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Hello Andreas, I have about 8 years of experience with the Eltako enOcean switches. We chose Loxone as "heart" of our house control. Loxone provides an enOcean receiver component. Up to now, I really had no problems with the enOcean components. I was a bit concerned about the robustness of the switches especially about the energy harvesting part. But, it looks like it proves me wrong. The tension of the switches is still as new. I am very surprised. The real benefit of using wireless switches is, that at building time of our house we did not have to think about the placement of the switches.

I’m always amazed at how you take information that we’re already interested in, and make it real-world.

Hello from Basel! Just to say thanks for the comprehensive content. Your channel is a really useful resource.

Very cool video and accurate analysis, Andreas! Thanks for spreading this information on our technology. Frank, CTO of EnOcean

Really great concept! Super useful for all kinds of things and excellent mechanical and electrical design. You are right that they aren’t the good fit for everything but certainly their are applications.

Thank you for all your videos, truly a great resource for information in this channel!

Video was just awesome.. I got to learn lots things. Thanks improving me.. Keep on making great videos like I will surely watch & will share with my frnds.

Thanks. Very informative and fun to watch your video project. Your efforts are appreciated.

I've used the switches in several places around my house, both the new kinetic version demonstrated here and by Big Clive and the previous ones that had either a button cell or a minature12V battery. I agree that they are expensive, but you can place them anywhere convenient and their most useful aspect is that you don't have to channel walls or run new cables. For example, I have two sets of outside lights which are powered from a supply in my garage. The switches are inside the house and I haven't had to drill holes through walls or run wires. Similarly it was far cheaper to use these switches when we moved an internal doorway. Rather than channelling the plaster a couple of surface mounted switches did the job and upgraded to two way switching at the same time.

I wonder if, rather than a coil, they could use piezoelectric Edit: you answered my question lol. I wrote this at 7:40

Thanks again for fantastic content ... all best from Croatia

Hey Andreas i always enjoy your swiz accent. Thank you for all the content that you bring. I also love your Harley :)

I have been using six door knobs with piezo power generation for years, that was the best decision. Before that, the battery was ALWAYS empty when you needed it most.😅

Very interesting. As you say, not suitable for lots of scenarios, but I'm sure this technology will be the perfect solution to a problem I will have one day, now that I know it exists! Thanks

Twelve years ago I looked at these devices for buildings (10,000 sf and up). In the end I concluded they did not have the signal distance needed to reliably operate in buildings. Since then devices like the Bosch BME280 offer multiple variables from a single sensor, which is very desirable. I'm using Tasmota running on the ESP8266 with 2.4 GHz WiFi and very pleased with their performance. Building managers need reliability - period. Plus piggybacking on the building WiFi works reasonably well - although I frequently install local routers to boost the 8266 signal to jump on the building WiFi. The best part: WiFi is ubiquitous. Maybe we need spread spectrum. 20 years ago a friend tested his auto door fob over a 3 mile hilly area in southern California. Boom - it unlocked the car doors immediately. Impressive by any standard using a battery-powered fob. Over 1 million car door unlock systems are sold in the U.S. every year - mostly in the Northeast/New England region where garages are hard to find. Thanks so much for such great videos. I've learned a lot.

Great idea Great video as always Thanks for sharing your experiences with all of us :-)

Truly interesting. The best solution I have seen so far on this channel. How about the longevity of the switches? The mechanical part seems like it can easily break or suffer from metal fatigue.

Love the demonstration ❤️

Another very interesting video. Thank you!

Very nice things! Thank you for video.

Excellent video... as usual.

Very interesting. Didn't know how much a raspberry can distort a signal up close. Explains why i had issues on a simple project i tried years ago. That was an 8266 btw.

I'd like to extend my usage of home automation and these type of sensors and switches seems to be what I want. The amount of batteries I use is way to large from an environmental point of view already so adding even more is out of the question.

Hi Andreas, I'd also put Z-Wave in the competitors chart. Actually, it is even closer to EnOcean than ZigBee, as it uses the same frequency.

Very interesting! I’m also interested to see if other forms of energy harvesting will make themselves practical for home use. Like thermoelectric or rectenna designs. Rectennas especially have the option to get energy from AM radio stations or the 50Hz buzz, or could even signal to a powered node that they’re running low on juice in order to get a pulse of RF sent their way. I’d also like to know if there are any IOT nodes inside LED light bulbs. Seems to me like the ideal place to put a powered repeater. They could even communicate optically by flashing IR at one another if they’re within line of sight (good down a hallway) so you could avoid too much RF bouncing about the place. Same for power line comms, which is surely good enough to spit a couple of bytes to and fro. I’m not really sure where to start with a power line comms circuit however, I think I’d have to start with a twin-T notch filter in each device, which could get a little bulky with all the class X caps. Even more so if you’re using an LC filter. After that filter you should be able to spit in data at a few kHz in and receive it again with a normal CMOS output, maybe requiring an extra half-bridge, though I’ve no idea how you’d design a nodal communication protocol across just one wire that has to be entirely AC coupled (I don’t like the idea of feeding DC into the transformer) so no pull-up resistors like I2C. A protocol that lets each slave transmit data whenever, that is. It would be trivial if the slaves only transmitted when addressed by the master, but continuous polling could get really slow if your bandwidth and SNR limited like you would be here. Then again power line comms can carry internet these days so what do I know?

I've been using the following EnOcean setup for 2 years now: Raspberry Pi + FHEM + NodON (220V relay) to provide waters to my chickens :) It's an expensive technology so I'm hesitant to get more sensors and actuators on it.

Interesting project 😉

I use several Enocean devices in my flat - mostly temperature and windows sensors, 2 smart plugs and relays. After 5 years in service i can confirm that they are reliable , battery is still operational. Integration for Home assistant out of the box is limited for few type of devices only so i use homegear container for translation. The minor issue with such devices is when my SBC running HASS stop due power outage for example, all Enocean devices do not report immediately status, but in worst case scenario it takes up to 40 minutes or if there is significant temperature/status change. BTW Philips hue buttons are using same buttons

Andreas and his Harley - that is an icon! ;-) And btw: you - the guy from the first row - have always full pocket of batteries, spare ESP32 and few buck converters - just in case ;-)

thanks, it was interesting!

Thank you Andreas, you always manage it to discover and explain concepts that are unknown to me ☺️👍 I feel home automation standards are still too volatile, that means transmission technologies, protocols and control systems. "Matter" is the next big hype, so I likely continue to switch the light on using my finger and a mechanic switch. 😅

Fricking love EnOcean. It's expensive af, but worth it.

About 12:50 Luckily a new standard is in the making to make sure that burglars have to handle this use case to be compliant: ISO-112 (ISO-911 in the US, ISO-999 in the UK)

I use the PTM215Z (Zigbee variant). The main reason for me to choose them, was he fact that it is was supposed to use the same protocol as the actuators. However, when implemented, I found out that they use the Zigbee Green Power subprotocol and therefore need translating. If that barrier is lifted, i.e. if they can be bound directly to endpoints on actuators it would become even better. As it stands, it works pretty well. The translating is done by a Hue smart plug which is tucked away in a corner. When researching this, I found Schneider Electric have a complete range of Bluetooth Low Energy batteryless wireless switches. The pressure needed for the press is about 300g. I believe that this has potential.

Would love to see some tech that can harvest energy from wideband terrestrial or extraterrestrial radio waves, from VLF to GHz - there must be quite a usable flux density available for micro and milliwatt devices. Would only need to trickle charge a small supercap for use.

Those push button switches have another advantage, they do not have contacts that corrode. I live on the coast and the sea air corrodes metallic items very quickly. Push button switches for door bells do not last long due to this problem. My next door neighbour fitted a new door bell with one of these push buttons and solved the problem. Next time my door bell fails I will probably do the same.

I think I'll put up a sticker for the burglar that says to open and close the window until he hears the alarm :D

13:55 👌 Energy harvesting at very small scale is idea of bright future.

Very interesting video ! Not totally agree about these xiaomi / aquara buttons : they are not adapted to our homés interior but they have a great design and they are reliable. I’m very impressed by the distance detection, they are still work in a closed hand or when they are next a metal sheet (433mhz device are really more impacted by ther things), the protocol is secure and mesh, the battery autonomy is more than one year. I have already associated more than 80 on one gateway and many month later all the buttons were ok in battery and association. For the price this button still an example.

Super cool

A very informative video. Although I like the idea of switches without battery ( I am using a couple of Philips Hue taps, which work with zigbee2mqtt now), I think the prices are a little high and adding yet another usb stick to my fhem setup (3 so far, all on a short extension cables to get some distance to the NUC) will make it look more and more like a kraken.

Great presentation Andreas - At 11:30: What is the SDR program (and radio) you’re using in the ‘Radio Signals’ portion?

Thanks for highlighting enocean. I am observing this technology for more than 30 years, when Siemens researches published a lot and held many talks in scientific congresses. It started with piezo actuators but as you showed, today they use magnetic power generators today. The technology always had a promising future but the present was always midly. I hoped that the company Eltako would bring a breakthrough. But Zigbee overtook. As far as I know, Enocean also has mains powered devices acting as repeater.

Speaking about energy harvesting "as is" inside the buildings, we probably (just as an idea) use some coils to harvest all the interference from powerful lines (of course, inside the buildings, etc) and store it inside batteries or even supercapacitors. Yes, the interference energy would be low, but how often do we use switches for example? Too rarely is the answer. So, we can just collect all that energy for our wireless devices.

Andreas, thanks for the video. While I don’t fully understand, you have me thinking... again. I'm monitoring my water meter remotely and using batteries since I have no mains power at the street with the meter. The sensor is a magnetometer that is mostly asleep waiting for the magnet in the meter to spin (polling). With your help I now see that spinning magnet as 1. a voltage spike interrupt trigger, and 2. a parasitic (magneto) energy source. This solves a bunch of problems for me and creates a whole set of new ones. What The Flux, I can't loose, right? I thank you... I think. :) BTW, the burglar example made perfect sense to me.

Andreas I envy you for the fact that you do not mind learning about many new things. I find it difficult to adopt new technologies that do not serve an immediate use for my surroundings. I try to get many tools under my belt but it feels like my tool belt is tiny.

" The temperature in my lab is not secret " -Some guy with a Swiss accent

Another great video! Do you think it’s reliable to use such energy harvesting switches and also what components(MCU, radio, energy storage, etc.) would you recommend for diy experiments?

I use some „friends of hue“ switches, wich work with energy harvesting piezo generators as well. The „WAF“ (wife acceptance factor) is not very high, as you have to press with some force. Otherwise they don’t switch the lamps as expected. Changing batteries every 2-3 years is still the better solution for me.

Enocean already supports mesh/repeaters! "Wireless EnOcean repeater". URL to the datasheet in separate comments, because youtube often hides comments with URLs in them.

Since I had to do some reasearch into enOcean for university, I'm really want to play around with it.

Only a day later Andreas sorry mate. Like the title, very well thought out.

Interesting, and I intend doing some experiments with these devices myself. One thing that bothers me with ALOHA protocol, is that while in learning mode, how can we be sure that the received signal is actually from the device we intended? For example, 868MHz is not so crowded now, but will become more crowded as these devices proliferate. If a neighbour switches one of their devices while we are training the device, it will inevitably result in an incorrect pairing. In really busy environments, this may become increasingly frustrating to find the device we actually want to pair. Interesting times ahead for sure. Thanks Andreas.

Mesh networks use a lot more power: not only do the nodes have to be constantly on to listen, but they also need to retransmit. Energy harvesting BLE switches with mesh would only be possible if the mesh is done by wired or battery powered nodes.

Rather than the bridge rectifier, could you use a four-mosfet bridge and therefore not need the boost converter ?

Awesome.

Hi Andreas, very informative video but we IoT makers should build more weather stations that are Powered with solar energy and for nighttime operation hours why not use SuperCapacitors as Power supplies quiescent current is so low with LTC3588-1 I did not know this Power Supply Until now. A Full Bridge Rectifer and Boost Converter with selectable Voltages all in one! Very useful content. Thank you Andreas🙏

we have in company some our devices that are harvesting energy from WiFi networks electromagnetic field (indoor applications). It can create like 40 mV per second. We are running there STM32 that can run from 1.1 V. Also we have some other harvesting models that can create 200 mV per second, but it is created by human itself. Mainly we use it for LoRaWAN.

Leo's Bag of Tricks is a channel about prototyping electronics. He has a construction technique he calls "scratch and sniff" for using SMT components on solid copper pcb board. I don't need adapter pcbs anymore for SMT.

How would that work in larger buildings? Receivers in each room under the maintenance ceiling, or inside the lamps? Do they have gateways with a bus protocol for that?

That's why I like the philips hue Tab switch. The internals are the same as the shown normal double switch 03:10 and can be swapped.

HI! thanks for your video. (There is not a lot information for encoean protocole with nodered) Just few question ! When I make a LRN, the sensor don"t appear on the node "actor" but if I check on folder /.node-red/context/"folder actor name" I have the file ***.json with sensor create. Have you I idear with it don't appear ? After appearing how we can use information to make automation with nodered (EEP F6-02-01). Do you have an exemple of flow ?

Temperature is not secret but if you hook it with automation it might be exploited

I always wonder how wireless and batteryless doorbell button work, but I think it use same piezoelectric circuit as the last one. Thanks for the information

A vendor my company works with makes a light switch designed to drop in place of an existing light switch. It can be operated wirelessly, and also serve as a wireless repeater for other nodes, but it still functions as a light switch if the wireless goes down for some reason. Unfortunately, the system is proprietary, and requires access to vendor-restricted software tools. I'd love to see a device like that to support those EnOcean sensors, but operate on standard protocols.

Xiaomi has a very nice wall switch designed nicecly and coompatible with their mi home app and ha and others. I had started back in 2017 with that round sensor switch you had shown in the end and moved on in 2018 with the wall switch powered by a coin cell I had not to replace till today. these switches look like our modern busch jäger or Gira branded ones but they consist only on the outside half of the europeans switches that cover the "dose" and protect the wires.. Really nicely designed and with 10€ worth every cent.

I remember a industrial panel button by Siemens (I think) that works without power.

I really hope you will make some other development with Enocean. How to make your own EnOcean sensor (for example an air quality sensor) ! Thanks

What are the specifics(link?) of the solar hygrometer? And were there any other interesting solar charging applications?

very impressed about how much energy one can get out of a button press. i wonder if you can get enough energy out of one for wifi? 😁

Hi... I am skeptical that you needed to disable the serial console in the Pi. You can have more than one serial device, though I can understand that the name of the devices might be confusing and might even change on different boot ups.

Andreas, Thinking about "no batteries", "LoRa" and your recent "Cheap and simple Solar Power for our small Projects" video, how would you design a no battery LoRa sensor that only operated during the daylight? It would seem sensors in a crop field would only need to send soil moisture, light levels, temperature, etc. during daylight hours. Procedures such as watering at night would create more disease problems for crops anyway. The sensors may not have to send (and/or gather) information more than once a day, or at wide intervals, and could therefore aggregate some energy, maybe even enough for limited nighttime operation. Also, considering such a low power requirement have you seen LoRa development boards using the Semtech LoRa SOC designs?

You should really encrypt the temperature in your lab. The heat radiated from your body could cause slight variations in it and a burglar might be able to tell when you are not at home.

The temperature sensor looks interesting. Are they accurate-ish? Any plans to use them yourself for a decent period of time?

Does the two button toggle switch from Enocean also contain a small lipo battery or just a capacitor?

Can you please cover the wireshark protocol sometime?

I have a Kozee light receiver that uses these switches and sensors

So, I need to keep pushing the switches to power the sensor? I had expected something like harvesting power from the air or something.

It is a lot less expensive than having an electrician pull new wire through a wall...or having to have three or four way switches and all the four conductor wiring for only one light...

FULL BRIDGE RECTIFIER :D Electroboom called...

How i can unpair it with out access to mesh?

Enocean is very interesting tech. About the EMI/RFI can you investigate a little more? Maybe is rpi+metalcase a possible interference suppression. Should i use my zigbee Stick with usbcable? Should i Change my zwave shield to USB+cable?

I think i have read, enocean has also passiv and active sensors and actors. Active Komponents always relaying the signal to the master.

11:30 what software and SDR dongle are you using? Thanks!

👏👏👏

Have you seen battery-free buttons for the industry such as Schneider Electric XB5RFB01?

Has anyone worked on harvesting bugs for energy :) like a pitcher plant sensor?

I could have wished for more low-level technical discussion of enocean protocols

Hello. Can you make a Video how we can use bluetooth BLE Sensors in Node-Red?

Watched twice and didn't hear anything about range. How far can the transmitter be from the receiver?

Cool

Interesting - asked as a layman: Wolfgang from ComputerClub made a video recently where he used the electromagnetic fields to "generate" energy by simply putting up a long wire... With such low-consumption-appliances - wouldn't it be a possibility to leach on the EM-fields generated by WLAN, cellphone-networks aso?

if you replace de diode bridge with a schotkey diodes. bridge?

Have had a piezo door bell for years. Don’t know why all door bells are not like this.

He always says "here is the guy with the Swiss accent" but I never hear any trace of accent

Man kann aber auch eine SMA-Buchse für eine externe Antenne anlöten ... funktioniert super bei mir

An USB-Serial device should not interfere with the serial console on the gpio-bus of the raspberry. Also enabling the serial in raspi-config should not be necessary as it also only affects the gpio-bus.

Philosophical question : Can it really be considered as energy harvesting? It is more a super tiny power generator (your finger tips power being the fuel, which then relates to your food). When energy harvesting is by definition haversting the energy which comes to the device for free. Well... I would indeed come to the device for free (as long as I got food) ... Anyway, is the harvesting thing relates to the primary type of energy (which is considered abundant)?

I thought they may use piezo crystal

Is there a risk of 2 neighbors having similar devices and affecting eachother?