ktautomate Posted February 15 Posted February 15 (edited) I have decades of experience with Z-Wave with HAI (Leviton). I'm transitioning to Z-Wave with EISY. I'm VERY impressed with what EISY brings to the table. What I'm trying to understand is if I use EISY to control the newer Wifi (google and alexa capable) devices that are exploding on the market. I have zero interest in running google home or using alexa. What I would like to do however is leverage: the much cheaper/plentiful smart devices. Wifi smart devices are ~75% less than Z-Wave). The rate of new devices hitting the market seem to be blowing away the number of z-wave decvices. my existing reliable Wifi network over a much slower and less reliable z-wave topology. So, my question are: 1. Can I use EISY to manage devices like those made by GHome https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/0824DEE2-9A3E-4FF2-B0C6-91D84D5C20FC (I'm not advocating for GHome, it's just the easiest example I found on Amazon)? 2. If it's possible, are there best practices anyone can recommend? Edited February 15 by ktautomate
dbwarner5 Posted February 15 Posted February 15 The Eisy does not have native ability to directly communicate / control the plethora of Wifi devices hitting the market. However if the device has a public API, then programmers can develop a "plug-in" or Node-server for that line of devices. This plug-in can then be used by the Eisy to control the device like any other device in your device tree. If you go to the PGX "store" you will see the current list of plug-ins that have been developed and see if the product you want has a plug-in that will create the bridge between the Eisy native capability and the new wifi device. https://polyglot.universal-devices.com The last option, though sounds like you are not interested in, is to have Alexa or Google Home become the interface between the Eisy and the device, assuming the device is Alexa / Google Home compatible. This is a more laborious method and can come with frustration as Alexa for example changes their interface often etc. The downside to what you want to do (replace z-wave with Wifi), is that since it is not native to the Eisy, you will always be dependent on an internet connection for the Eisy to communicate to that company's servers thru Plug-in which utilizes the public API of that device. Still to come are Matter compliant devices, which the Eisy will have the native ability to control. But these are not on the market in any large degree yet and the Eisy isnt yet ready to manage them yet either.
jec6613 Posted February 16 Posted February 16 One thing about Wi-Fi is it's not like Z-Wave or Insteon or Zigbee. While the above three provide the full stack of OSI layer 1-7. Wi-Fi is only OSI layers 1-2, basic connectivity only. It still needs TCP/IP to handle layers 3 and 4, as well as the rest of the application stack (5-7) to make it useful. Protocols like Matter look to fill that gap with something that's standards complaint for home automation devices, but right now on Wi-Fi, or TCP/IP generally, it's individual per vendor, requiring the use of a Polyglot plugin as @dbwarner5 describes. To complicate matters further, many devices using Wi-Fi for their connectivity only communicate to a cloud server, and do not permit you, on your local LAN, to access the device directly. Others lock down the communication to only their smartphone app via cryptography, and still others allow you to access it locally without issue. And one thing to keep in mind as you add Wi-Fi devices, is that they have a hidden node problem that leads to your network slowing down as you add more devices, with each associated device taking about 1% of your total Wi-Fi bandwidth even when it's doing nothing - and even with multiple APs to mitigate this, there are still only three clear Wi-Fi channels in the 2.4 GHz ISM band, leading to a practical maximum of about 300 devices connected in a standard home with normal business-grade equipment (note: this can be overcome, but as with most problems it's solved by throwing money at it). Unless your Wi-Fi network is already significantly overbuilt, you'll need to budget for a large expansion.
ktautomate Posted February 16 Author Posted February 16 Love the responses posted already. If it wasn't all to clear I have little interest in taking dependency on cloud service provider (one of the most awesome capabilities of EISY is it's ability to "run local"). I had held out some hope that there might be a common api interface that a sufficiently large community of device builders might be building with. Sounds like the two giants in the room Goog&Amzn are getting device builders to follow their whims leaving the rest of the community to build plugins against the devices as they ship. I won't count my "hope" hopeless yet. I will try to find and buy a couple devices that already have plugins published to see how good/cumbersome the experience is and go from there. I spent over a decade at a VERY large software company so I understand the challenge it is to continue to flourish when all the rest of a community has to align with the "recurring revenue" (subscriptioin) solutions. I laud UD and this community and look forward to participating and hopefully contributing to the community over time. Thanks All.... Look forward to a couple followup posts to this thread following my attempt with https://polyglot.universal-devices.com 1
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