• 4 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • AA5B@lemmy.worldtohomeassistant@lemmy.worldZigBee and Zwave?
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    8 days ago

    I read it’s something like typical $5 price difference and z-wave have to pass compatibility tests

    I initially went with z-wave because

    • 900MHz frequency has better range in my house
    • compatibility is good
    • my local home center had a few z-wave devices but no Zigbee

    But I ended up with both, no problem, and will soon add Thread.

    I strongly prefer local networks instead of WiFi so I know they’re not calling home, it’s cleaner separation, and allows battery devices




  • AA5B@lemmy.worldtohomeassistant@lemmy.worldZigBee and Zwave?
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    8 days ago

    But if your phone doesn’t have great signal across the entire house a lightswitch inside of a metal box in the wall is going to be worse.

    I hesitated expecting exactly this, but so far it’s worked flawlessly.

    My house is older construction with very dense walls, and yes all the switch boxes are metal. When I enter my house, cell coverage drops to one bar and might goto zero as I walk around the house (thank goodness for WiFi assist). WiFi disappears as I go through certain doorways so I need a mesh and mesh routers about 10-15’ apart can’t communicate with each other. Back when cordless phones were a thing, they would only cover a room, although interestingly 900MHz was the best cordless phone frequency and higher frequencies had worse range. My house is horrible for radio signals.

    But both Zigbee and zWave have worked really well. It probably helps that my first priority was smart switches, which are one or more repeaters in every room and more likelihood of straight lines through doorways, but it just works. Much better than WiFi.



  • I’ve been wondering about thermal storage for heat pumps but we don’t have time of use metering yet. I see a few options online but contractors aren’t familiar and it’s not even clear whether they are really available

    My parents house when I was a kid had resistive heat, but they added thermal storage when our utility started doing time of use and it made a huge difference in the bills. However I don’t know the overall payback period













  • They also used to creep me out, but Siri was the one that got me. Of the majors, Apple is most concerned about privacy and the only one whose business model is not exploiting us that way. More importantly, as something on personal devices, it’s still useful if you require a click rather than always listening. It becomes normalized, and you no longer consider what you’re giving up

    Then we discovered using Alexa as an intercom, and the convenience of always having it listening in every room, and threw out our own privacy. I’d really like to claw this back


  • One of the best parts of HA is the HomeKit bridge: any supported device is exposed to HomeKit …… so if I’m using a personal device, my VA is Siri. Much smoother and more integrated than any of the app VAs. I have it configured to require a click, so it’s not always listening. However the rumors of the upcoming Apple smart home hub are mighty enticing, so we’ll see

    I stopped using Google Assistant years ago.

    Echo devices are pretty much in every room and a huge privacy issue. Also that’s my one integration with the biggest internet dependency. I don’t know if I can get rid of them, but I’d surely like to try



  • While I love data and crave the dashboards, for everyone else:

    • things work normally, and the “smart” functionality is added
    • my automation is timers
    • everything is voice control

    I’ve given up persuading anyone to use any of the smart functionality, although I’m likely to get the Apple home hub when it comes out.

    I’ve looked into various e-ink projects for dashboards but never had the time to follow through