Hello Folks,
Long time ago (circa 2011) I bought schlage z-wave kit consisting of a hub/bridge, a door lock handleset and a light module (connect to a power outlet to control light or whatnot); but never got around to use it. The hub seems to be identical to the one sold by nexia (but instead of the name “nexia” it has the name “schlage”), see pic below:
The hub uses z-wave standards but seems to be proprietary in terms of control firmware, and apparently there no easy way configure the device or change its firmware. When it attempts to connect to a server it blinks some lights indicating that it was unable to connect (so, I assume the server does not exist any longer), thus the device seems useless unless it can be modified. Anyhow, I am not willing to pay a subscription to use simply to access a server. So, I was wondering whether or not it would be possible to retrofit it by burning a new firmware or something of that nature.
The bridge will not be usable, but you should still be able to use the Z wave devices that were connected to it by doing a general exclude and then adding them to a different certified Z wave controller. It would be good to get the model numbers off of those end Devices if you still have them.
Yeah, I was suspecting that it was not going be usable; and that it would be difficult to circumvent or change the firmware. So, e-waste it will be.
Never understood why someone would pay a subscription in order to have online access to their devices. A hub or router like device would have more than enough computer power to run a standalone server, services, some user interface, along with a dynamic dns client.
So, I was wondering if the following device would work out for me:
Kasa Smart WiFi Router by TP-Link - AC1900 All-in-One Wireless Router and Zigbee and Z-Wave Smart Home Hub (SR20)
I found it on amazon and its seems to have lots of resources and features. Does it look a good candidate?
This forum is for people who are using the Samsung SmartThings ™ home automation platform, and since you can’t run it with the Kasa hub/router you probably won’t get many responses here. Instead, you might try asking your question in the Reddit home automation subforum: it covers all brands.
That said, I have a few personal thoughts on that device:
I have yet to see a device from any brand (including SmartThings) that successfully combined a WiFi router and a home automation hub. I would use two different devices for that purpose.
Based just on the Amazon reviews, it appears that that specific model only works with a few third party devices, and only a small number of devices total. So pretty limited.
the SR20 was released in 2016 and is several zwave generations behind in terms of security and automation features. You can do better just from the zwave side.
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But again, that’s all wandering pretty far off topic for this forum. Hopefully you can get more helpful answers at Reddit or another more general community.
Sorry for the delay in my response, and thanks for your insightful input. Yeah, probably two different devices would be a better solution; but since so many IoT devices nowadays use wifi, aggregating wifi in the same hub made sense.
Z-wave has been around since early 2000s, and even though there has been iterations of the standard over the years, it is proprietary and standardized. For instance, I bought my door handleset circa 2010 (and it probably was released much earlier), and supposedly all the z-wave hubs and devices are backward compatible with previous iterations. So, the release date of the TP-Link SR20 router/hub was not a big deal; ultimately the hardware to get the job done was present.
With reluctance and apprehension I ordered the tp-link sr20. Once received, at first glance, the main limitation found was the dumbing down and severe limited router’s web interface and the fact that in order to add or configure z-wave, zigbee and wlan devices one needs to use a phone app which is very restricted and cumbersome. It is difficult to fathom the fact that one can not simply have direct access to the devices features and resources. In other words, they deliberately restrict the level of power and control the user has over the device’s features, capabilities and resources. Ultimately, it seems like an attempt by tp-link/kasa to sell its own smart IoT hardware in lieu of other brands. Compatibility and ability to explore the resources of the hub are basically non-existent.
But this is just a preliminary assessment given that I have not use the SR20 long enough. It had lots of potential though given that the hardware to get the job done seems to be present.
