Z ware or 433 or LightwaveRF for window sensors?

Setup, Configuration and Use Beginners
1

Hi Team

New to OpenHAB. I have just got hold of a Raspberry pi 3, installed
OpenHab 2, have my Sones, HUE, Chromecast up and running (not yet presented in
a nice way – have to find more info about how OpenHAB works ;-)).

And now to the question. I would like to get all my windows
covered with sensors, so when I leave, I can see at a display, if all windows
are closed – that is 10 windows.

And I can see, that the easiest way would be to setup up z
wave windows sensors at all windows – but also the most expensive.

(z wave estimated price - RaspUnit: Aeon Stick Gen5: 50 Euro, Windows: 40 Euro each – 400 Euro,
Total 450 Euro.)

433Mhz solution looks to much cheaper

(433Mhz estimated price - RaspUnit: Rfxcom Transceiver USB :
110 Euro, Windows: 10 euro each – 100 Euro, Total: 220 Euro).

But it also sounds like, that not all 433 stuff works
together. You have to debug the signals and find out, what to send and receive.

“LightWaveRF” WiFi link (?)

looks like there is some kind of binding for this (https://github.com/openhab/openhab/wiki/LightwaveRF-Binding),
so this should also work with OpenHAB, and you should expect this works between
the components, since it is from same vendor.…

(LIghtWaveRF estimated price – Raspunit (via wifi) LightwaveRF JSJSLW930 Smartphone Wi-Fi Web
Link: 90 pund, Windows: 14 pund each – 140 pund, Total 230 pund – 270 euro).

So is the conclusion:

zWave – 450 euro, should be easy and almost guarantied will
work.

LightWaveRF Wifi Link – 270 Euro, Should also work since
from same company.

433Mhz – 220 euro, cheapest, but not sure if it works.

Regarding 433 Mhz – do we have experience with ‘set’ or
elements that works together, and should be okey to work with ?

Looking forward for your comments - and guidance

/Joern.

2

I have got a couple of variations of 433 cheap ebay sensors but they only send a single command once contact has broken and not even upon contact again so no idea if the window/door is open or closed just that it has been opened.

Used an RF receiver on the arduino just to capture commands.

I would love to be proved wrong or another device that can do this but I haven’t actually done much research into magnetic reed sensors themselves so I’m not sure if it is actually possible.

3

Don’t forget to think about battery life if you don’t want to use wired sensors.
My zwave door/window sensors have a battery life of about 18 month.
I’m pretty sure all 433 MHz sensors are a lot shorter on battery life …

4

Maybe these sensors are answering your needs:

1 Like
5

I’m using the window sensors from the MAX! system at ~20€ each. MAX! is actually a closed thermostat control system, but
openHAB can control it remotely.
The sensors are meant to signal open windows to the thermostats, but they work standalone, too, and pretty reliably.
You need another 50€ device called maxcube to control thermostats and/or sensors (868 MHz radio <-> Ethernet gateway).
Thermostats are 35€, btw.

6

Bought them - just the wait for them to turn up! Also downloaded your 433toMQTT sketch and will play around with that later, saves me a job writing it. I’ve also noticed that sometimes when a rf command is sent by a device it can show up 3/4 times in the rcswitch receive example sketch. Is it not a problem in your scenario?

7

Hello,

It is a good point that you pointed out and it can impact your rules design.
For answering your question i don’t have problem with this. If you have a sensor like the example you can manage it by using a change trigger instead of update for your rules. If you have sensor sending only one code when the event occur you can add a timer to your rule to restore the sensor state after a certain time.
In both case the change trigger will avoid to repeat actions into openhab each time the signal is fired.
At gateway level the number of repeat can be set by changing the corresponding parameter into the setup part of the sketch.

8

Thanks for the replies. when doing 443MHz integration, what HW do you use to connect to something … .like Rasp ?

/Jørn

9

My raspberry pi is connected by ethernet to my box.
An ethernet gateway or an ESP8266 gateway is also connected to the box and make the link between RF and Openhab through MQTT.
You can also use alternatively:

  • Add an emitter and a receiver directly to the pi and use 433Utils library
  • RFLink (Arduino Mega) connected to your pi by USB
  • RFLink (Arduino Mega) linked to an esp8266 talking MQTT to the Pi
  • RFXCom, more expensive solution
  • Broadlink RM Pro (but I don’t know if it is possible to interface it with OpenHAB)