Z-Wave Rain and Wind Sensors for OpenHAB

Hardware Home Automation
1

Hi there,
just wanted to share my experience with Rain and Wind Sensors.
I needed those for ceiling window closing and my Markise, which should roll in when it’s raining or windy.
I was searching for different solutions, including Weather stations, Popp Z-wave wind and rain sensors, Qubinos, but nothing was fulfillin my requirements, which are:

  • mains powered solution if possible, no batteries, as it will be installed closer to the roof and I have no wish to change batteries there.
  • Immediate and reliable reaction to wind and rain. Wind should be calibrated - e.g. I want to be sure, that it will trigger at 10m/s.
  • Better Z-wave protocol.

So finally I landed on following combination:

So I assembled all together, created entries and rules, and all works perfectly. Binary sensor has also input for 1-wire Temperature sensors, so they can be connected also.
So here is a story. Let me know if you need more information - process is straight forward, but someone needs to

3 Likes
2

Is there relay required because the sensor themselves do not work independently?

It isn’t clear, but it looks like the sensors connect to the relay and the relay connected to the Fibaro and it is the Fibaro that connects to ZWave.

3

The wind sensor based on reed relay, so it has pulse output, which needs to be converted to binary signal. I didn’t find any suitable Z-Wave pulse counter, so the best solution for me was to use provided LRW relay from same supplier. This relay has also inputs for other sensors - rain, light. So for the rain sensor I even don’t know type of the output - I have just connected it to LRW according to diagram. It looks it was just optocoupler, so it basically could be connected to Z-Wave binary sensor directly. In any case for each sensor LRW relay has individual output and some settings which might be useful.
The connection was done as you said - sensors connected to LRW relay. LRW relay output to intermediate relays and they to Fibaro binary sensor.

4

Hi,
Are you using OpenHAB 2? If yes, I wonder how you managed to use FIBARO UNIVERSAL BINARY SENSOR with OpenHAB 2. I bought one for testing but could not make it work. Although the thing is correctly discovered, the status on the inputs is not correctly read/updated by OpenHAB 2.
In the forum other users pointed out issues with such device.
Did you use special settings in OpenHAB 2 to make it receive the inputs status?
Thanks
Andrea

5

That device is working fine with openHAB2.
Include it, let it initialize, add the Thing, link your items to the available channels:

Switch FibUniSens1_1 { channel="zwave:device:uzb:nodexx:sensor_binary1" }
Switch FibUniSens1_2 { channel="zwave:device:uzb:nodexx:sensor_binary2" }
Number FibUniSens1_0 { channel="zwave:device:uzb:nodexx:scene_number" }
6

It’s fine for me too up to items definition, no problem.
BUT the items does not get updates when IN1 or IN2 on the board are connected/disconnected to ground.
Only for IN2 I can see in OpenHAB log messages like this:

NODE 6: Received a multi instance encapsulation with a destination endpoint = 2. on IN2

For IN1 I even don’t get anything in the log… (maybe board is DOA?)
Any Ideas?

7

Make sure you have set the correct associations groups.

8

Ok, I have removed and included the Fibaro sensor a couple of times, rebooted OpeHAB and now it’s working correctly. I have not modified any default setting.

1 Like
9

Hi there,

could you help me out how you actually wired the universal sensor. Where did you put the GND?
I guess You wire GND+ IN1 to the relay and P (+) to 24VDC power supply, but I don´t know if this is right?

Many thanks upfront…