ST Alternative?

I think we’ll see major improvements in the low cost home automation space in the next year or so. But I’m not sure they’ll be coming from Indiegogo projects. :wink:

Or maybe it will :slight_smile:

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I wonder why you made this statement.

Today someone asked “Hi guys, Do you support different region frequencies? My parents live in Australia and want to make sure that it’s compatible with my devices. Keep up the good work!”

The Reply was: “Hi Martin, Yes, we will deliver your Animus Heart with the correct frequency depending on where you live. Thank you for the support!”

Because I didn’t see anything on the promotion page that indicated there would be a way to order for different regions. And if they’re really intending to create a version for each of the half dozen different zwave frequencies, which means getting certified separately in each of those regions, their production costs are going to be much higher. usually there will just be a statement somewhere on the indigogo page that either they will ship it to specific regions, or they won’t.

For example, Australia uses a different frequency then either Sweden or the United States. So in responding to that particular question today, they’re indicating at least three regions. There’s a reason why SmartThings isn’t offered in every country where Samsung sells product. So I’d just expect to see some recognition of that.

We’ll see what happens. I may be completely wrong, and they may come out with the greatest home automation system ever. And it will run everywhere in the world. But personally I wouldn’t bet on it.

Oomi had the advantage that they were working with only two protocols, Zwave and LAN, Plus an RFID pairing process. And their devices were being manufactured by Aeon Labs, already a very successful multi-region Zwave device company. And they still missed multiple deadlines from their original offering timeline. Hardware is hard. :wink:

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Well, if that’s your criteria, you have to include SmartThings into this group since it does not support Z-Wave association either. :sunglasses:

It’s not in the docs, but you can do it. Duncan published a method for people who didn’t have minimotes about a year and a half ago. It’s in the forums here :wink:

A lot of things can be done by hacking device handlers. The same is true for Home Assistant since it’s open source and uses OpenZWave library.

Any of you Home Assistant gurus using this door/window sensor?

No problem including it within the Aeon z-Wave USB Stick and HA sees it albeit under a generic name. A reboot of the Rasp Pi 3 or restart HA service on the PI and the name changes to it full name (i.e. Aeon Door/Window Sensor_xxx) however it no longer works. Removing the sensor, opening the case and pressing the z-wave button restart it and now the sensor work once again within HA. Well… Until the next restart/reboot. I have 2 such sensors connected to the USB stick and both behave in the same manner.

If you have such sensor(s) and have it working within HA without having to go through hoops after each restart/reboot, please help me out. When they do work they work really well but I certainly dont want to go around and pressing each sensors wave button each restart/boot

My suggestion is to take your question here:

Relatively active chat support for user issues.

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I have recently come across this new Indiegogo campaign - https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/protonet-zoe-start-your-secure-smart-home-now/x/13684892#/ . They claim that everything will run locally and the platform will be opensource. It does not look like it will support Zigbee, at least not yet. Do you guys think this will be a viable alternative?

Zoe discussion thread here:

Until alternatives are actually available to install, I think it’s better not to include them in this particular thread or people are going to get confused. Preorder or kickstarter campaigns can go in their own threads. :sunglasses:

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So here we are a quarter into 2016 and to me the clear winner this year so far is the Amazon Echo. It just keeps getting better and better. I also think Wink has made some improvements as they seem to have a good backing now financially with Flextronics and are making good partnerships and local processing. If Wink integrated with Harmony (so I can use my physical remote), I would consider dumping ST for most of my stuff at this point. Yonomi with their Echo integration has also made some strides. Smartthings has not had a good year and has taken a step back, no question about it. Nothing new and stability has worsened.

The answer is not simple though. We will need to rely on multiple solutions and technologies. I don’t think there will ever be a single hub that can do it all.

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Not sure if it was mentioned already in this or other posts, but I have attempted to add zigbee sensors to Wink today and did not work. Initially Wink support has said that I may be able to add them as generic zigbee devices, but after a long conversation Wink rep confirmed that zigbee HA is not supported only ZLL. It was a major blow for me as I was ready to migrate everything. Also from the same conversation, it was confirmed that anything under ‘Lights’ and ‘Power’ categories are eligible to run locally, including any generic zigbee and z-wave devices…

Yup, I am holding off on Wink for now. I don’t see a point in migrating and going through a major effort and spending another $500 to replace hardware Wink doesn’t support and still not have the functionality I have today. I believe we are all stuck here for awhile for better or WORSE!

The Wink rep was confused, which is not surprising, because it’s a confusing situation.

Wink works with a number of non-ZLL zigbee devices, including their own quirky sensors like tripper.

However, it knows the fingerprint of those devices and has device handlers for those specific fingerprints.

What it doesn’t have is a way for you to add a new fingerprint to either an existing handler or to create a new device handler.

So non-quirky ZLL devices (That means lightbulbs mostly) usually work.

A specific short list of ZHA devices which have official device handlers work.

Other ZHA devices which don’t have official device handlers usually don’t work, and that includes the smartthings-branded sensors.

so you can usually bring Zigbee devices over from wink to smartthings, although not all features may work, but you can’t usually bring most ZHA devices from SmartThings over to wink.

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You are absolutely right. I have oversimplified my conversation with Wink support. The rep was not confused:

Greg: Zigbee can only generically be added if its a light category as otherwise its brand needs to be in the app for it to connect properly.

Greg: The only Zigbee sensors we had support for went of market because that brand went out of business (Quirky). Sorry but again Zigbee will not be a generic category you can connect, you need to check the app and it will say there an option for Zigbee or Zwave at the very bottom if available

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Just another example that Zigbee HA interoperability is still lagging behind Z-Wave. :sunglasses:

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I believe you would have to use Zwave motion sensors instead. The ones in the GoControl security line should work, I’m not sure about any others.

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Yeah, but I have a house full of zigbee sensors. If I knew what I know now about zigbee when I started this hobby, I would not have put thousands into ST sensors. But I did… I might just bag them and go with what motion and contact zwave sensors I have. I am seriously considering that…

I understand. :disappointed_relieved: I really like zigbee sensors. In fact, that was why I got SmartThings in the first place, because I could have Zigbee sensors and a Zwave door lock. As yet I haven’t found a good substitute that I’m ready to commit to.

I really like the engineering on the Kumo wireless tags, and they do have an IFTTT channel, but I’d like to have some local options. I’m still waiting for HomeKit to come out with battery-powered sensors that can be used as triggers. And I can’t get notifications from Harmony, so its extender doesn’t help.

I may end up just going with zwave sensors, I’m still hoping there will be more choices in a month or two.