I’m the primary firmware developer for zmote. Thank you for publishing your device handler.
I’d be happy to help develop it further. First things first:
It appears you have a v1 device. Our v2 device continues to support the v1 API, but newer one is easier to use, faster and offers more flexibility. I’d be happy to ship you a v2 device gratis.Please get in touch with at harik@klarsys.com
In terms of devices, I looked over the link you had sent and I thought the “Media Controller” device was the best fit. It could publish a list of “activities” based on the devices you have configured (using the zmote web App). If this were possible, I could create a path in our Web App (“Export->SmartThings DH”, say) to generate the device handler based on your particular configuration. You thoughts?
And thanks again for your making zmote a part of your automation system.
Thank you very much Hari for joining in the conversation!
Do you have plans to include RF in the future? I’d like to keep the unit in my media cabinet but obviously different components are on different shelves. To do this with IR only, I’m guessing I would need the “Pro” version and use emitters for each shelf. The Logitech Harmony with RF was able to control all my devices in the location I wanted it but did not suit my needs.
Hi Matt,
We don’t have plans to support RF output, but are you sure you need that? You would need an RF output from the zmote only in cases where you have a gadget that only accepts control via RF (garage door openers, for example). The Harmony One RF is, IMO, somewhat misleadingly named. To solve the problem you have (controlling equipment behind closed cabinets), it supplies a couple of additional, so-called “mini (IR) blasters”. You’d need to keep one such mini blaster on each shelf of your cabinet. The controller then uses RF signals to communicate to these mini blasters. The actual control of the end-equipment continues to be over IR. Anyhow, with that nitpick out of the way, I can get to answering your question:
Yes, you would need to invest in a zmote pro to solve your problem. You would need to wire up IR emitters (a single zmote pro supports 4 outputs) to each target equipment in your cabinet. We do also have a wired IR blaster – essentially a zmote-like device – that can be used in place of IR emitters. You can think of this as a sort of wired equivalent of Logitech’s “mini blaster”. That listing is not up yet. I’ll send you the link as soon as it goes up.
Interesting, the Harmony Hub was indeed able to sit on the top shelf inside the cabinet and still control the television on top of the media cabinet. There were no mini blasters or IR emitters used. Neither was the remote (it didn’t even have batteries). Also, the television is not set up on the wifi network so it was not using that. The doors are glass though but there was no way the Harmony Hub had line of sight to the television.
Welcome! Thanks I’ll email you about the v2 device.
About the “Media Controller” type, that’s what the Harmony device is using so the “activities” are all designed around that concept. It might works fine for the zmote too. That was the only IR device I could find in their list.
I think your idea of generating the device handler code from the zmote web app is really interesting. It would probably work fine for anyone following this discussion and you could essentially create any device. I don’t think that would be enough to get it certified by smartthings, and available to the bigger user market like the harmony, which would be better for your company and the users in the long run.
Hmmm… If a single blaster was able to work, it suggests to me that all the equipment in your setup is reachable either via line-of-sight, or via partial reflection from the glass doors or perhaps the wall opposite. A single zmote should work as well. I’d suggest you try mounting the zmote in different ways – dome facing outwards mounted on the back wall of the cabinet, say, or on it’s ceiling, or perhaps a little outside the cabinet, or even on the opposite wall if at all that’s possible. You can use a bit of sticky tac to try out some of this. You should be able to find a spot that gives reliable control over your entire deck.
That’s good info from OpenHab. I think on SmartThings we might also need a “SmartApp” in addition the the device handler, at least that’s what looks like is happening with the Logitech Harmony. I’d need to read more about that in the dev docs before having any guess about what that might look like.
Hi Ben, just got my zmote, I have taken a look on yr DTH, may I know how you figure out which code to send? Is there a link in the zmote app allow us to copy the code out?
Wow - excited to have found this - nice job on the look of the zmote and your obvious interest in working with community on getting this integrated. Ordered!
I use the browser’s Developer Tools feature to see what is sent when I press the button in the web interface. I’m not aware of another way to do that in the web app but that would be nice.
The DHT I have on github works for the v1 devices but I’ll need to modify it to work with the v2 device I have now. Hari was investigating ways to provide a DHT or some other integration directly from the zmote app, but I haven’t heard how far along he is with that effort.
Update: I’ve updated the version on github to support the v2 zmote devices.
It seems like there was a break in making them, but they’re available again now on tindie. I was on a waitlist for a year or so, and finally just got mine in the last couple months. (It’s worth the wait.)
