029994&sr=8-1
Bread board or soldering iron
Notes:
The WS2812B is a great rgb for dev boards as it runs at 5v and in the case of the photon can run directly off of vin if you are supplying usb power or you can split an outside power supp…
You could find discussion of some additional alternatives in the following thread, but again, most people are just using the ESP 8266.
Some people in the community have used particle in the past:
Particle has just announced an open beta for raspberry pi which might substitute for some of these use cases.
But the hardware other than the pi is more expensive and you’re going cloud to cloud so it’s not going to work for all these cases.
https://www.particle.io/products/development-tools/raspberry-pi-on-particle
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