EnOcean, Z-wave, Zigbee, KNX ... protocols and equipment you prefer

Hardware Home Automation
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Dear Community,

From your experience which protocols and equipment you prefer ?

I know Z-wave has more range over Zignee, and Enocean doesn’t considers on energy harvesting concept, but I want to ask about the most reliable protocols and even specific equipment (model number) ?

Also I want to ask: did you control RGB strip which has IR receiver using IR sender (and if so, can you guide me for the equipment you used) ?

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This is going to be hard to answer because most of us static on a small set of technologies so we don’t have the ability to compare them.

From my personal experience, in all of the technologies I’ve used and based on my impression from reading the forum all of the technologies are reliable once you get them initially set up. And this includes diy stuff like esp8266 and the like.

Both zwave and zigbee are both networks so the reliability and range of the Network has more to do with how many mains powered devices you have and how they are distributed. For example, let’s say the range of zwave is 100m (I’m making this up, I don’t remember the actually range) and it supports up to the hops. That means theoretically you can have up to a 300m range assuming you have devices every 100m. I know nothing about Enocean.

Personally, I prefer zwave in situations where I want something to just work and I never have to mess with it again. I like Sonoff for things I want to temporarily control like holiday lights. I use RPis with a custom script to interact with dumb devices (e.g. garage door opener). And I use NodeMCUs for sensors.

Except for the zwave, everything else runs on wifi using MQTT or through a cloud API (Nest, weather).

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Hello, I am also currently thinking about which system I should use, especially the points:

  • stability and reliability
  • range
  • support by openhab
  • costs
  • power consumption
  • radiation load

are important to me.
I tried z-wave, zigbee and enocean in a little “proof of concept”. Everything could be more or less well integrated and for all 3 there is also pro and contra.

What do you prefer?

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What about Sonoff, I assume if the area is covered by wifi, and using some wifi based devices such as Sonoff; it will work without worrying about signal coverage as in Z-wave, Enocean, Zigbee?

In addition, I see sonoff is cheaper with considerable amount. However, is Sonoff reliable and is it cloud based?

Please advise me because I never used Sonoff

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If you flash Sonoff with Tasmota (i.e. replace the firmware) it will communicate over MQTT locally. If not you are dependent on their cloud and I’m not sure their stock firmware/cloud service is supported by OH.

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Hello my dear,

Please I have two questions:

  • Is Sonoff reliable?
  • Can Sonoff work in alternative with normal light switch, so if the automation system is down the light can be operated from the normal switch (as same as fibaor switch)?
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I only have experience with Sonoff Basics which go inline on a power cord. I’ve found them to be very reliable. I have no idea about their other products though so can’t answer the other questions.

I do know that many users use lots of Sonoff devices quite happily.

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