With new Smarthings hub station not supporting Zwave a little hesitant to buy more Zwave. Have older Smarthings hub v2 right now. Is Zwave in smarthings potentially fading?
I think Z-Wave in general is a little on the outside looking in, but it's not going away anytime soon! I don't think I'd worry about buying Z-Wave products as long as you have a hub with a 5+ year timeframe. Not sure the V2 has that, but a V3/Aeotec does in my mind.
zwave stick with thread(zigbeeTOO)? That would be nice for building a Home Assistant install for Apple Home compatibility. I have many Zwave stuff thats 23 years old going strong. Can only think of two that failed entirely.
Great presentation but I have one burning question regarding the Aeotec motion sensor features. At about the 18:15 time stamp in the blue box you list 3 features with one of them being "Hopes & Dreams"...What the hell does that mean? lmao. It was damn funny but is there a legit reference or was this for comic relief? I applaud your wit if that was the intent.
Batteries are a big one pushing me away from Aeotec. I recently bought a bunch of IKEA gear, and it's gonna be easy to go to Costco and bulk-buy replacement AAA batteries. They devices are also extremely competitively priced. I like that Aeotec isn't a Chinese company and that they have a great product line of solid Z-Wave products. Very attractive! But then I'm pushed back again by the fact that they don't have a magnet on the motion sensor and no mmWave options. I do like that they can be USB- or battery-powered though. So many great things, but the battery types used are super weird. Might extend the life of the battery, but then you can't easily buy them in bulk :(.
Why do Z-Wave devices get slower when more are added? I thought there was a way to re-sync the mesh network. I also thought they could directly connect to the hub more easily, so it wouldn't make sense for there to be a delay (by going through other devices). Does Z-Wave Plus (700) change any of this?
Every device added on a Z-Wave network adds latency. It's not so much "speed" of the network. It's latency in contacting the devices. Network complexity is what's doing it and Z-Wave doesn't really change latency with the newer standards of 700/800. Not as far as I've seen.
I am fully enjoying this format of video Brian! I don't have any aeotec in my house yet because the smart things fail rate is so low. ( I've lost 1 motion sensor and one st bulb in 5 years ) . If I have any suggestion It would be to put them in real world scenarios , where they go, what they save or make more convenient....I try to play the money saving angle on my channel , but I don't know if many are interested in that.
Recently bought a house and decided to start replacing my "best effort" 433MHz equipment with Z-Wave. Went with all Aeotec stuff for the first batch; a Z-Stick 7, a Water Sensor 7 Pro, an aërQ, and two MultiSensor 7. All hooked up to my Home Assistant instance. So far it's been a bit of a mixed bag. Definitely requires a bunch of reading manuals and a bit of trial and error to get these devices configured correctly, but that's mostly a one time thing and very much a Z-Wave thing in general. As for performance, most of the devices have been working fine for a month now, but one of the multisensors refuses to detect motion (it did work when I set it up, and it still reports other sensor readings, but motion just stopped working for whatever reason). I am getting a bit tired of tinkering with it, and I'm thinking maybe putting so many different sensors in a single device isn't a great idea. Hopefully everything else keeps working, but it does feel a bit concerning that one of the four devices I bought doesn't work right. They're certainly not cheap.
I did have a little issue when I use to use an AEOTEC Z-Stick in Home Assistant, but that was a 500 series stick and was in the early days of Z-wave in Home Assistant. I use a Home Assistant Yellow now, and I got a Razberry 7 from zwave me and that seems to work reliably. Also, it plugs onto the header on the yellow, to make it a more integrated hub, so it is like having in built z-wave and Zigbee, and given I got a CM4 with wireless, it gives me inbuilt bluetooth and wifi as well, so it becomes a complete hub, especially given the inbuilt zigbee chip can also run multiprotocol to be thread and zigbee when I do decide to get Thread products in the future :) Like Brian mentioned, I would exclude that malfunctioning sensor, fully factory reset it, and then try a reinclusion. It may be that you were unlucky and got a faulty device, but often a reinclude can fix a tempramental Z-Wave product.
Great job, Brian and I like the format. I've recently been messing with a load cell to trigger an automation. I want to use a door switch as a way of making a condition available to other systems. I knew I had seen a door sensor someplace with "dry contacts" but couldn't remember where so I've had to solder across a door switch's reed switch to make it work. Door switches are great for projects outside the normal things we do. I don't use any Aeotec devices right now, but have and will buy a switch just to get that contact feature. The fact they run with Hubitat means you can also get them into Homekit. Very interesting video and a good format to help folks, like me, who have not looked at a brand for awhile.
Thank you so much for your insight Hugh! I really liked doing this video because it lets me cover so much, but I always wonder about these "test" ideas I have. :)
Fibaro use to do a door sensor with dry contacts as well, but that is a very old product now (there V1 door sensor) and doesn't even support Zwave Plus features
I damn near choked laughing at the "hopes and dreams" feature on the motion sensor! lol! Second, absolutely LOVE this video and it couldn't have come at a better time. I have an Aeotec hub which I love, and was considering if I wanted to get any of these other products after trying some other brands that I haven't been super happy with. I always come to your channel first for product recs. You're always super thorough and unbiased, and also fun to watch. Would definitely love to see more of these brand videos and I'm heading to check out the other ones now!
ahahahaha! ohhhh glad you caught that joke! And glad you're loving this format. I'll be doing more of these just based on your recommendation. I had a few in mind, so we'll start our work!
Well, guessing RU-vid didn't like my last comment and deleted it :). Anyway, I basically said I haven't had the issue with 500 series devices disconnecting. I use a razberry 7 700 series controller and it's connected to Home Assistant with Z-wave-JS (which is currently in process of being fully certified). Maybe that makes a difference over using the aeotec / smartthings hub. Also, I find Aeotec z-wave is about the same price as other z-wave products. Obviously Zigbee can be had a lot cheaper, but that is a different thing :)
I have/had three of the Aeotec 7 Door/Window sensors that I purchased back in 2020. I had to change the batteries in them every few months. And that building has a low amount of door traffic. Just recently, each sensor one-by-one died off - would not even work with a verified fresh battery. The one year warranty should have been a red-flag... I personally will never purchase this, or any other brand that has a one year warranty.
If that's going on, you likely have a communication problem. I would expect an interference source. But the death of them could mean something else. In any case, odd and unlike anything I've experienced. Good to add here though if people have had this go on...maybe something faulty.
I like the format too. I especially welcome any updates about whether and when the product ranges you survey are indicating their Thread-based products will launch.
Loved the video Brian. I have been building a smart home but slowly with purchasing items now and then and I think a video such as yours can be extremely beneficial for those in a similar position. Knowing which makes seem better than other when playing together can save you quite a bit of time and money knowing your purchasing the right goods and using your videos for reference. Keep it up mate, definitely the first content maker I trust
Agree some of the aeotec gear is pricey. When possible, i go with thirdreality gear but I do love my aeotec hub, aeotec leak sensor and Smartthings. Essentially, my criteria is for all zigbee and zwave that it be compatible and I refuse to add another hub to be able to buy the inexpensive zigbee gear, ie, Aqara, Sonoff, Sengled, etc. I'll pay the Aeotec premium to avoid another hub. Lastly, the Aeotec Heavy Duty Zwave 40amp smart switch is excellent. It appears to be the only device that can make my ancient 220 volt in the wall AC unit smart. And of course, all this stuff works with Alexa and Google Home. Excellent video. Thanks as always!
That's a really great point with the Heavy Duty one. I don't have a use case for that at the moment, but man is that a solidly built device by Aeotec. Glad you're loving that and a few other things!
@@AutomateYourLife Very solidly built device. I must have a zillion on/off cycles already on it in less than a year with it. Has a very satisfying "thunk" when engaged
I get a echo with the built-in hub for prime day and I would like to use a smart button with my Alexa routines without getting a different hub do you have any recommendations? Please help been trying to figure it out for 2 days
@@develinallen9019The Echo is a good hub, but it just doesn't have support for buttons :( As far as I know, the only buttons that work automatically with Alexa are the flic buttons, but they're super expensive and you still have to have a flic hub anyway. I started my smart home with just the Echo, but eventually I branched out and got the Aeotec hub when I wanted to do more complex things that Alexa didn't support. You can do a ton just with Alexa alone, but unfortunately not buttons yet!
Hi!! I'm planning my smart home,and I want to use the Smartthings hub to be the main controller of my house. But something I'm really concerned about is how to get to know if a device is compatible to run directly with the samsung hub or not. I like so much zemismart (tuya) and I want to buy the switches,curtain drivers and IR controllers of them. And about sensors,I would use the aqara ones. My voice assistant will be alexa,and all devices are going to be zigbee or thread. My question is: is there a way so I can check it out if the devices I am selecting are compatible or not? The informations that I found on internet were so weak and frustating
