this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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I've been meaning to learn about Zigbee / Z-Wave, but have procrastinated away every time I try to do so :)
How are you liking those sensors? Might look at getting some.
Well, my first experience wasn't great. It says to take the back off to take out the plastic in the battery to connect it, but getting the back off was hard. Ended up prying it off with a screw driver hoping I wasn't gonna break it.
And then (probably unrelated) the switch on the side didn't work. I thought there's no point stopping now, so I pulled the cover off and found the switch wasn't well attached to the board. It would wobble back and forth, so I got some cardboard and folded it up, jammed it behind the switch to hold it in place.
It's all working great now! But not a great first impression.
I haven't used the smart switch except to try to connect it from about 10M away from the zigbee controller, through two walls. It didn't work, but I managed to get it recognised by trying a bit closer, but haven't actually done anything else with it. I'm considering buying a 5 or 8 pack and spreading them around the house to get a good network going.
Hmm, maybe I should keep looking haha.
I'm probably a bit too paranoid, but did you have any concerns around using Mains Plugs from Aliexpress?
They aren't expensive, so it probably is an appropriate quality for the price. But if you do find something better, let me know!
Not until you mentioned it just now 😆. To be fair, they are likely made in the same factories as the cheap plugboards you get from briscoes or the supermarket. These ones are CE certified, so are probably ok. Probably try to avoid anything super cheap.
We have smoke alarms in pretty much every room because I'm normally a bit paranoid about this stuff too.
😂 Hopefully I haven't awaken any extra paranoia. But agree, probably all made in the same places. The certification sounds good though.
On that note, looking for some smoke alarms, and didn't realize there was such a wide variety! From the cheapo old school reliable ones all the way to really expensive supposedly "smart" alarms.
Mostly we have filled out house with mostly these ones. Mitre 10 has three packs where one is a temp only sensor, for kitchens. So you can have kitchen ones but they trigger on a sudden increase in temperature not on smoke.
We tried another brand Orca they sell as well, but they seem to fail pretty often (as in, one just would constantly make it's "fire!" noise as soon as you put the battery in. Others will just start beeping after a year or two and you can't get replacement batteries (they are supposed to last 10 years).
Saw those ones when we went to Mitre10 the other week. Good to hear they have been working well for you. Those smaller footprint ones do look nicer.