Hey All,
Wanted to see if anyone had seen the Kickstarter for KumoStat.
It seems to tread on some of ST’s space; without SmartThings’ vision of everything connected (a great vision btw).
The most interesting part, and the part I want to tease out, is whether we can incorporate some of their sensors into our ST ecosystem? They’re not using the common Zwave or Zigbee standards.
Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1635275236/kumostat-and-kumo-sensors?ref=users
Interesting… but I don’t know if it’s really a significant upgrade in ability or price of existing ST options.
For example… one of the Kickstarter options:
For $34 (+$10 for shipping) I can get a Kumosensor which gives me Occupancy, temp, and humidity. Or I can go on ebay and get an AEON z-wave motion sensor that also includes temp, humidity, and lums for $50 shipped. Kumo beats that price by $6 – BUT, I also need a base station that will read that Kumo sensor. I’ve already got the ST hub that’ll read the z-wave just fine.
If you don’t have a ST setup already then maybe Kumo makes more sense, but as you said it doesn’t have the same “whole house” vision that ST has.
I also found it somewhat misleading… while they don’t say directly that you can heat or cool just some rooms in the house, they almost give that impression, which obviously isn’t possible unless you have independent heating/cooling systems for different areas of your home. Of course, if you do, then you almost certainly had more than one thermostat controlling those, so then is starts to defeat the purpose of having the Kumo system.
I was actually more interested in incorporating their sensors. They just look a little more aesthetically appealing than a few others on the market. I have the Aeon sensor, and it’s a bit intimidating (an eyeball looking sensor looking at you).
The sensor seems to be only $34 (shipping included for US).
I have the Aeon sensor, and it’s a bit intimidating (an eyeball looking sensor looking at you).Haha I know what you mean. Reminds me of this. :)
I wish that z-wave / zigbee sensors and gadgets could be cheaper. A few of them wouldn’t hurt my wallet but current going rate of $40~50 a piece does hurt the scalability for non-super rich. (I wonder if it’s because the chipset price.)
You can purchase the entire Z-wave module with antenna for less that $6 is you buy in large quantities (>500). I would imagine the price is so high because of the limited consumer base
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/ZM5304AU-CME3R/703-1075-2-ND/4135454