Can you make your own Z-wave devices?

[Skynet Home]

I have been trying to learn more about how to create my own devices and sensors to talk to openhab but there seems to be no go to method for connecting arduino sensors with openhab. There are numerous gateways, serial, ethernet etc obviously but what about Z-wave. My Z-wave devices work seemlessly with openhab and my Aeon Z stick. Is there no way to make arduino sensors speak Z Wave so that we can avoid additional gateways?

[Ben Jones]

Binary sensors can be Z-Wave'ified by using something like the Fibaro Universal Sensor - these have two inputs which can parasitically monitor two independent binary sensors.They also have provision for up to 4 DS18B20 digital temp sensors.

I use these to monitor the state of my existing alarm PIRs around the house. They are so small they actually fit inside the PIR housing and are powered by the alarm 12V supply.

See http://www.smartthingsnz.co.nz/store/using-fibaro-universal-binary-sensors-automate-existing-home-alarm/...

[Skynet Home]

I cant manage to find a source for those other than on UK site and they are just about as expensive as a ready made device. I am looking for something more along the lines of a zwave transeiver like the RFM69HW transcevier that I could attach to an arduino and make it talk to my Z-Stick!

[Chris Jackson]

> I am looking for something more along the lines of a zwave transeiver like the RFM69HW transcevier that I could attach to an arduino and make it talk to my Z-Stick!

Unfortunately that’s not possible - there is no current library, and the documentation is closed source (ie you need to pay a lot of money to get it!). There’s only a single source of zwave chips...

[James Stembridge]

You could use something like this:

http://www.adafruit.com/product/2471

And communicate using MQTT over Wi-Fi instead of Z-wave.

[Daniel Ellison]

On 06/25/2015 09:35 AM, James Stembridge wrote:
> You could use something like this:
>
> http://www.adafruit.com/product/2471
>
> And communicate using MQTT over Wi-Fi instead of Z-wave.

You could also opt for ZigBee on Arduino instead of Z-Wave:

https://www.cooking-hacks.com/documentation/tutorials/xbee-arduino-raspberry-pi-tutorial/

There doesn't seem to be an equivalent for Z-Wave. At least, not that I
could find easily.

[Skynet Home]

Thanks for the responses:
Chris Jackson, I really appreciate all the work you put into this and I wish there was more that I could do to actually contribute to continuation of such an awesome project rather than just enjoying the work that some many others have done. I started running habmin 2 with openHab 1.7 two days ago and its working great with my existing devices. I am thinking about gettting a second raspberry pi and running Openhab 2 and Habmin 2 on that and maybe I can find some way to be of help.

James Stenbridge, the ESP8266 is defiitely one of the routes that I am connsidering. I currently have one arduino up and running us MQTT(Which was a real PITA for me to get going! It's the Garage Genie from instructables but it is hardwired to a ethernet switch. I have several RFM69HW radios and was leaning toward the RFM69 Pi Gateway which seems to be in it is infancy like so many other projects. I am torn between wanting a dependable working system and wanting to contribute to the community! As I said above maybe I can do both!

Daniel Ellison, the Zigbee options is what really prompted my original post. I found some IRIS compabatible window/door sensors for $12.95 at lowes and thought I had found a steal as I have successfully used other IRIS products that run on the Zwave protocol only to discover that these partcular senors are zigbee. I was under the impression that zigbee was not well supported by openhab so have been leaning more toward ESP8266 or RFM69.

For those of you who have been doing this a while or have more programming skills which of the available options, MQTT Arduino Gateway, RFM69 Pi Gateway, ESP8266 Gateway or N2401 mysensors type gateway looks to be the most promising and easily adoptable method of incorporating DIY sensors into openhab?

[Chris Jackson]

On 25 Jun 2015, at 15:06, Skynet Home <hydrill...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was under the impression that zigbee was not well supported by openhab

It’s not - but in OpenHAB2, it is :)  I have a binding for ZigBee for OH2 working - it will be enhanced as time goes on as the library needs some work, but it is an option if you want to plunge into OH2...

[Daniel Ellison]

On 06/25/2015 10:08 AM, Chris Jackson wrote:
>
>> On 25 Jun 2015, at 15:06, Skynet Home <hydrill...@gmail.com

>> <mailto:hydrill...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I was under the impression that zigbee was not well supported by openhab
>
> It’s not - but in OpenHAB2, it is :) I have a binding for ZigBee for
> OH2 working - it will be enhanced as time goes on as the library needs
> some work, but it is an option if you want to plunge into OH2...

Nice! I'll definitely be doing some OH2 plunging, then!

[Skynet Home]

Chris Jackson:  Can I pair these Z-Wave sensors with my Aeon Z-Stick and openhab?

 http://www.homedepot.com/p/GoControl-GoControl-Essentials-DIY-Home-Security-Kit-Z-Wave-and-Wink-Enabled-WNK01-21KIT/205785795

Apparently they are made by Nortek and rebranded as GoControl if that helps any!

[Skynet Home]

I went ahead and bought the sensors above and they paired up fine with my z-stick they are listed as unknown devices in habmin. Is there something I can do to include them in the binding so that they work properly?

[Mark Chaney]

Zigbee is pretty much another close to closed source solution, so I wouldn't recommend it either. Go with 315mhz, 433mhz, or 2.4ghz (esp8266) and then use mqtt with it. I think thats the most universal and flexible solution you can do while still staying cost effective. The great thing about the esp8266 devices is that most of the time you dont even need another microcontroller to use with it.

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[Skynet Home]

Sounds good I'll look into it! Any ideas on how to build a database for a Z-wave device? I would love to be able to do this on my own without having to depend on others to do the work for me!

[dario....@souliss.net]

You can use Souliss, that is basically an open-source ZWave. It runs on Arduino and ESP8266 and create a network based on Etjernet, WiFi, ptp RF at 900 MHz/2.4 Ghz, RS485.

It also include an event based communication protocol for nodes and user interfaces, has its own native openHAB binding and an Android application.

Isn't much hard to use, all the network stuff and behind the user code and you basically just have to assign an address amd define the equivalent of profiles (we call them Typicals) and you can get your node running fastly.

It use common Arduino boards and transceivers.

Isn't really known out of the Souliss community but has a couple of thousand of running installation from more than a year and is very robust.

Have a look at souliss on Github.

Regards,
Dario.

[Chris Jackson]

On Friday, 26 June 2015 02:58:34 UTC+1, Mark Chaney wrote:

Zigbee is pretty much another close to closed source solution, so I wouldn't recommend it either.

Why do you say that?

All the documents are available for ZigBee - it's not closed source at all. Additionally, there are a number of stacks available, most of them 'free' (when you buy the respective SoC) so I think it's completely different to ZWave. 

[Chris Jackson]

On Friday, 26 June 2015 06:49:18 UTC+1, dario....@souliss.net wrote:

You can use Souliss, that is basically an open-source ZWave. 

Do you mean that it's compatible with zwave, or that it provides similar functions? The really good thing about zwave is the widely available hardware that generally will interoperate with no issues - does it provide this - it would be nice :)

[Di Maio, Dario]

Hi Chris,

ZWave is not open, it just make you able to read the spec but you cannot use them if you are not engaged in the alliance, this is in contrast with most of the open-source licenses.

The result is that you cannot build an open-source framework based on ZWave, using their spec and leveraging on other open-source related code. You should build all from scratch license in a way that is ZWave compliance and use it in non commercial product.

So, Souliss doesn't use ZWave specification but offers similar functionalities, as example Souliss runs on RS485 and Ethernet without have to bridge the protocol.

Using openHAB you can include as many supported ZWave devices as you want, and mix them with as many as you like Souliss / Arduino based devices.

You cannot have Souliss and ZWave devices communicating directly, but they can via openHAB. You will end-up with two network, one based on Souliss and the other on ZWave.

Regards,

Dario.

 

[Mark Chaney]

Its not open in my book if it requires special licensing for commercial use, etc. You don't see a bunch of cheap devices (less than $5) that allow your device to be used within a zigbee network like you do with other standards.

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[Chris Jackson]

On Friday, 26 June 2015 09:31:18 UTC+1, Di Maio, Dario wrote:

Hi Chris,

ZWave is not open, it just make you able to read the spec but you cannot use them if you are not engaged in the alliance, this is in contrast with most of the open-source licenses.

Absolutely - I said this right at the top of this thread. ZWave is closed source and I'm very well aware of this.

I was simply querying your point where you said "You can use Souliss, that is basically an open-source ZWave" as it's not an open soruce zwave as it's not interoperable - it's simply another protocol system of which there are many options. Sorry if that was confusing, but I was just trying to understand your point.

 

[Di Maio, Dario]

My bad, probably "an open-source alternative to ZWave" gives less opportunity of misleading.

Dario.

[Chris Jackson]

On Friday, 26 June 2015 10:15:37 UTC+1, Mark Chaney wrote:

Its not open in my book if it requires special licensing for commercial use, etc. You don't see a bunch of cheap devices (less than $5) that allow your device to be used within a zigbee network like you do with other standards.

Yes, if you want to use it commercially then licencing may be necessary, but it's still open. You can use it as a hobyist, components ARE cheap (certainly less than $10) and it WILL then interoperate with other zigbee devices.

[Di Maio, Dario]

Be aware, that you cannot mix a ZWave based code with other open-source licensed as GPL or others. You cannot even release this code in the internet.

I'm not so in deep with the licensees, there are probably workaround, but as general point ZWave licenses doesn't comply with most of open-source licenses.

Dario.

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[Chris Jackson]

Absolutely - the zwave data (documentation etc) is only available under NDA (and after paying around $25k!).

[Di Maio, Dario]

AFAIK, documentation is available for free, but use is restricted as stated before.

Dario.

On Fri, Jun 26, 2015 at 12:01 PM, Chris Jackson <ch...@cd-jackson.com> wrote:

Absolutely - the zwave data (documentation etc) is only available under NDA (and after paying around $25k!).

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[Chris Jackson]

On Friday, 26 June 2015 11:21:02 UTC+1, Di Maio, Dario wrote:

AFAIK, documentation is available for free, but use is restricted as stated before.

No - the documentation is not freely available. There are some copies of old documents of some documents in the public domain that have leaked out, but in theory they aren't available except to companies (or individuals) who sign the NDA and pay up.... (unfortunately) 

[Di Maio, Dario]

I'm sorry, I've confused ZWave and ZigBee. The ZigBee Home Automation standard is freely downloadable with the constrains discussed before.

Dario.

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[Frederico]

I have arduinos with serial binding and http binding, but I am planning on testing the mqtt and http://www.mysensors.org/ ... It looks good on paper :)

Did anybody tried this yet?

 

    Frederico