I am new to automation and looking to make my home a bit smarter. To this end I am considering using openhab running as a VM on an ESXi platform with an Aeon USB gen 2 for a zwave interface, I have ordered the following hardware:
2 x Fibaro universal binary sensors
2 x Aeon 6 in 1 sensors
3 x DS18B20 temp sensors
1 x Vision ZM1701 door lock
My research has shown that apart from the door lock all this should be doable in openhab via the zwave dongle.
So my general question is does anyone see any issues/have any comments on my proposed HW list?
Also, what can I do in the interim to get the door lock integrated, do I need an intermediate controller to handle the zwave stuff?
I also have a raspberry Pi2 with piface module installed which I intend to somehow integrate into the openhab system so I can get access to its IO. Could this just be run as a second instance of openhab/secondary controller maybe or do I need other software for it?
I see no issues. Some people have had a challenge passing the USB dongle to the VM but in general this looks reasonable. You can check the z-wave database here to make sure your specific devices are supported. If they are not it is usually pretty easy to add it unless it uses the Security Command Class.
You will need a hub that can both communicate with your lock and communicate with OH. Vera seems to be pretty popular and there is support for a rooted Wink hub.
The recommended approach is to have just one OH instance in a given deployment and use other software to report back or received commands on the remote RasPis. I do this using a Python script I wrote and use MQTT to receive sensor updates from my RasPis. It works quite well.
Yes the security class is still the stumbling block with openhab and zwave, although I see some people are claiming to sort of have their locks working after much manual tinkering.
I have changed my order for the lock to a Lockwood (Yale) zwave deadbolt one as it seems this may offer more chance in the future of being integrated into openhab, also I can pull the zwave module out in the meantime and use the keypad (save battery) until it can work in openhab.
Could I run openhab directly on the pi with the zwave usb stick and also the piface integration or would this be too much for the pi (its a pi2 model)?
I just got a zwave network set up and added a couple of the Aeotec 6in1 sensors, was not that difficult. I did find both of my sensors temperature reading were a bit high out of the box. I did have trouble setting the calibration in habmin, the fellow from Aeon Labs offered to give one a test from his end and let me know, so a bit tick for customer support there. Alternatively thanks to watou it was relatively straight forward to add a rule to calibrate them.
