If you live in Australia and home automation then you must have come across the Kambrook RF3399 Power Point Controller. These come with a tiny RF remote and are great for switching on hard to reach power points or devices. Unfortunately its not Smart - yet.
I opened one up and photographed. Hope to post a link to the photos soon. The device looks simple enough to be able to integrate the SmartModule into it.
Has anyone else seen these devices? Any thoughts as to where to begin?
Yeah, I’d love to see a learning RF remote SmartThing… it would be useful for this and many other things.
Here are the photos of the device if anyone is interested.: http://www.candco.ca/x/Blog/tabid/57/EntryId/21/Smartening-up-the-Kambrook-RF3399-Power-Point-Controller.aspx
I believe that I will be able to power the ThingModule from a pin on the EPROM chip on the underside of the board. Also, I would be able to determine, using the ThingModule, if the Power Point Controller is ON or OFF by reading the power on the LED.
Any thoughts?
Codependent: Learning RF remotes are a lot trickier than learning IR remotes. There are so many different frequency/modulation combinations that I don’t think you could hope to capture a signal unless you knew what it was sending. If it’s a frequency-hopping device, I don’t think it would be possible at all without knowing the hopping algorithm.
Crashtest: Sounds feasible. In theory at least, it shouldn’t be a tough project.
Would many in home consumer devices use frequency hopping?
I’ve been poking around with a similar set of cheap outlets - specifically the Westinghouse Command1 that was sold in Target for $10 for a 3-outlet pack.
Most of the cheap stuff is circa 315mhz or 433mhz - it’s possible, at least if the device is sold in the US as well, to find this from the FCC ID. If you’re ok with opening up one of the remotes, you can generally find the resonator being used (which is a dead giveaway - the HR433A clearly shown on my little remote points me to http://www.datasheetdir.com/HR433.92A+Resonator which shows, quite nicely, 433.920MHz.) I’ve found that all of the semiconductors are epoxied…
Modulation is much more difficult to establish…preliminary looks seem to indicate everything cheap is ASK.
I’ve got a couple RF transceiver kits on order - one 315mhz, one 433mhz - from seeedstudio. If you’re buying gear in AUS though you might have better luck with dx.com (they have a warehouse in Australia.) No documentation but super cheap - $5 buys you a paired receiver (adjustable frequency via trim pot) and transmitter (fixed frequency.)
My plan for the short term is to solder a set of transistors to emulate the soft switches on the remote - not the most elegant solution - and then control it using an Electric Imp ($30 SD card sized package with WiFi, pair to a $12 breakout board to drive it with USB or battery power) - I assume that if I can get it to the point where there’s a set of discrete URIs it’ll be possible to integrate with SmartThings.
The big downside with my approach is that the outlet won’t communicate anything at all back - not even basic on/off - I think the correct thing to hack will be the Iris Smart Outlets. They’re $30, appear to run on ZigBee (I’ll be doing a teardown if I can find one in stock tonight) and claim to support both on/off and power monitoring. In the meantime I’ll probably just send the requested command several times.
Learning RF remotes exist…kind of…it’s more that systems like Pronto have recorded a huge number of instructions and codes. These systems are strictly one-way affairs…and I’m starting to realize how limiting that really is.
@crashtest on that kambrook board, can you take a close up photo of that yellow component, and that black relay, so that I can see the labels. thanks. what voltage is the RF microchip running at on that kambrook board? Also I would wait for a smartthings device to be put on the market and tested at a CE/FCC facility than hacking/soldering two separate devices together. anyway didn’t smartthings say one of their things will do this for you, for just $25?
@limitlessLED I have published a few more detailed photos here: http://www.candco.ca/x/Blog/tabid/57/EntryId/22/Kambrook-RF3399-Detailed-Photos.aspx
The little IC with markings is a EPROM 24LC02D and I think it runs on 1.7v-3.6v as per specs but I have not measured the actual input voltage. This EPROM stores the RF remote button code. Unfortunately I don’t know what the second IC on the right is. It has no markings.
wow very cool device, the electronics engineering is quite tidy and low cost. I wonder if I can work with Kambrook to make a smartthings wifi bridge for this device. which outlets are selling these for kambrook? does anyone know if smartthings plug is the same as this?