Reflection about my use case

WebThings
#1

My use case is simple, yet so hard to achieve.
My first step into IOT is mainly about lights and copy current “wall” setup.

Bedroom as an example:

  • one room with two windows with lamps.
  • one bed with two sideboards having reading lamps.
  • lamp in the ceiling.
  • Coming into the room it should be possible to turn on lamp in ceiling and window.
  • From bedside (two sides) it should be possible turn on reading lamp, window and ceiling lamp.
  • Everything should be controlled from Mozilla iot gateway.

Any suggestion how to achieve this thing of setup?
I have tried different devices to build this but run into different issues that I would like to share:

  • cost, at least if I expand this to rest of apartment. IKEA is a option.
  • Limitations in functions/device.
    • Few remote controllers that can be paired with gateway.
    • Few remote controllers in general, respect to my needs.
  • Noticed vierd functions
    • IKEA lamp. If mains goes away and returns all connected lamps are turned on.
  • Future problems.
    • If the Central point ( read gateway ) stops working, how to turn on/off lights?

Please free to comment/discuss my post.

#2

Any zigbee or z-wave lamps should be fine there. You can also go for more premium solutions like hue or lifx. The same goes for the buttons to control the lights. Note that with zigbee at least you could in theory have buttons that directly control the lights without involving the gateway, but afaik that will mean that the gateway does not get to know about the state of the light. So any rules that you’d set up wouldn’t trigger.

This is a fairly common behavior for smart lamps. Manufacturers are starting to add options to remember the last state though.

Using your normal light switches, since the lights turn on if they get power back.

#3

Note that with zigbee at least you could in theory have buttons that directly control the lights without involving the gateway,

In theory at least. IKEA is to limited in function. A bulb can only connect to one remote.

This is a fairly common behavior for smart lamps. Manufacturers are starting to add options to remember the last state though.

Glad to hear because this is a stupid behavior.

Using your normal light switches, since the lights turn on if they get power back.

The hole idea is to get ride of old light switches. Especially if you are doing a new installation, saving a lot of cabling.

Is it possible to have two gateways running as backup to each other ???

#4

Having a backup controller isn’t currently supported, and is probably protocol specific. Doing this with zigbee would be tricky.

Normally you only have one controller on the network and devices need to be bound to the controller to send status changes (called reports).

I think that t would require custom firmware in the zigbee dongle in order to do any type of backup like device with any reliability.

Generic dimmer switches send their on/off etc commands to an address. This address can either be the address of the gateway, the address of a particular bulb, or a group address. When we pair the switch with the gateway, we set it up to send the commands to the gateway, and use the rules engine to determine which devices get turned on. This allows using the zigbee remote to control say a zwave device. Conceivably the gateway could have some type of control to allow it to point to a particular zigbee device or to a group, but there is no UI support for this type of configuration right now.

The IKEA dimmer switches can only talk directly to a bulb and not a gateway. I’ve heard that the deCONZ guys have gotten something to work by creating a fake bulb device in their controller and having the IKEA controller talk to that.

#5

Having a backup controller isn’t currently supported, and is probably protocol specific. Doing this with zigbee would be tricky.

You are probably correct.

Generic dimmer switches send their on/off etc commands to an address. This address can either be the address of the gateway, the address of a particular bulb, or a group address. When we pair the switch with the gateway, we set it up to send the commands to the gateway, and use the rules engine to determine which devices get turned on. This allows using the zigbee remote to control say a zwave device.

Is it possible to build a Thing that is acting as a Remote Controller ? I’ve searched for examples but no one to be found. To make it snappy, I think web sockets must be used.

Conceivably the gateway could have some type of control to allow it to point to a particular zigbee device or to a group, but there is no UI support for this type of configuration right now.

I don’t quite understand ?

The IKEA dimmer switches can only talk directly to a bulb and not a gateway. I’ve heard that the deCONZ guys have gotten something to work by creating a fake bulb device in their controller and having the IKEA controller talk to that.

Ikea dimmers seems to be out of question …

#6

Remote controller of what?

#7

RC Triggered by what ? I can understand that you want to hack proprietaries actuators (ie fake lamp) that would trigger a sensor event that would be useful to moziot ? this should be possible, but I would no recommand it for safety concerns.

Instead you could eventually, make your own RC which is nothing more than a collection of buttons sensors ?

eg:

You’ll find sources webthing-node or webthing-iotjs

More details at:

#8

Remote controller of what?

I was thinking of a device with buttons talking to the gateway. Rules for on/off up/down etc (bulbs)-