There’s currently no out of the box solution that’s a Z-wave or WiFi photoelectric switch. So I thought I could cobble one together using the separate components.
The ‘sensor’ part I understand. Something like these:
I figure that those devices produce some kind of a open or closed circuit (or voltage) that can drive something else. It’s that “something else” I’m having trouble identifying. Normally those devices would be hooked up to an automatic door or alarm.
In my case, I want to hook it up to a “whatever you call it” that accepts an input and can ‘relay’ and translate that signla/event over z-wave or wifi so that I can perform some action whenever it’s tripped. (again, I don’t know what it’s called). All I know is that I want the photoelectric switch + [SOME INPUT DEVICE].
Think of a tripwire on a doorway for example. If someone walks past the door, they would ‘trip’ the wire. OpenHAB will then perform some action such as ring an alarm, turn on the lights, etc…
This is a great introduction to DIY electronics. But there are a ton of approaches you can take and the specifics of the sensors you choose will largely drive the approach.
What powers them? What’s the voltage and wattage? Do they have readily accessible pins you can wire to or do you need to solder to the circuit board? The answers to all of these questions will potentially drive you in one direction or another.
For example, you might be able to hook a Raspberry Pi up to it, but only if the output from the sensor is 3.5v. If it’s 5v you’ll fry your RPi. On-the-other-hand, an Arduino nano can handle 5v sensors, but doesn’t come with any wireless capabilities out of the box.
Your first link does show some palces to wire in a sensor but this device is built to work with gates and garage door openers and all of the voltages mentioned are way out of anything that would be supported by an RPi, ESP, or Arduino.
The second one says 6v-36v which is also way out of range.
So you’ll need to find an alternative sensor which can support the dry contact sensor wires operating at 3.5v or 5v, or wire in a power converter.
No, that’s a relay. You tell it to be open (i.e. off) or closed (i.e. on) and it’s used to control a device, not as sensor reporting.
You will almost certainly not find anything suitable for Zwave, though Fibaro I think used to make some sensor modules that one could hook sensors up to. If those are still avaialble, and support the necessary voltages that could work.
If all you are wanting is a way to indicate that the photocell beam is broken within OpenHAB to trigger some action, then yes you could use the Shelly 's switch contact section and the Shellys state report in OpenHAB to be your input indicator. you would need to use it as a dc powered device and external power source best if you use the same 12 to 24 vdc source your photocell receiver uses to be powered and loop the normally open section of the photocell receiver dry contacts to be the “switch device” for the shelly. Then you will have what it seems you are trying to get for monitoring in OpenHAB the photo beam breaking indication You may want to use a multimeter to check if one of the switch contacts is shared with the power of the shelly likely the L (or +12volt) is and you are pulling the SW contact up to that value so the “C” of the photocell receivers would have the be looped with whatever the L or +12 of the Shelly has and then the NO of the photocell would be connected to the SW of the Shelly device Thus the C and the NO of the photocell receiver is the “switch” for the Shelly device.
Effectively you are using the photocell dry contacts like a “light switch” for the shelly device.
So, yea this would work for you. Note the relay contacts in the Shelly device are not used but you could use them as well for something else like turning on a 12 to 24 vol DC device in as an extra feature too. As those contacts would have the same power switching of the power source running the Shelly device.
That was based on the first device you linked from amazon.
The second device did not indicate what the receiver side had for its “switch output” so it may not work if it is using a TTL type output to trigger state changes (beam broke).
