Dear HS friends!
First thank you for all your help you provided me so far. This is really a great community and HS is really a great! 3 years ago when getting into home automation I decided to go with HS3 and Z-wave protocol. I decided for Z-wave over Zigbee as it had better distance range. Now I have about 60 devices in a 3 floor house. The system is anything but set and forget. After about 3 years of using I have only great things to say about HS3, but not so much for Z-wave. I believe whoever designed it left out some very important things.
Here are my findings and questions. I hope you can contribute.
- Is Z-wave dying?
Since I started to use Z-wave (3years) not many, if any, new devices came out? That seems quite strange to me. I think it's dying, not to mention devices are over twice the price of the Zigbee, Tuya, Aleksa, Google Home...
- Z-wave network?
Is so called MASH working at all? When I audition one device in different floor... "The node's neighbor rating is: Poor with 5 neighbors." Poor. How can this be?!?! 5 powered devices in same room radius distance of 5 meter, one of those is Aeon Labs Repeater which does nothing but boosts the signal! When I go to other floor most of the time I can not ADD/include a device. When bring it closer to a transmitter (Wave-me UZB) it includes normally. So where is the mash where you need one? I have about 30 powered devices across the 3 floors. Plugs, relays, thermostats, light switches. That should be one hell of a mesh, right?
- Rebooting a HS and not to miss events
If I reboot the HS doe to power loos, windows update... How do I catch missed events and have a correct state for all event triggered devices? Pool every device at boot? A sleeping battery devices that wakes up every 11 hours? Does that really make any sense?
If I reboot the HS computer and someone open the door during downtime. How the HS will pool the batter device on fresh start? Wait for the battery powered device to wake up (12 hours)? And have up to 12 hours of wrong open door state ? Am I missing something here?
- Device communication with the host.
- Event trigger based devices will fail you sooner or later. There are many reasons (transmitter, receiver, software) for message to get missed and ignored. And when this happens and it happens!, host will have the wrong state until the next state change which can be hours. This is a true disaster IMHO. For an example: door/window sensors (i have a few different ones) will fail you if you open and close a few times really fast. In many cases the sensor will not react or send the HOST the wrong state. The battery devices don't even have a secondary delayed state send in case first gets missed. The only sensible solution is if to have a host periodically check the all the sensors <1sec. Today's WIFI bandwidth can take this with ease even for hundreds of sensors.
- Wireless Devices with external power supply, over battery ones (not event triggered. but with permanent connection to the host)
I can understand having a battery device to sleep most of the time to consume the battery ans extend the battery life. That's OK up to the first missed massage as the host does not know for the changes state. Then it becomes a big problem. What my logic tells me is to have a sensor that communicates with the host periodically <1sec and is externally powered. It's easy to find the nearest power source anywhere in the house. All you need is tiny AC/DC power supply to provide the power.
- WiFi
Wifi seems like a most sensible route to go. It's cheap, can be extended with inexpensive routers, extenders. even SIM card router for distant out of reach areas. No messy Z-wave/Zigbee mesh that no one can really tells if it works of not.
- Where to look for?
WIFi Devices with permanent connection with the host and periodical <1sec checking of states and readings. No senseless Pooling etc.
TUYA: Looks great, but it's cloud based. Triggering is instant, but reading is based on periodical pooling interval on minimum 1 minute so far. That's not good at all for events that prevent power spikes and security alerts.
TASMOTA: I found out about this only recently. Didn't had time to explore it yet. So far I know it's alternative firmware for TUYA devices for that allows local operation using MQTT protocol. That's goes against TUYA policy and they are upgrading firmware to prevent this. So many newly sold devices no longer works using the hack. Beside that you need a Linus with wireless dongle to flash it with Tuya-Convert software. There are also devices preflashed with Tasmota which give some light afterall. I hope someone with Tasmota experience can jump in and explain.
KNX: This is a system here each device has some limited brains and the system can operate without a central host. Don't think it applies here.
MQTT: McsMQTT Plugin. 384 Page manual scares the s*** ouf of me! Can anyone let me know how this works? Does user has to be a developer to use it?
At this point I'm deciding where to go next. I really appreciate your input!
Thank you very much.
Br,
Dali
First thank you for all your help you provided me so far. This is really a great community and HS is really a great! 3 years ago when getting into home automation I decided to go with HS3 and Z-wave protocol. I decided for Z-wave over Zigbee as it had better distance range. Now I have about 60 devices in a 3 floor house. The system is anything but set and forget. After about 3 years of using I have only great things to say about HS3, but not so much for Z-wave. I believe whoever designed it left out some very important things.
Here are my findings and questions. I hope you can contribute.
- Is Z-wave dying?
Since I started to use Z-wave (3years) not many, if any, new devices came out? That seems quite strange to me. I think it's dying, not to mention devices are over twice the price of the Zigbee, Tuya, Aleksa, Google Home...
- Z-wave network?
Is so called MASH working at all? When I audition one device in different floor... "The node's neighbor rating is: Poor with 5 neighbors." Poor. How can this be?!?! 5 powered devices in same room radius distance of 5 meter, one of those is Aeon Labs Repeater which does nothing but boosts the signal! When I go to other floor most of the time I can not ADD/include a device. When bring it closer to a transmitter (Wave-me UZB) it includes normally. So where is the mash where you need one? I have about 30 powered devices across the 3 floors. Plugs, relays, thermostats, light switches. That should be one hell of a mesh, right?
- Rebooting a HS and not to miss events
If I reboot the HS doe to power loos, windows update... How do I catch missed events and have a correct state for all event triggered devices? Pool every device at boot? A sleeping battery devices that wakes up every 11 hours? Does that really make any sense?
If I reboot the HS computer and someone open the door during downtime. How the HS will pool the batter device on fresh start? Wait for the battery powered device to wake up (12 hours)? And have up to 12 hours of wrong open door state ? Am I missing something here?
- Device communication with the host.
- Event trigger based devices will fail you sooner or later. There are many reasons (transmitter, receiver, software) for message to get missed and ignored. And when this happens and it happens!, host will have the wrong state until the next state change which can be hours. This is a true disaster IMHO. For an example: door/window sensors (i have a few different ones) will fail you if you open and close a few times really fast. In many cases the sensor will not react or send the HOST the wrong state. The battery devices don't even have a secondary delayed state send in case first gets missed. The only sensible solution is if to have a host periodically check the all the sensors <1sec. Today's WIFI bandwidth can take this with ease even for hundreds of sensors.
- Wireless Devices with external power supply, over battery ones (not event triggered. but with permanent connection to the host)
I can understand having a battery device to sleep most of the time to consume the battery ans extend the battery life. That's OK up to the first missed massage as the host does not know for the changes state. Then it becomes a big problem. What my logic tells me is to have a sensor that communicates with the host periodically <1sec and is externally powered. It's easy to find the nearest power source anywhere in the house. All you need is tiny AC/DC power supply to provide the power.
- WiFi
Wifi seems like a most sensible route to go. It's cheap, can be extended with inexpensive routers, extenders. even SIM card router for distant out of reach areas. No messy Z-wave/Zigbee mesh that no one can really tells if it works of not.
- Where to look for?
WIFi Devices with permanent connection with the host and periodical <1sec checking of states and readings. No senseless Pooling etc.
TUYA: Looks great, but it's cloud based. Triggering is instant, but reading is based on periodical pooling interval on minimum 1 minute so far. That's not good at all for events that prevent power spikes and security alerts.
TASMOTA: I found out about this only recently. Didn't had time to explore it yet. So far I know it's alternative firmware for TUYA devices for that allows local operation using MQTT protocol. That's goes against TUYA policy and they are upgrading firmware to prevent this. So many newly sold devices no longer works using the hack. Beside that you need a Linus with wireless dongle to flash it with Tuya-Convert software. There are also devices preflashed with Tasmota which give some light afterall. I hope someone with Tasmota experience can jump in and explain.
KNX: This is a system here each device has some limited brains and the system can operate without a central host. Don't think it applies here.
MQTT: McsMQTT Plugin. 384 Page manual scares the s*** ouf of me! Can anyone let me know how this works? Does user has to be a developer to use it?
At this point I'm deciding where to go next. I really appreciate your input!
Thank you very much.
Br,
Dali
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