Some very cheap sensors on sale, < $10 USD.

[Fellhahn]

Some cyber Monday deals that I thought were worth sharing:

Xiaomi Aqara Door/Window Sensor, $6.99 USD
Xiaomi Aqara Multi Tap Remote, $7.99 USD
Xiaomi Aqara Temperature/Humidity Sensor, $8.59 USD

I have purchased one of the one-button remotes previously and can confirm it works very well with the JowiHue plugin by w.vuyk , which is also on sale for November. I have ordered some of the door/window sensors but don't yet have it.

IMO the low cost of the sensors/remotes more than absorbs the additional cost of purchasing the plugin and Conbee/Raspbee interface. As an added plus my anecdotal experience has been that Zigbee exhibits superior range to Z-Wave, at least in my home.

[Guest]

I prefer zigbee over z wave too.

[Richel]

Some cyber Monday deals that I thought were worth sharing:

Xiaomi Aqara Door/Window Sensor, $6.99 USD
Xiaomi Aqara Multi Tap Remote, $7.99 USD
Xiaomi Aqara Temperature/Humidity Sensor, $8.59 USD

I have purchased one of the one-button remotes previously and can confirm it works very well with the JowiHue plugin by w.vuyk , which is also on sale for November. I have ordered some of the door/window sensors but don't yet have it.

IMO the low cost of the sensors/remotes more than absorbs the additional cost of purchasing the plugin and Conbee/Raspbee interface. As an added plus my anecdotal experience has been that Zigbee exhibits superior range to Z-Wave, at least in my home.

As I have written elsewhere (https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/li...igbee-is-great), I totally agree.

[Michael McSharry]

I have been very happy with Xiamoi water leak sensor that I obtained from Gearbest for $9 a month or-so ago. About the size of a Silver Dollar so smaller than the Zwave one and uses a standard coin cell. Zigbee range has been very good. I interfaced it with $10 USB dongle/zigbee2mqtt and mcsMQTT. The devices report periodic status including batter level and RF signal strength every 50 minutes-or-so and of course the water detection event immediately.

When I was reading about zigbee vs. zwave the biggest advantage I saw was that zigbee networks are self-healing in 30 ot 60 minutes while zwave needs to be manually setup to add back a node that lost its connectivity.

[Richel]

I have been very happy with Xiamoi water leak sensor that I obtained from Gearbest for $9 a month or-so ago. About the size of a Silver Dollar so smaller than the Zwave one and uses a standard coin cell. Zigbee range has been very good. I interfaced it with $10 USB dongle/zigbee2mqtt and mcsMQTT. The devices report periodic status including batter level and RF signal strength every 50 minutes-or-so and of course the water detection event immediately.

When I was reading about zigbee vs. zwave the biggest advantage I saw was that zigbee networks are self-healing in 30 ot 60 minutes while zwave needs to be manually setup to add back a node that lost its connectivity.

Glad to know about the water leak sensor, since I am awaiting receipt of a bunch of these sensors that I bought from GearBest. The self-healing aspect is a great feature and it is fun to see the connections formed and change in the mesh. Also, as I wrote before, I think the range of my Zigbee devices, which are supposed to be less than that for Z-Wave devices, is superior to Z-Wave. In one of my previous posts, I mentioned how amazed I have been at the range of one Xiaomi multisensor that has no difficulty reporting temperature from inside the freezer compartment of a refrigerator in my garage, while another reports from the inside of my wine cooler on the second floor at the far end of my house. Elliott

[DaveB]

I have a Troller Zee S2. I'm a little confused about how to utilize those temperature/humidity sensors listed in the first post. Do I need both a software plugin (JowiHue), and also some hardware gateway? If hardware gateway needed, what is one that works and might allow me to interface with my other zigbee devices would be a plus (TPLink, Sylvania)? Is there a consensus for a gateway?

Thanks in advance.

[Fellhahn]

I have a Troller Zee S2. I'm a little confused about how to utilize those temperature/humidity sensors listed in the first post. Do I need both a software plugin (JowiHue), and also some hardware gateway? If hardware gateway needed, what is one that works and might allow me to interface with my other zigbee devices would be a plus (TPLink, Sylvania)? Is there a consensus for a gateway?

Thanks in advance.

Hi Dave, welcome to the forums.

Yes, you are correct, using the sensors requires both an additional plugin and extra hardware. The plugin you want is JowiHue, there's a sub forum here for that plugin that should explain everything about it fairly well.

The hardware is either a USB stick "conbee", or a stand alone RPi based gateway "raspbee". Both of these are sold by Dresden Electronik and are available on Amazon US.

The conbee/raspbee do the ZigBee talking, and expose a REST interface that JowiHue can interface with.

It might seem expensive, and if you only want 1 or 2 of these devices it doesn't make sense fiscally. However z-wave motion and temp sensors can be anywhere from 25 to 60 USD for comparison.

So if you're buying half a dozen or more to fit your whole home out, the low cost per sensor of the Xiaomi devices can offset the plugin/hardware cost and save you money in the long run.

[DaveB]

Hi Dave, welcome to the forums.

Yes, you are correct, using the sensors requires both an additional plugin and extra hardware. The plugin you want is JowiHue, there's a sub forum here for that plugin that should explain everything about it fairly well.

The hardware is either a USB stick "conbee", or a stand alone RPi based gateway "raspbee". Both of these are sold by Dresden Electronik and are available on Amazon US.

The conbee/raspbee do the ZigBee talking, and expose a REST interface that JowiHue can interface with.

It might seem expensive, and if you only want 1 or 2 of these devices it doesn't make sense fiscally. However z-wave motion and temp sensors can be anywhere from 25 to 60 USD for comparison.

So if you're buying half a dozen or more to fit your whole home out, the low cost per sensor of the Xiaomi devices can offset the plugin/hardware cost and save you money in the long run.

Well I hate to date myself, but I probably have 20+ X10 laying around that I need to eventually swap out with something.

Have half dozen Zwave, and half dozen zigbee added within the last year.

Would be nice to be able to control the zigbee's, so this may be the ticket. When I was buying the troller, I got the distinct impression that there wasn't a Homeseer zigbee solution yet.....but that seems to be incorrect.

[Pete]

Officially Homeseer offers a cloud based Zigbee hub solution over here ===> Zigbee (HomeSeer).

To utilize this plugin you need to purchase the Osram Lightify Gateway. Not sure what Zigbee hardware the hub works with.

Other options today are:

1 - Homeseer 3 JowiHue cloudless plugin as mentioned above using additional Zigbee hardware

2 - mcsMQTT (and a Mosquitto broker) using newly offered Zigbee stick ==> Note that the Zigbee driver for this stick talks MQTT
(serial communications to MQTT)

Zigbee Interface/non-Cloud Hub Available for $10

Initially here was going to add the Homeseer JowiHue plugin and a Zigbee hardware piece to my currently running POE RPi ZNet like device.

Currently utilizing Zigbee with Samsung Smartthings, Leviton Zigbee ZIM and Almond + (couple of years tinkering mostly).

Just started to tinker with the MCS based Zigbee interface mentioned above.

Most likely will be installing the Zigbee stick on my POE RPi ZNet like device in the attic.

Personally new this year is tinkering with WiFi devices (switches, sensors, et al) and updating these with custom firmware that allows connectivity to open source automation software, Alexa and MQTT (and Homeseer mcsMQTT) .

Here still utilize X10 for my Christmas indoor and outdoor lighting. Easy set up and works 100% of the time. Inside X10 lamp modules and outside using old Black and Decker outdoor Freewire X10 modules.

[Michael McSharry]

Yes, you are correct, using the sensors requires both an additional plugin and extra hardware. The plugin you want is JowiHue, there's a sub forum here for that plugin that should explain everything about it fairly well.

The hardware is either a USB stick "conbee", or a stand alone RPi based gateway "raspbee". Both of these are sold by Dresden Electronik and are available on Amazon US.

The conbee/raspbee do the ZigBee talking, and expose a REST interface that JowiHue can interface with.

While this is one way to approach the interface, another is a $10 hardware solution coupled with the free zigbee2mqtt software and mcsMQTT plugin as Pete mentioned in the prior post. It can be run on either Linux or Windows. The zigbee2mqtt wiki described how to add new Zigbee devices as they come to market and there is good support for zigbee2mqtt for those who do not want to lift the hood to see what it is in the engine.

[Raptor]

Michael, what usb hardware are you using for this?

[Michael McSharry]

CC2531 that has been flashed with zigbee firmware per https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqt...etting-started. For most it is likely easier and lower cost to give me your email address and I will send one already flashed for $10. I ordered some from China at around $5 each. I also 3D-printed a case. USPS charges $3.50 for US and about $15 for international shipping. US shipping has typically been 3 days. International was 7 days. Right now I have a only one that has not been shipped. I did order more from China, but don't expect to get them until after Christmas. There are all sorts of these available on the web at a wide price range. Delivery times are the issue as they come from China. I'm just trying to make it easier for those who are interested.

[Mountainman]

It looks like you can buy this TI eval board off Amazon for $14 or from Digikey for $50. You would have to program it yourself since it's the stock TI version. It also wouldn't come with Michael's nifty case.

[NetworkGuy]

Above it was mentioned about the Raspbee Gateway from Dresden. However, I am not finding it on their site.

Anyone know if they are still selling the gateway?

[sirbooker]

check this link out
https://www.dresden-elektronik.de/fu...s/raspbee/?L=1

also look on Amazon for Raspbee

Paul,