Sonoff?!

TriLife

Active Member
Greetings from Colombia.

My quest for this home's HA portion continues.

A friend of mine, who built Latam's first Leeds certified home told me that he had his z-Wave/HomeSeer system yanked out and replaced with Google Home and Sonoff hardware. Says he's very happy. I went online and had a look at some of their stuff. WiFi based and incredibly cheap!

Does anyone have experience with this? Good/bad?

Follow up question: would it integrate with ELK M1 Gold?


Looking forward to your feedback.

Have a great week ahead.

Cheers.
 
Guessing I'd be the least likely one to answer this thread but I'll bite! Why did she yank the HomeSeer / Z-Wave system out? Do you know? Asking because HomeSeer is Google Home compatible.. and these systems can also operate independently. Whatever she's doing with Google Home, she could have done with the HomeSeer system in place too.
 
Not much detail on the Sonoff website about Google Home integration.  I wonder if they will support Apple HomeKit at some point since they are wifi based.  Seems they only show their own app at the moment.  They have a nice touch screen in wall light switch...
 
If you like voice control and you don't care for integrating other devices into your home automation then Sonoff is a great inexpensive system for a beginner or a temporary residence. Just download an app and you are all set.  For people who have lots of time on their hands, the Sonoff devices can be hacked and made visible to an MQTT broker and thus allow integration into one's HA. The prerequisite is "The willingness to solder and tinker" but it can be fun.
 
https://github.com/arendst/Sonoff-Tasmota/wiki
 
I think there is some confusion here. Sonoff does have a software package of their own and I think it supports Google Home (I don't use it). Then there is also open source replacement firmware such as Tasmota-Sonoff which works with MQTT (and a web interface) but also many other HA suites such as SmartThings, Homeseer, etc.  I roll my own with Node-Red and MQTT. I don't have a good voice interface yet.
 
macromark said:
Guessing I'd be the least likely one to answer this thread but I'll bite! Why did she yank the HomeSeer / Z-Wave system out? Do you know? Asking because HomeSeer is Google Home compatible.. and these systems can also operate independently. Whatever she's doing with Google Home, she could have done with the HomeSeer system in place too.
 
Good afternoon.

I think the chap yanked the homeseer/zwave solution, because of transmission issues. It's a 6,500sqf home built with a novel ultralight weight technology, which essentially has metal walls.
 
TriLife said:
Good afternoon.

I think the chap yanked the homeseer/zwave solution, because of transmission issues. It's a 6,500sqf home built with a novel ultralight weight technology, which essentially has metal walls.
 
Z-Wave is 900 MHz and Sonoff (Wi-Fi) is 2.4 GHz . Wouldn't Z-Wave actually have better penetration and generally be better in that environment?
 
TriLife said:
I think the chap yanked the homeseer/zwave solution, because of transmission issues.
If you top off the fluids and change them regularly... every 15,000 miles or so, the transmission should last a long time!  :rofl:
 
Seriously though... metal walls will be a problem for most wireless systems, right?
 
I bought two on Prime Day for under $11 for both. They say supports Alexa and Google and Nest out of the box. We shall see. They are tiny and wire directly to 120V and control 10A. Pretty slick for $5.50.
 
macromark said:
If you top off the fluids and change them regularly... every 15,000 miles or so, the transmission should last a long time!  :rofl:
 
Seriously though... metal walls will be a problem for most wireless systems, right?
I wonder if the builder planned ahead and did some kind of WiFi repeater system in the house. That would explain why ZWave wouldn’t work as well.
 
Greetings,

Thanks for the interesting questions about why the ZWave system was removed, so I had a visit.

Turns out the owner contracted a company to handle the whole design and implementation of the HA. They wanted to run this like a Control4 closed system (popular in Colombia), forcing the owner to contact the company for every minor change. And yes, being an almost 7,000sqf home, there was distributed WiFi, which might have contributed to the owner's frustrations.

He finally asked them to yank it out, lost his 50% deposit and went to get Sonoff. $40k for ZWave vs $600 for Sonoff. Well, it's actually $20,600, since he lost the deposit.

He now talks to Google Assistant to turn on the lights or move the blinds, using Stringify and IFTTT.

Because Sonoff is imported directly from China to Colombia, the prices are comparable to the US. Normally these gadgets are 2-3* US prices.

Here is my game plan for the house: above each breaker box , I'll install an additional cabinet with the Sonoff switches, from where the wiring will lead to the various actuators/sensors.

If Sonoff works, I'll have a $500 solution, plus a few ZWave units, where I absolutely need dimmers (Sonoff has on/off only).

If it does, I'll use the Aeon Zwave nano switches, which will fit in the same cabinet...

Any thoughts are welcome!

Cheers
 
So... sounds like the homeowner was in the process of having a system installed and changed his mind. Ironically, if he wanted to save money, he could have simply installed the exact same HomeSeer/Z-Wave system himself since HomeSeer is not a dealer-only system like Control4. Had he done that, he would have had a very robust locally-processed automation system that was also compatible with Google and IFTTT.
 
A few years ago friend here purchased a contractor spec home which had a Control4 system installed.  House is around 6K in size and purchased for a bit over a million USD.  She had nothing but issues in the first year until there was a spend of around 50k USD to make the system a bit more user friendly.  
 
Much of the automation is not used these days except for the media stuff all over the house these days.
 
Thinking that these systems here are sold with service contracts (monthly or yearly paid) such that it is similiar to your country.
 
Sonoff works fine and depends on the internet for use.  That is the gotcha with SonOff. 

I purchased two wifi basic modules and updated the firmware day 1. It was an issue of multiple attempts to connect. Once updated went to using the two devices locally with Mosquitto and custom firmware which is what a lot of folks are doing today with the Sonoff stuff. I like their EU styled touch glass wall switches
 
It is the same today for many automation hubs that depend on the internet used and sold here in the US. 
 
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