I started with ZHA, but moved to Z2M because there was an automation blueprint I needed that was only coded for z2m.
Gotta say, I’m a much bigger fan of the z2m interface. There’s nothing wrong with ZHA but unless something major changes, I don’t see the need to ever switch back.
RatGDO can do this without the need for a magnetic switch. It’s a simple ESP32 board with easy-to-terminate wire terminals. It also lets you control the lights on your opener, see the current status of the door, and even open the door to an exact in-between position (if your door supports it).
You can program your own ESP32 if you like, or buy one from the guy that made it directly for ~$40.
Still - props to you for making your own solution! I know it’s extra satisfying when you can homebrew your own smart home solutions from scratch - just wanted to share another solution for people who don’t have the same skills.
I’ve never dug into this personally but can’t you set certain dashboards to be admin only? That way you can hide those entities on a dashboard only you have access to.
I assume this wouldn’t prevent someone from going into the full list of entities in the settings menu though.
This was a surprisingly well thought out and educational article - thank you! Was expecting a super basic article for the masses, but this had a number of quality suggestions, pros and cons of the different options, and even the authors personal opinion on preference of Z2M in case the reader wanted a real suggestion.
Thanks so much for this!
Only thing I think I noticed that could be corrected is OTA updates are no longer exclusive to Z2M - ZHA recently added this too, though I haven’t tried it yet and don’t see a reason to ever switch back from Z2M.
Fingers crossed! I know one YouTuber I follow mentioned it in his “2024 predictions” - wasn’t sure if he was pulling ideas out of his butt or if there had been actual commitment to this idea. Your comment gives me hope it’s the latter!
I don’t have an answer for you, but this comment reminds me how badly home assistant needs to add subfolders for organizing and grouping our automations
I had something similar (although probably unrelated) happen last week. All of a sudden my router went offline and nothing was getting an internet connection. Sonoff coordinator lost connection with all zigbee devices went unavailable at the same time. Tried rebooting my home assistant pc, router, unplugging sonoff antenna, switching Ethernet ports, etc without luck.
Power cycling my Ethernet switches fixed it immediately. No idea why that did the trick. This has never happened before. I’m on Verizon fios if that matters.
Posting here in case it helps someone identify a common thread/root cause for OP and me, because I thought it was bizarre that an Ethernet switch would ever need to be power cycled!
Thanks for confirming you had no issues (along with everyone else’s responses!). I took the plunge and updated yesterday and so far no issues apart from my inovelli switch triggers still missing. Luckily someone made an automation blueprint that circumvents this issue but it would still be nice to have that back! And to be fair, idk if that’s an MQTT issue or an issue with the 2.15 firmware on the switch.
Seems like a big update - do most Z2M updates include this many fixes/additions? I’m new to Z2M and am hesitant about updating unless I see a fix that will directly affect me positively.
Can anyone here report if they’re having any issues after updating? Looking at the comments, a number of people are reporting their devices not working shortly after updating, but idk if10 or so people posting is a large or small percentage of the user base.
Adding another vote on the inovelli blues. Zigbee network has been rock solid for me. Integration with homeassistant has been flawless too - could not be happier with my purchase. It also helps that the company has a great track record with transparency and working with the community to improve their product.
One detail I don’t see mentioned often is the zigbee switches are a little smaller than the zwaves, making them easier to fit into the junction box. My house is old and has very small boxes - not sure these would have fit in some places if they were any bigger!!
4th vote for Reolink, with one caveat: the live video feed takes several minutes to load in home assistant for me, but is pretty instant when viewing through the Reolink app. I’ve spent several evenings trying to get it to load faster without luck, so for now I’m content just using the Reolink app.
I looked this up a while back. Someone wrote code to try to replicate it in homeassistant on their forums. If I recall correctly, it didn’t work quite as well as the hue version but I haven’t have a chance/reason to try it yet. Maybe someday soon.
Omg measuring power to detect when the washer and dryer are complete is genius. Gonna flag this as a future project when I get around to finishing the rest of my smart home projects
I’m on mobile and tbh don’t have time to dig into this too much, but I think you would do well to calculate the point of optimum efficiency for your specific scenario. I am in a similar scenario and hope to put together a spreadsheet that I could share if it doesn’t already exist elsewhere, but here is what I would do:
Find out if your heat pump IOM specifies the minimum ambient temperature before electric auxiliary heat kicks in (sometimes called “em heat” or emergen heat). Electric heat will always be the most expensive source of heat, so you should use oil heat when temperatures drop below that.
Look up the peak electric rate (in $/kW-hr) for your utility company. Use this to calculate the cost, per hour, to run your heat pump in all temperatures tabulated in your link. This will tell you how expensive it is to run your heat pump in a worst-case scenario.
Calculate the cost to run your boiler, per hour. This is where you will have to do your own homework on efficiency of your boiler, rate of consumption, and cost of oil in your location. Hard to say if the boiler will run at full capacity or part load, but most are capable of running between 20-100% of nameplate capacity (5:1 turn-down). Summarize your findings into a coat to run your boiler per hour.
When the answer for #2 exceeds the answer for #3, you’ve identified your switch point! Note that this relies on a number of assumptions, like that the heat pump is running full capacity.
Has the availability on these improved? I’d love to spring for innovelli from what I’ve been reading, but worry that I’ll only get to replace half of my lights in my house before they go out of stock everywhere, and I’m forced to use a difference switch for the other half of my lights
Unfortunately this will no longer be possible with the mg21 chip used in the blue switches. See Eric’s post linked below:
https://community.inovelli.com/t/zigbee-matter-motion-switch-project-linus-blue-series/10904/439?u=quaffs.cherub_0t