This is a good reminder ā I have them paired via SmartThings and they never used the switch as a repeater (and there was no way to force it). They are pretty far from the hub, but connected directly to it and Iāve never had any problems with them (use the button every night and it works great).
My experience with Aqara sensors on zigbee2mqtt is that itās probably best to put them on their own network. I struggled to keep them connected and was constantly having drop-offs. Ultimately I ended up grabbing a second coordinator and spun up a second instance of z2m using a different zigbee channel. I connected only my Aqara and Ikea devices to this second network and theyāre finally rock solid. Itās actually made my Ikea blinds much more reliable as well which is a bonus. Iāve found even if these sensors arenāt routing through an incompatible device, even having that device on the network seems to make them drop off.
I only have Ikea repeaters on network currently, I just donāt have enough of them yet haha. Curious to know how well the Aqara are playing with Ikea+Inovelli repeaters.
I am using ZHA, I did join them directly via the switch though the ZHA map has always shown them floating off on their own. Despite that weirdness, no issues thus far.
If I look at the devices themselves, they say theyāre connected via the coordinator now.
Iāll grab one of my other ones tomorrow and get it paired next to the switch and see if it stays on the switch at least at first before moving it around the house and seeing what happens. I tried to keep my coordinator fairly centralized though so weāll see how well that works. I also have an Ikea repeater and a couple of their plug outlets as well
Iām not sure how much faster we can get than this, but Iāll keep trying.
This is 11 Hue bulbs not connected to the light switch load using Group ZigBee binding. Iād say thereās probably a 500ms delay or so between button presses. Still crazy fast and no, āpopcornā effect like you see with Z-Wave.
Iām about 99% sure your Lutron aurora doesnāt bind directly to your lights, and if it does then thatās actually pretty bad. I have an aurora in my front hallway and itās response time turning on hue bulbs 6 feet away is slower than the pico right beside it which turn on my hue bulbs outside (and goes Pico > RA2 Select Bridge > HomeBridge server > Apple TV > hue hub > hue bulb).
Will you be offering a contractor pack like you do with the red series? Iām building a house and would like to order a bunch of these. Looking forward to the launch!
I think so! @Courtney_Inovelli can confirm - it probably will be how it is now where there will be a higher charge for shipping, but other than that I donāt think there is an issue.
@Eric_Inovelli Probably hard to answer; but you anticipate a large difference in cost for the ten packs? And will they ship later than the singles? What if singles sell out before 10 packs come up for pre-order? Are there separate stock pools for each?
Very excited for these and maybe willing to just buy singles to get them faster but like the poster above I need enough for a whole house.
Hard to answer definitively w/out the actual quote from the manufacturer, but Iād like to assume itās the same as what the price difference was w/our Red Series as weāre using the same packaging materials.
Basically where the cost savings came into play on the 10pks w/the Red Series was the fact that we used contractor pack type boxes (very cheap) and we removed the faceplates. So, instead of paying for 10x nice boxes and 10x faceplates, we are now only paying for 1x contractor box and 0x faceplates.
I have a phone call with the manufacturer today ā Iāll try to get an estimate if I can. If not, it will be in the next couple of weeks for sure.
Regarding shipping, the goal is to have them ship at the very same time. The switches all will be made at the same time and itās just a matter of swapping out the packaging at the end of the production line
The good news now is that while we have an initial order in, the manufacturer has a stockpile of ZigBee chips so we can just tack on to our order. In other words, pre-orders are just a bonus on top of what we already ordered. But it will also show them (hopefully) just how popular these switches are going to be.
Hope that answers your questions?
Yes, it does require a compatible hub, great question! Right now weāve got it working on Hubitat and Home Assistant. @EricM_Inovelli is working on the Edge capabilities for ZigBee binding and one of our beta testers just wrote a SmartApp for SmartThings that Iām going to be testing the next couple of days.
Iām definitely pushing the team to get this 100% working on SmartThings as thatās the main platform of our customers (and what I use). Itās semi-challenging though because SmartThings is going through a transition of discontinuing groovy code in exchange for the new Edge drivers. But there isnāt a ton of information out on the Edge drivers and ZigBee binding, so weāre having to kind of experiment.
Once I get it reliably working on ST, I will definitely post a video!