Indigo Domotics

Hi-

I'm running Indigo (obviously( with a Z-stick and Insteon interfaces. What is my cheapest solution for sensors?

If I go with something like this:

https://goo.gl/oBJuxM

then I need a Insteon I/O Linc which brings the total cost per location to $110. This seems high for a simple task.

Any thoughts?

TIA,

Harry

What are you trying to sense the temp of and where?

If you're talking about ambient indoor air temp, many z-wave motion sensors include reasonably accurate temp sensors. And MonoPrice sells one that is Motion/Temp/Humidity/Luminance and is often on sale for <US$30. https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15902 Not sure if this is on the officially supported list, but it does work just fine with Indigo right out of the box.

I use two of these actually outdoors, though shielded pretty well from direct rain. I'm very happy with them.

Have been using 1-wire sensors for years and it works great and very inexpensive. I use the DigiTemp plugin, it has not been updated for years, but with each update of indigo it's still working. You will need a LinkUSB interface. It plugs in a USB port, has a cat-5 jack that you connect to one cat-5 cable and run that around the house, the sensors connect to any spot on the one cable. I have 10 sensors connected one in each room, out side, in the attic and one in the heating system duct. See the links for sources.

https://www.ibuttonlink.com/products/linkusbi

https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywo ... jm8jih2f_e


Elwood

ELWOOD wrote:

Have been using 1-wire sensors for years and it works great and very inexpensive. I use the DigiTemp plugin, it has not been updated for years, but with each update of indigo it's still working. You will need a LinkUSB interface. It plugs in a USB port, has a cat-5 jack that you connect to one cat-5 cable and run that around the house, the sensors connect to any spot on the one cable. I have 10 sensors connected one in each room, out side, in the attic and one in the heating system duct. See the links for sources.

https://www.ibuttonlink.com/products/linkusbi

https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywo ... jm8jih2f_e


Elwood

Karl's PiBeacon plugin also supports the 18B20s, although I don't know if it supports multiple sensors on one rPi. If it does , the ability to locate the controller anywhere within WIFI coverage rather than needing it to be on a USB port would be a significant advantage.

DC, how long do the batteries typically last on the MonoPrice Motion/Temp/Humidity/Luminance sensors - and do all the sensors work - does it report battery status. Thanks for your help understanding it better.

Pibeacon supports several 18B20 one rpi. I have tested it with 11.



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+1 for PiBeacon. It is rock solid and you can get the 18B20s on eBay pre-wired and cheaply. I haven't tried multiple temperature sensors on the same PI as I don't need to but even 1:1 with a Pi it is low cost and flexible, and I know the plugin supports more than one. With a PiZero it is cheap enough not to worry. It can be a bit intimidating to get going but happy to help explain.

norcoscia wrote:

DC, how long do the batteries typically last on the MonoPrice Motion/Temp/Humidity/Luminance sensors - and do all the sensors work - does it report battery status. Thanks for your help understanding it better.

I can't tell you how long they last, because I haven't had to replace one yet if I recall correctly. I imagine a year. All sensors work and it does report battery status. It's a Monoprice brand, but Indigo reports it as a "Zooz multisensor." Highly recommended.

Thx, one final question - does it open easily or is it a PITA to open (to change batteries).

It's no problem to open. I suppose it's possible to mount it in a way that would make it more of a problem though.

The only negative thing about this is that the instructions for inclusion were wrong for one of them. Instructions said press and hold the reset button (which takes a paper clip) but in fact I had to toggle it on-off 4-6 times to get it to include.

Got it - thanks - now I just need to figure out how to know when they go on sale - I'm cheap

You can sign up for Monoprice's daily emails. I think $27 a piece is the lowest I've seen them for, but I could be wrong.

Thanks - I'm signed up - didn't go to the home page before so I did not see it!

Aeotec also makes a multisensor that does temp/motion/lux/humidity. It reports battery also. Wakes once an hour to report. It's more expensive than the monoprice one, currently on Amazon for $60: https://www.amazon.com/Aeotec-Multisensor-temperature-humidity-vibration/dp/B0151Z8ZQY/

I wanted a few of these for my crawlspace, attic, and garage. I initially bought a plug-in version (that would also act as a z-wave repeater) but currently it isn't supported by Indigo.

At the moment I only have the one installed in my crawlspace, as my z-wave network isn't robust enough yet for far flung ones.

The one I got was off by 3 degrees. There is a sort-of complicated way to fix this, but it won't work without me waking the device to send it a firmware update, and as I said I installed deep in the crawlspace and I don't feel like going back under there right now. So instead I just convert the temp state to a variable and have Indigo adjust the variable by 3 degrees.

I am intrigued by some of these other solutions though. On another thread, I think it was mentioned that an RXFCOM would also work for this, as there are many compatible thermometers. The reason that is cool is you could also add other weather type devices, like an anemometer, rain gauge, etc. I haven't ventured into RXFCOM, but it looks interesting.

Professor Falken wrote:

I am intrigued by some of these other solutions though. On another thread, I think it was mentioned that an RXFCOM would also work for this, as there are many compatible thermometers. The reason that is cool is you could also add other weather type devices, like an anemometer, rain gauge, etc. I haven't ventured into RXFCOM, but it looks interesting.

I do use the RFXTRX and Oregon Scientific weather gear to do some of my temperature monitoring as well as the Aeotec Z-waves (the Multisensor 6s are primarily for motion detection, but since they have the temperature as a variable, why not?) But the RFX is considerably more expensive than the rPis, although it gives me rainfall and wind data as well... AND the OSI temperature transmitters will reach out through the walls of my freezer and refrigerator as long as I keep putting fresh batteries in every 6 months or so, something I'm paranoid about since I know several people who had horror stories about not realizing their freezers full of food had failed until several weeks too late.