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Has anyone messed around with any Z-Wave Transceivers (for Home Automation)? — Parallax Forums

Has anyone messed around with any Z-Wave Transceivers (for Home Automation)?

Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
in General Discussion
Silicon Labs Z-Wave Transceivers @ Digikey

I recently ditched all my X10 modules, controllers, etc and bought two Amazon Echos, an Amazon Dot, SmartThings HUB, and various smart outlets, dimmers and wall dimmers.

I am very pleased so far (except for the Arlo Q camera which I returned - blurry video if moving objects), but I thought it would be nice if I could create my own Z-Wave "Thing".

I know someone here used a Propeller to create a Zigbee "Thing" several years ago...

Comments

  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    I've done some work with Z-wave. I worked on a bridge between Z-wave devices and the internet and some Z-wave devices.
  • T ChapT Chap Posts: 4,223
    edited 2018-08-08 22:00
    see if this helps.


    http://forums.parallax.com/discussion/157233/propeller-to-smartthings-communicating-with-the-zigbee-ha-public-profile/p1
  • Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
    David Betz wrote: »
    I've done some work with Z-wave. I worked on a bridge between Z-wave devices and the internet and some Z-wave devices.

    Did you use a Propeller and/or any transceivers like the Silicon Labs ones I linked to above?

    I know a lot of people use a Raspberry PI like in this project https://hackaday.com/2013/10/13/raspi-z-wave-automation-is-automated/ but I didn't really want to go down that path.
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    I didn't use a Propeller but it should be pretty easy to do. You talk to the Z-wave module over a UART. You can, of course, program the micro on the Z-wave chip itself but that is a variant of the 8051 and you have to use the Keil tools to program it and they are quite expensive.
  • Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
    edited 2018-08-08 22:33
    David Betz wrote: »
    I didn't use a Propeller but it should be pretty easy to do. You talk to the Z-wave module over a UART. You can, of course, program the micro on the Z-wave chip itself but that is a variant of the 8051 and you have to use the Keil tools to program it and they are quite expensive.

    I'm fishing here... What hardware/devices did you use in your bridge? Something like a USB Z-wave stick?

    Aeotec Z-Stick
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    It wasn't my bridge. I just worked on modifications to it for a customer. The bridge used an ARM processor. One ran an RTOS and the other ran Linux.
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    Ron Czapala wrote: »
    David Betz wrote: »
    I didn't use a Propeller but it should be pretty easy to do. You talk to the Z-wave module over a UART. You can, of course, program the micro on the Z-wave chip itself but that is a variant of the 8051 and you have to use the Keil tools to program it and they are quite expensive.

    I'm fishing here... What hardware/devices did you use in your bridge? Something like a USB Z-wave stick?

    Aeotec Z-Stick
    I assume that Z-Stick just has a Z-wave chip and a USB2serial interface that talks to the PC.

  • Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
    David Betz wrote: »
    Ron Czapala wrote: »
    David Betz wrote: »
    I didn't use a Propeller but it should be pretty easy to do. You talk to the Z-wave module over a UART. You can, of course, program the micro on the Z-wave chip itself but that is a variant of the 8051 and you have to use the Keil tools to program it and they are quite expensive.

    I'm fishing here... What hardware/devices did you use in your bridge? Something like a USB Z-wave stick?

    Aeotec Z-Stick
    I assume that Z-Stick just has a Z-wave chip and a USB2serial interface that talks to the PC.

    Description here: https://aeotec.com/z-wave-usb-stick
    Ever since the communication code of Z-Wave was made public by its creators, open source software has come a long way. Typically paired with Raspberry Pi, Z-Stick Gen5 can be used with these open source platforms to power your Z-Wave smart home.
  • David BetzDavid Betz Posts: 14,516
    That link doesn't really say what the interface to the PC looks like but I'd be willing to bet that it just looks like a USB COM port on the Linux side. You're going to have a hard time running OpenZWave on the Propeller though. You could do something simple directly using the serial API.

    https://www.silabs.com/documents/login/user-guides/INS12350-Serial-API-Host-Appl.-Prg.-Guide.pdf
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