Regular readers will know that we're a big fan of Foscam IP Cameras and NVRs - they're almost always our "go-to" camera of choice when we're asked to make a recommendation on Smart Home Security.

That said, the Panasonic Nubo Cam that we reviewed recently really was an exceptional device and packed a hell of a punch in terms of hardware and software features!  But gosh was it expensive - nearly £300 and you didn't even get a wall mount with it, plus it needed a monthly Subscription to really get the best out of it.

So roll forward a few weeks and our Foscam distributor kindly sent us the new Foscam FI9928P 1080P HD PTZ Wireless IP Outdoor Camera for testing and review.  Well grab me a chair as I need to sit down, this bad boy will also launch an assault on your wallet - to the tune of £250!

Read on to find out why we very quickly came to the conclusion that actually, that price is a bit of a bargain for what you get and that the FI9928P has now taken the place of the Nubo Cam in our Smart Home setup - and we didn't even need to buy a separate mount for it ;-)

Background

Before we dive in to the new camera we thought we'd give some insight into just why we like Foscam so much.

Foscam were one of the first brands we used ourselves in our own home when making the transition from hard-wired analog cameras and CCTV capture cards (using expensive DVRs or home-built solutions around software like ZoneMinder) to modern "IP cameras".  We've been using their devices for years - right back when 640 x 480 was regarded as high resolution and MJPEG ("Motion JPEG") was the streaming format of choice!  Back then you couldn't beat Foscam for price to performance / features ratio and the same is still true today in our experience.

A lot has changed since then, technology has moved on and prices have come down to almost commodity level.  An HD Foscam camera can be bought for as little as £55, that's an absolute steal for an Ethernet / WiFi camera with night vision - we recall paying much, much more than that 5 or 6 years or so ago for a basic IP camera!

Of course that £55 is for the entry level (but even so it's still packed with features), but one of the things that's most impressive with Foscam is the sheer range of devices that they produce - there's literally something for every purpose and budget.

Just look at the difference between one of our old MJPEG cameras and a Foscam FI9853EP which cost a fraction of the price of the 5 year old device that it was replacing:    

That's an incredible change, especially on the night-vision images!

Then there's the fact that differences in lens technologies now mean that one camera could potentially replace two or more, in the following images we can see how we swapped out two older black and white analog cameras with even lower resolution (PAL standard) for a full HD Foscam FI9900P with wide angle lens:

And nighttime:

The area that we were interested in covering was the front garden, path and drive - we couldn't do that with a single analog camera 10 years ago so ended up with two - now with a wide angle lens one camera is enough.  Again we shudder when we recall the cost of those original analog cameras and the DVR capture card that turned their analog signals into something that could be digitally recorded!

We also like the fact that Foscam produce their own NVRs ("Network Video Recorders") which negates the need to build your own or buy something where you have no idea if it will work with your cameras or not. Having ourselves previously wrestled with a ZoneMinder based system for many years we can assure you that there's nothing more pleasing than powering up a camera and having it automatically detected and setup by the NVR!

Our own Smart Home CCTV setup currently consists of a 9-channel NVR and 9 cameras all working perfectly now for many years:

With flexible options such as POE ("Power over Ethernet") or WiFi connectivity and amazing "junction boxes" to help mount the cameras and hide all the wiring, our Foscam kit has probably been the easiest part of our Home Automation system to install and setup.

The junction boxes have masses of space in them and you can even just about squeeze in a passive POE splitter to allow POE on cameras that don't support it natively.

Enough already, get on with the review!

OK, so hopefully you get the point that we believe that Foscam are really great devices, but why should you part with your hard earned cash for the new FI9928P?

Well, starting with the traditional unboxing shots we can see straightaway the quality of the hardware on offer - a solid metal body will ensure many years of life.  We won't bore you with all the specifications of the camera here, you can checkout the product page or manual for all the details.

But it's definitely worth mentioning the fact that this is a full PTZ ("Pan, Tilt, Zoom") camera with 4X optical and 6X digital zoom.  Now, we've had PT ("Pan, Tilt") cameras before - we have a couple of the excellent Foscam R2 - but it's the first time we've had a camera featuring optical zoom and we were really looking forward to seeing it in action!

The FI9928P also features a new sensor from SONY called "Starvis" and that supposedly supports *really* low light color night vision, so again that's something that we were interested in checking out.

From box to installed in minutes

Did we mention before how easy Foscam devices are to install and configure?

OK, we have to confess that as soon as we knew that the FI9928P was on its way to us we made a start on an install plan - selection of a location, doing any preparatory wiring, etc.  So when the parcel arrived it was literally a case of unpacking it, mounting it on the wall and plugging it in!

To be fair, we'd done some of this work already as we were originally planning on using the Panasonic Nubo Cam in this location - it's at the bottom of our garden on the Summer House and the Nubo Cam's wide angle lens was perfect for getting the whole of the garden in view. But various issues with that device (including the frankly extortionate Subscription costs) meant that we changed our plans once the FI9928P was released.

We chose to hardwire the Ethernet on the camera as we already had Ethernet out to the Summer House (although we could have used WiFi instead as we'd planned to with the Nubo Cam).

So half an hour after taking it out of the box and it was up and running!

We used a small water-tight electrical box to house the cables and the power supply simply plugs into a dry-box extension lead that we'd previously installed.  Luckily we tend to have this sort of stuff lying around and readily available to use so we had all the parts that we needed to hand.  Subsequently Foscam released one of their excellent junction boxes (the FAB28) so we'd have probably used that if we weren't in such a rush to get the FI9928P installed :-)

Oh and a quick shoutout to Midsummer Energy for all their help over the years with our various renewable energy projects - you can see one of their Solar PV panels in the shot above that powers the off-grid electricity supply to our Summer House.

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom

We mentioned before that the FI9928P is the first camera we've used that features optical zoom and after a week of use we've really come to appreciate it.  Being optical it means that you can zoom in up to 4x magnification while still maintaining the Full HD 1080P resolution.

Zoomed out:

Optical Zoomed in:

Digital Zoomed in:

We were also really pleased with the huge range of movement in the camera - 355° horizontal and 90° vertical - that's easily enough to sweep across our entire back garden and go from looking straight down to checking out the stars at night!

The Foscam Apps and web UI also allow you to set and save Presets and to generate and save Cruise Tracks which makes it easy to immediately send the camera to predefined points of interest.  It moves fast too, which makes us wonder if we'll be able to set up some complex logic in our Smart Home system to make the camera move / zoom to specific spots in the garden in response to events like doors or windows opening.  That's certainly something that we'll be looking into in the coming weeks.

Starvis to heaven

Another thing that really impressed us with the FI9928P is the new "Starvis" technology that we mentioned before. This really does make the best of any available light and still gives a pretty much full colour picture right down to the lowest light levels.  It was pretty strange to see an almost "normal" picture in such low light and yet looking out the window it was almost too dark to see!

You'll have to see it for yourself to really appreciate how good it is, but in the meantime hopefully the following images will give you an idea.

Day:

Low light:

Night:

So many options

Unlike rival devices such as Nest Cam or Nubo Cam, Foscam cameras come with multiple options on how you can use them - most have a web UI, there's official Apps as well as third party Apps and there's an official API to allow you to write your own integrations.

When it comes to recording and storing of video footage, again there's flexibility - some cameras come with SD Card slot so you can add your own storage, you can configure the cameras to upload via FTP, email you with snapshots, save to your PC or of course use a Foscam NVR.  Most cameras are also ONVIF compatible which makes them work with other NVRs from the likes of DLink and Synology.

Foscam have also recently released their own Cloud service which is well worth checking out as it's really good value for money!

The bigger picture

One thing that we find ourselves and Customers being obsessed with is the concept of having all their Smart Home systems being integrated together and working under one App or Web UI.  Over the years we've found that while this often sounds great, it's *very* difficult to achieve when using a mixture of Home Automation technologies.  We mention this point in our "Device Compatibility" guide and explain that often it's best to not restrict yourself in that way because it allows you to choose the best system for the job.

So how does that apply to Foscam cameras & NVRs?  Well most cameras nowadays have moved on from MJPEG to H.264 or other streaming video formats and this makes it difficult for them to be integrated into Home Automation controllers like Vera & Fibaro.  It also doesn't really make sense to try and channel multiple streaming video cameras through a small embedded device as it can quickly become overloaded trying to keep up.  And that then impacts on the core responsibility of that controller - running your home!

Similarly while you may think that you want to use the "motion capture" ability of a camera as an input into your Smart Home control logic, often this isn't possible or needs to use custom coding using unreliable methods of inspecting the state of the device such as polling.

Cameras also typically use image inspection to determine if there's been motion - so they will inspect each frame of the video and check what's changed.  This can take time, so it doesn't lend itself particularly well to creating real-time alerts i.e. there's motion *now* - the camera works around this by having the video in a buffer so if it takes a few seconds to detect motion it doesn't matter because the captured event will contain the whole buffer so nothing will be missed.  For security footage it works well but a delay in detecting motion and switching on your lights won't go down well for a Smart Home system!

With all the pro's and con's taken into account we've come to the conclusion that for core systems like CCTV, Security or even Heating (especially multi-zone) it makes more sense to use the best-in-class devices even if that means they run using separate Apps and central controllers.

That's not to say that they can't still have some integration with the rest of your Home Automation system - for example it should still be possible to use snapshots from most cameras within alerts generated in response to sensor inputs in your Smart Home logic.  But even then, most cameras will allow you to do similar from their own web UI or App anyway, so it often makes more sense to just use the native functionality where possible.

At Vesternet we also thoroughly recommend the Foscam NVRs because they're simple to install and setup - just add a hard drive and that's pretty much it.  There are even pre-configured kits available too but what we like about the standalone NVRs is the fact that they have configurable inputs and outputs so that you can hardwire them into other systems.  We show the general principle of that in our guide here and we use this integration in our own systems to allow us to "ping" the NVR in response to an event such as a PIR detecting motion or a door sensor detecting a door opening.  The NVR is then configured to stamp an "alarm" on a particular camera recording which makes it easy to review the footage at a later date.

Final thoughts

We hope that you enjoyed reading this article and as always any thoughts or questions please contact us.

We've also teamed up with our Foscam distributor to secure an introductory discount offer on the new FI9928P - £25 OFF for this weekend only - it really is a cracking camera, so get yours on order NOW!

Bye for now

Martyn

Vesternet Mondays 2017...

Throughout the summer we'll be running a series of Spectacular One-day Only flash sale events - starting Monday 26th June!

Pull yourself away from the summer sun for a short time when announced to save yourself a fortune on all the very latest kit for your smart home.

Vesternet Mondays give you some spectacular bargains that are never repeated - you won't want to miss them as once each product has appeared in a sale, that's it for the whole summer.

Each event will feature different products from our best selling brands for the past year - its like Black Friday but with more sun :)

How to get involved

The only way to get involved is to Subscribe to the Vesternet Mondays Newsletter - this is a special newsletter only going to those that specifically subscribe to it.

To get a direct link to each deal you MUST subscribe below and you'll get the special invite email just before the event is launched (also be quick on the day as orders are processed in strict order from when they're placed).

Don't miss out on the biggest smart home sale of the year - SUBSCRIBE NOW...

Biggest Sales Day of the Year is almost here....

Its been a fantastically popular summer sale event this year - with more products than ever.

But now its almost over - yet time for one final swan song.  Because this Monday is set to be the biggest one day smart home sale of the year...

With EVERY PRODUCT across the whole of the summer on sale for one last time.

Cold & dark nights will be approaching in no time, and this is when home automation really kicks in.  So if you're planning any activities over the winter then grab a bargain now, because after Monday's sale everything will be back to full price.

Don't miss out!!  And tell all your friends this is the time to buy...

How to get involved

The only way to get involved is to Subscribe to the Vesternet Mondays Newsletter - this is a special newsletter only going to those that specifically subscribe to it.

To get a direct link to each deal you MUST subscribe below and you'll get the special invite email just before the event is launched (also be quick on the day as orders are processed in strict order from when they're placed).

Don't miss out on the biggest smart home sale of the year - SUBSCRIBE NOW...

Energy monitoring has always been an essential part of any Home Automation system and we even have a dedicated guide to show what's possible using Z-Wave and LightwaveRF technologies.

While individual appliance monitoring has been well catered for with all manner of sockets and modules available with power metering capabilities, "whole house" or "whole circuit" energy monitoring has always been difficult to achieve.  The same can be said for monitoring your alternative energy sources such as Solar PV.

Sure, your energy provider may well offer you a so-called "Smart Meter" but often this will just be an extension of their own billing and accounting system and will be built around proprietary technologies that you can't interface with from your Smart Home system.

That's where OpenEnergyMonitor comes in and we're pleased to announce that we've recently added one of their most popular device bundles to the site - the emonPi Solar PV - and we thought that we'd whip up a quick overview to let you know what it's capable of.

In the first instance, don't be fooled by the name "emonPi Solar PV", it's not just for monitoring Solar PV, it will monitor any two single-phase AC circuits using clip-on Current Transformer clamp sensors and can also integrate a utility meter via an optional optical pulse sensor.

The emonPi monitors your energy usage in real-time and samples the CT clamp sensors many times a second to give accurate and timely readings every 10 seconds.  It's even capable of knowing which direction the power is flowing in the circuit being monitored, something that's critical when it comes to needing to monitor your Solar PV production!

It has both local and remote data logging capabilities with Emoncms which is an open-source software suite for processing, logging and visualising energy and other environmental data. Emoncms gives you an easy-to-use web UI to create and manage your Inputs and Feeds which actually do the hard work of logging your data.

From there you can create all manner of visualisations and graphs.

You also have the ability to create your own real-time display Dashboards!

And this is where you can get *really* creative, we probably have about 50 different dashboards in use because you can customise them to suit different devices - tablets, phones, TVs, PCs, etc - anything that can display a web page in a browser like IE, Chrome or Firefox.

We've yet to find a browser that doesn't work to be honest, even the one on the Amazon Fire tablets works well.  We have one of those sat on our desk as a real-time permanently on display - it takes just a few watts to keep running and lets us monitor our energy usage on an ongoing basis.

A recent introduction to the platform has been "Web Apps" which are pre-built Dashboards for common tasks such as monitoring your Electric, Solar PV or Heat Pump data.  These work well and are easy to setup and configure if your needs are simple or you don't want to faff around with creating your own Dashboards (although to be fair, it's pretty easy using the drag-and-drop interface).

Of course, nowadays everybody wants to be using native Apps on their phones and tablets, so it's good to see that OpenEnergyMonitor has got you covered there too with Apps for both iOS and Android.

We've actually been using Emoncms for many years to log data from our various Home Automation systems as it's an incredibly flexible platform but it can be difficult to setup and get running yourself so just recently we took the plunge with some of the OpenEnergyMonitor hardware to replace some of our own home-brew solutions.

And we're so glad that we did, because it means we now have a system that just works perfectly, with no reliability issues or dubious data readings.  It also means that we no longer have to constantly tinker around with things to keep the system running - we're sure all you Aeon Clamp Meter users know exactly what we're talking about!

Of course we're only just scratching the surface on what the OpenEnergyMonitor system can do - the emonPi includes additional functionality such as MQTT, NodeRED and OpenHAB.  While these are beyond the scope of what we're covering in this mini-review, these extras make it trivial to integrate the emonPi into your wider Smart Home systems.  With the real-time data flowing every 10 seconds it's simple to create all manner of logic such as turning on appliances when there's excess energy being created by the Solar PV system or perhaps turning off non-essential devices when your battery storage system starts getting low on charge.

Don't forget to also check out the OpenEnergyMonitor web site itself as it's full of useful articles and there's a great community too which has been really helpful assisting us with some of our more challenging logging and graphing requirements.

So if you're looking to take control of your energy usage or want to replace an existing system that isn't quite performing how you need, take a look at the emonPI, we're pretty sure that you won't be disappointed!

By for now,

Martyn

Some time ago now we added the Athom Homey Home Automation Controller to the site and on paper this spherical wonder certainly appeared to tick a lot of boxes!

We've had a couple of months now with Homey and been testing it in the background so we thought it was about time to give our thoughts on whether it meets those lofty design goals and how it stacks up against the likes of Fibaro and Vera.

Incidentally, if you've not yet chosen a core Home Automation controller it's well worth reading our guide.

Ooh that's nice!

There's not many devices in the Smart Home world that garner admiring looks from people, even things like Nest and Hue which do a decent job on the aesthetics aren't exactly jaw-dropping.  Homey is certainly up there with the best of them in the looks department, right from the initial packaging (which hits the spot Fibaro-style) to the first glimpse of the hardware in the box.

Homey is a small white sphere-shaped device with a ring of LEDs around the middle, equator-style.  It's sat on three small chrome spherical legs that make it seem slightly tilted with the front of the LED ring lower than the rear. Being of a certain age it reminds us a bit of the floating ball thingy from the Phantasm movies, but hopefully this won't be jumping off the shelf anytime soon!

We won't go through the full tech-specs here, but the interesting stuff is most definitely the number of built in radios - there's 7 in total, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, Z-Wave Plus, NFC, 433MHz, 868 MHz and ZigBee (remember that we said above it certainly appears to tick a lot of boxes).

To be honest we were a bit disappointed to see that the Wi-Fi was only 2.4G when 5G is more or less the norm nowadays.  2.4G is such a crowded band so 5G would have definitely been a better choice in our opinion.

We were also surprised to see that Homey doesn't have a wired Ethernet connection either, we're not sure that we'd be comfortable having our central Home Automation controller at the mercy of a Wi-Fi connection.  That said, Wi-Fi does allow the device to be sited pretty much anywhere in your house (assuming it's within Wi-Fi range) and Homey is probably the only Smart Home controller out there that we'd be happy to have sat in plain view on a shelf or sideboard in the main living area and not tucked away in a cupboard.

Setting Up

There's no manual in the box, which is a little frustrating and it took us a few minutes to find the "instructions" on the side of the box to visit http://setup.athom.com and follow the Wizard.

Plugging in the included PSU (which incidentally is just a mini-USB 5V type and pleasingly has a nice long lead on it) makes the LED ring start doing a "chase me" pattern which looks pretty cool.  It would seem that the LEDs are "addressable" so that each individual LED can be colour-changed on demand, allowing animations and patterns to be shown.  It's a nice touch during the setup and will be useful no doubt for visual notifications as part of future Smart Home logic.

Once the LEDs had settled down, a loud voice made us jump, telling us to visit http://setup.athom.com - so something to remember if you're powering this up for the first time at night and have kids asleep in the next room!

At this stage we found ourselves getting into a bit of a mess with trying to follow the setup instructions which wanted us to "connect your Windows device to the Wi-Fi network".  Well that might work for some, but our PCs are all Linux and only have hard-wired Ethernet, no Wi-Fi.  So we grabbed our phone and looked at installing the Homey App from the iOS App Store, hoping that perhaps there'd be an App driven setup option.

After installing the App it asked us to signup for an Athom account.  We then experienced further disappointment as we discovered that there's no ability to install Homey from within the App, it needs to be completed following the browser based wizard first :-(

Feeling at a bit of an impasse we headed over to the Athom Support site and found a KB article which seemed to suggest that you can setup Homey from *any* Wi-Fi connected device, it doesn't have to be a Windows PC.  So using the web browser from one of our phones we gave it a try and sure enough the Wizard progressed and asked us to connect the device to the "HomeySetup" Wi-Fi network.  A few seconds later and it was downloading some "setup files" and seemed to be getting somewhere.

A few more steps in the Wizard and a further voice announcement told us that Homey had connected successfully to the Wi-Fi network. From here the Wizard moved on and we had to accept an extensive EULA, we're not sure how many people ever read these in full and we found ourselves simply agreeing without knowing what we were actually agreeing to!  More "setting up" followed, including the download of Homey's "voice" and then updating the Homey firmware itself.

Eventually the process appeared to be complete and Homey was up and running!

Hopefully this initial setup process will be improved in the future as it wasn't exactly a streamlined experience, the ability to do this all from within the App itself would make things much simpler in our opinion.

Desktop Software?

During the final stages of the setup we were instructed to download the "desktop software" once Homey was up and running.  This was intriguing as we've never had to use specific software to use a Home Automation controller in the past!

We found that there are downloads for Windows and MAC but that's it, not great if you're a Linux user or perhaps have a Google Chrome Box or Android based PC.  Even if you do have a Windows or MAC computer not everybody will be comfortable having to install third-party software.  It also means that if you want to access Homey from a friend or relatives PC you'd have to install the software there too.  A footnote on the above KB article simply says "For non-supported operating systems, go to https://my.athom.com in Google Chrome" so that's what we did.

For further information on the desktop software you'll have to look elsewhere unfortunately as we were unable to use that ourselves!

We logged in to the web UI and again were a little disappointed to see the message that "Browsers are not supported".  It was all beginning to feel a little bit restricted in our opinion! OK there's an iOS and Android App, but as far as we could see those are purely for "remote control" purposes, you can't actually use them to setup and configure Homey (e.g. add devices, create scenes and logic, etc).

Despite the warning message though, the web UI does seem to be fully functional with links to Devices, Flows, Music, Insights and Settings.  We're not sure what extra functionality the desktop software adds, nor why the web UI has the warning message. It's worth bearing in mind that access via a browser seems to imply that at best you're on your own in the event of any problems and at worst the web UI presumably might be removed in the future.

Apps galore

We poked around in the web UI for a while and it all seemed quite self-explanatory.  The "Devices" section is where you can add / configure / control devices, although strangely by default this appears to only allow "Infrared" and "Z-Wave" devices, what about all those other radios? The "Flows" section is for Scenes and Logic, "Music" lets you use Homey to play music to supported systems such as Sonos, or internally (although we're not sure that the built in speaker is good enough for that), the "Insights" section is for logging and graphing and the "Settings" section allows system configuration.

We'll cover some of those sections in more detail a little later, but for now we dug deeper into the "Apps" link on the "Settings" page. This seems to be a BIG part of the Homey eco-system, with a full-on App-Store available that lists hundreds of official and third-party Apps that add additional functionality to the Homey controller.

Of course, we're all used to seeing Apps on other Smart Home controllers, but with Homey it seems to have been taken to an extreme level with Apps being required even for what we'd consider to be the "core" Z-Wave functionality.  For example, there's Apps for Fibaro, Aeotec, Z-Wave.me, Everspring, Qubino, etc, which seem to add support for certain devices from those manufacturers.  That's something that you'd normally find in most other Z-Wave controllers by default.

After a few months of using Homey, we eventually concluded that this approach does seem to make sense because it brings several advantages over other Z-Wave controllers that try to have built in support for everything out-of-the-box.

Firstly it means that compatibility for Z-Wave devices can be added by the official Homey developers or by third party developers (maybe even the device manufacturer themselves), or even by both (competition is never a bad thing).  It also means that compatibility is a simple case of an App install or App update, as opposed to other Home Automation controllers that seem to require a lengthy firmware update to add support for any new devices. You only have to look at the Vera and Fibaro forums as an example of how tedious it can be to wait months for a firmware update to make that shiny new device you bought work properly!

Secondly due to the open nature of the Athom Homey system it means that you can fix things or add compatibility yourself if you're that way inclined.  There's an extensive developer SDK available as well as developer forum and Slack channel.

And finally, it means that if you don't *need* particular functionality, you just don't install the App.  This is especially important when it comes to all those extra radios we mentioned before because it means that they aren't active by default just sitting there using CPU cycles and memory.  If you want to make use of one of the radios, install an App for it.

Inevitably though there are some drawbacks, mostly around App support and ongoing development.  We did see quite a few disgruntled comments on various Apps (even the "official" ones) about things stopping working after updates or bugs and glitches.  Of course that's to be expected, but a lot of these comments seemed to be met with stony silence, which doesn't exactly bode well for customers new to the Homey platform or perhaps looking at Homey as a Smart Home control option and doing some initial research!

We think part of the problem is that official support channels need to be made clearer as it can be confusing for a newbie to know exactly where to get help - App Store "comments"? The App's GitHub source repository? Athom forums? Athom support themselves? Hopefully that's something that Athom will take on board for the future because while their system may well be "open" it's still a commercial product and customers will expect a certain level of easy-to-access support.  Until the support lines are made clearer we'd recommend simply contacting the guys at Athom direct ( support@athom.com ) as if it's not something that they can deal with themselves then they will be in the best place to point you in an appropriate direction.

We also saw that while there are a myriad of third party Apps, users were often asking questions such as "can it support XXX" to be told that since the developer doesn't have device "XXX" they have no way of adding support for it. That occurs on other platforms too, so it's not exactly a unique problem, but that's usually with non-core technologies (for example a third-party plugin to add support for Philips Hue).

The difference with Homey though is that we're talking about core Z-Wave devices where most customers will expect them to work out-of-the-box or to have the respective support from the manufacturer in resolving the compatibility problem.  As an example, customers using certain TKB devices and Everspring devices are left wanting.  Contacting Homey Support would no doubt result in a "well support for those devices is provided by a third party, go talk to them ....." response.

Web UI

OK, so back to the web UI then!

One important thing to note is that Homey is a "Cloud" based controller, it has limited functionality when not connected to the Internet. In fact we found that we couldn't access the local web UI at all on the initial visit, without first logging in to the Homey Cloud - the local IP address of the Homey simple diverts to the Homey Cloud and requires you to log in before going any further.

Of course there's nothing to suggest that Homey won't be around for a LONG time, but it's something to consider as other Home Automation controllers such as Vera & Fibaro are in the most part fully functional even when completely disconnected from the Internet.

Once that initial verification was completed however, we were subsequently able to access the Homey web UI by logging in locally - there was no longer the requirement to visit the Cloud.

We did find ourselves on several occasions getting into some sort of browser loop with the Homey login where the browser would repeatedly refresh with some sort of error message and then result in us being "locked out".

Clearly that's some sort of security defense on the Homey controller which is fine in practise, but very frustrating when all you're trying to do is access the local web UI!

The Homey web UI is built around a responsive design so that it should work well on multiple browsers and platforms.  For the most part this succeeds but we did experience some issues when trying to use it on tablets with touch interface.  Being drag-and-drop it's very difficult to use on an iPad for example.

That said, we'd imagine that most people will carry out all their configuration when sat in front of a "proper" PC and then use the Apps on iOS and Android devices for the simpler remote control aspects.  After all, this is "Home Automation" and not purely "Remote Control"!

As mentioned before, the Homey web UI is split into logical sections, so it makes sense to go through each in turn.

Zones & Devices

This is a nice drag-and-drop layout where you can arrange your devices into a hierarchical Zone view, for example by Home -> Ground Floor -> Kitchen.  Or perhaps you could separate the devices out by device type, for example Lighting, Heating, Sockets, etc.

It works well and you can drag stuff around to your hearts content, but one thing to note is that a device can only exist in ONE Zone at a time.  So you can't for example have a nice hierarchical view of rooms but then also have the devices grouped by type as well.

One thing that we found odd was how Homey represents devices on the UI.  In other controllers you typically get a UI graphic that shows the current value of each individual aspect of your device, so a 4-in-1 sensor would have an icon for motion, temperature, light level and humidity, each showing the current values at a glance.  In Homey initially this is all compressed into a single object on the web UI and you have to "expand" it to see the other data.

We're in two minds as to whether this is better or worse than other controllers.

On the one hand it makes for a cleaner looking web UI at first glance, but we're kind of used to being able to look at the web UI and see all the data straight away, without having to drill down into individual devices and find it.

This also makes it difficult to separate out your devices into that hierarchical layout that we mentioned before - you can't group all your temperature devices together for example.

We should add that in the iOS and Android Apps the data IS all immediately visible so you don't need to drill down to find it.  But that really seems counter-intuitive because on a phone where you have limited screen space you'd probably be better off having this "collapsed" approach, whereas on a PC web browser you most likely have a huge screen to take advantage of.

Maybe these changes are something that can be considered in the future!

Moving on then a key function of this part of the web UI is of course to add / delete / manage your devices.  Homey takes an interesting approach here because you can "add" a device from within any of your Zones, or at the highest level ("Home") and move it afterwards. Adding devices is also "Wizard" driven and from here you can start the "generic" Z-Wave or Infrared Wizards, but more impressively you can start specific Wizards that have been added by any Apps that you've installed.

Remember we mentioned before the Homey concept of being able to install Apps to support Z-Wave device compatibility, it's here that this really starts to make sense.  From each App you can expand the Wizard and select the *exact* device that you are adding to be sure that the correct settings and configurations are applied.

And of course this isn't just for Z-Wave devices either, Apps for the 433MHz radios such as the LightwaveRF one offer the same functionality.

It really is an excellent feature, but just remember that not all Apps are created equal and that you may well be at the mercy of the third-party developer for fixing bugs or adding support for additional devices!

We should also mention that we couldn't find any obvious way to add CCTV IP cameras to Homey, something that is possible in almost all other Home Automation controllers, even if only on a very basic level. Being able to view / control CCTV IP cameras seems to be a common request from customers when looking at Smart Home controller choices, so it seems a bit of an omission. The closest thing that we could find was an App called "Image Grabber" which allows you to download an image via HTTP from within a Homey Flow and use it in your logic. We did also see an App that adds integration for the Synology Surveillance Station which looks pretty cool, but obviously only if you're an existing user of that system.

Flows

The Flows screen is probably the most impressive of all of Homey's features as it's where you design all your logic to make your home a truly Smart Home!

The drag-and-drop nature of the web UI really helps give the Flows section an intuitive feel and the screen is broken up into three columns - "when", "and" and "then" with the "then" column also having a separate "else" part.

Down the left hand side of the screen are all your "things" - devices, functions, features, logic elements, essentially anything that can "trigger" your logic and anything that you can "control" from your logic.

The whole Flows screen is really easy to use once you grasp the basic concepts -

"when"

When you drag your things into the "when" column and they take the form of trigger / event "cards" which provide different events to trigger the Flow.  Available events will vary depending on the type of device or the App that is associated with the device, for example for the LightwaveRF mood controller the App gives you an event for each button press and you can scroll through these to select which one to use.

It really is quite a slick system and we found ourselves actually enjoying the whole experience, it's much more user-friendly than other Home Automation controllers!

One limitation of the current Flows editor is that you can't have multiple triggers in a flow, so it's not possible to carry out "OR" logic in a single Flow, you'd have to use multiple Flows.

We didn't notice this at first as the limitation only appears when you try to save the Flow, so that's something to bear in mind if you need this type of logic control.

"and"

Similar to the "when" column you also drag things here to build your logic.  The difference with the "and" column though is that these events can't be *transient*.  For example a push on a LightwaveRF mood controller button is a transient event - it happens once and then is no longer "true".  So it can be used for the "when" column but not for the "and" column.

"and" events are things that can *still* be true after they've initially occurred, for example "the battery is LOW", "the light is ON", "the socket is OFF", etc - think of them as a "current value". This concept can be difficult to grasp, so the best thing to do is simply drag the same "thing" into both the "when" and "and" columns and see the difference in in the cards :-)

One thing that we did notice was that some devices don't seem to offer the same data when used in the "and" column compared to what they offer when used in the "when" column.

For example for our Oregon Scientific Temperature Sensor we can trigger on "the temperature changed" in the "when" column and then subsequently use a "Logic" thing in the "and" column to check if that temperature is more than / less than / equal to / etc.

But how do we trigger on an event such as a mood controller button being pressed AND the temperature on this Oregon Scientific sensor being greater than X?

Our only option for the "and" column for this particular device is "the battery alarm is on", there's no "the temperature is currently ...." or "the temperature is more than .....".

We subsequently found out from Athom Support that there's a "Tags" section on the top navigation bar which allows you to use data from devices / Apps in your flows so this is indeed possible, if not immediately obvious!

"then"

Here's where you actually "do" something in the Flow, so this could be as simple as controlling a device on / off or setting the dimming level.  Or you can send a push notification, make a voice announcement over the internal speaker, play some music or animate the LED ring around the Homey controller.  You can even trigger another flow directly.  There's so much functionality here it really does put other controllers like Vera & Fibaro to shame!

It should be noted though that while it's an incredibly flexible and powerful system, the possibilities here are also governed by the Apps that you have installed, so if an App isn't coded to allow you to send a "turn on at previous level" command to a dimmer then you won't be able to do that.

"else"

This functionality has recently been added to the Homey Flows section and allows you to do all the same things as in the "then" section, but as an "else" action instead.

It's definitely a step in the right direction but currently only allows for one level of "If, then, else", there's no "if, then, else if, then, else if, else".  To achieve that functionality you have to trigger another Flow and in that new Flow add your "else if" to the "and" column and so on, which could become quite complex when trying to implement multi-level logic. We hope that this will be improved in the future to be slightly more intuitive and follow a similar design to the graphical editors in the likes of Zipato, Domoticz and Fibaro controllers.

One limitation of the Flows section appears to be a lack of the ability to just create a Flow that you can run manually i.e. one that sets a dozen lights to pre-determined levels "Scene" style.  You can't have a Flow *without* a "when" to trigger it! There are various workarounds mentioned on the Homey forum though, for example creating a dummy or virtual device that you use as the "when".

It should also be mentioned that neither the iOS or Android App has the ability to execute a Flow directly either, the Flows section simply doesn't even appear in the App.  So the only option there anyway would be to use a dummy or virtual device to trigger the Flow.

If you're like us you probably have dozens of these types of Scene requirements for setting "moods" around your Smart Home, so it would be a bit of a drag to have to create a load of dummy or virtual devices just to be able to run them manually!

The Athom developers have mentioned that this will be resolved in a future release of the App, which is certainly something to look forward to.

Music

One area that's recently been added to Homey seems to be "Music", although out-of-the-box this didn't actually seem to do much.

We assumed that we needed to install an App to enable this part of the Homey system to do stuff, so we installed the official "Google Play Music" App which purports to "Lets you play your Google Play Music playlists and create mixed content playlists with Google Play Music songs!"

Sadly we couldn't get this to work at all as it kept complaining about our login credentials (even though these worked perfectly in the same browser on the actual Google Play Music web site).  Looking at the comments on the App store for this App we can see that we're not alone, with many unanswered comments from other users going back several months.  That's really disappointing given that this is supposedly an "official" App!

We also couldn't find a way to use our Spotify account from within Homey, despite it appearing as a main feature on the Homey web site.  The only Spotify App we could find said it only works with Sonos speakers, what about the Homey built in speaker or "line-out" connection? Or our Google Chromecasts? These may well be limitations with the Spotify API but in our opinion that should be made abundantly clear on both the App pages and on the Homey web site as it's misleading currently.

Frustrating to say the least, but hopefully this stuff will all work eventually as it does look impressive.

Insights

Data logging and visualisation are areas where other Home Automation controllers often lack, for example Vera only has *very* basic logging capabilities and you have to resort to third-party plugins to even begin to look at things like graphing.  Fibaro on the other hand fares much better, with reasonable logging and graphing functionality built in.

Homey goes in the other direction entirely and has fantastic data logging and visualisation in the Insights section of the web UI.

With just a few clicks it's possible to create graphs that show all manner of data and then export them to an image file.  You can also change the date range covered via simple dropdown selectors, with shortcuts for things like "today", "yesterday", "month to date" and "previous month".

There's options to change the type of graph to suit the data that you want to view as well, plus you can save each visualisation as a template to enable you to easily return to it at a later date.

You can also download the raw data if you wish for use elsewhere and elect NOT to log certain data types, which is useful to lighten the load.  We'd prefer an "opt-in" logging system rather than an "opt-out" just on the basis that it seems silly to log *everything* by default, we had barely a dozen or so devices / Apps installed and there were over 40 things being logged.  We wonder how quickly that would start to eat into system resources once you reached a few hundred devices?

Overall the Insights section is a joy to use and makes a refreshing change from what we're used to in other systems!

Radio One

As mentioned previously, Homey only has the Z-Wave radio active by default and we've seen that we can install Apps to enable compatibility with various Z-Wave manufacturer devices.  But what really intrigued us with Homey was all those other built in radios - on paper it certainly seems to be a very capable Smart Home controller.

Unfortunately this is where once again we got a little disappointed because not all of those appear to actually be usable.  In the first instance, you have to install Apps to add the functionality for each radio appropriately and as mentioned in the Apps Galore section above this has both advantages and disadvantages.

Perhaps the most popular radio frequency, certainly within the UK, is the 433MHz one and here we could only find Apps that allowed that to be used with devices from LightwaveRF, Somfy, HomeEasy and Oregon Scientific.  There was nothing to suit our other devices from the likes of Visonic, Imagintronix, Owl, Kerui or Byron.  Of course there's nothing to stop you developing your own App, or petitioning the Athom developers accordingly to add support for other devices.

Other than the 433MHz radio, at the time of writing, there didn't seem to be anything that made use of the ZigBee, Bluetooth or 868MHz radios which currently rules out using Homey to interface with the likes of Philips Hue, Osram, Fitbit, Parrot, Xiaomi or other such technologies directly.  Of course you may still be able to install Apps for those and use them via their respective local hub / gateway or Cloud service. But that's not really the point, with all these radios built in you really want to be able to use them.

Regular readers may remember that we have a LARGE install base of Home Automation equipment with hundreds and hundreds of devices covering all manner of technologies and we were hoping that Homey might become the one-controller-to-rule-them-all.  Sadly that doesn't appear to be possible right now, but fortunately Athom themselves are on the case and have been working in many of these areas in the background over the past few months with plans to unleash the ZigBee radio imminently which will add support for Osram Lightify, Innr Lighting and others.  So there's definitely hope for the future in that respect!

For now we picked out Apps for LightwaveRF, X10 and Oregon Scientific as we probably have 50+ of those devices alone, so we figured that it would be a good test of the 433MHz capabilities.

These Apps were a mixed bag, the LightwaveRF one seemed pretty good with built in Wizards showing you how to add / pair devices and then various cards in the Flow editor that could be used for triggers and actions.

The other Apps were more, um, "functional" let's say, so some fiddling around was required to work out how to use them.  We also had some unexplained crashes with the Oregon Scientific App so we switched to a different one (remember we said that competition was good) and that seemed more stable.

Sadly though we found that the receiving range of the 433MHz radio itself was quite poor, it could only reliably receive devices in the room that Homey was actually in itself.  Of the 50 odd devices we mentioned above that are dotted around our property only a handful of them were picked up. When controlling LightwaveRF devices the transmitting range was much better, we could reliably reach most adjacent rooms in the house and only those further out (two walls away) or in outbuildings and the garden seemed to struggle.

We did find a KB article about the wireless range of Homey and about improving 433MHz performance, but those didn't really help. Given that all these devices work 100% reliably with the RFXCom RFXtrx433E for both transmit and receive covering our entire property, we think that Athom (or the third party developers) have some more work to do in this area to be on a par with the competition.

Ifs, Buts and Maybes

To be honest writing this review has been a bit of a struggle for us.  On the one hand Homey promises so much - it's a fantastic looking Smart Home controller, has top-notch specifications and impressive features.

Perhaps our expectations are too high, but in our opinion this isn't a cheap product by any means - at £269 it's a significant investment and everywhere we looked there were little "niggles" that start to make us doubt whether it's worth the outlay.

While the App Store is certainly impressive at a casual glance and seems to offer 100's of integrations for different devices and technologies, we were frequently frustrated after the initial "oh that's cool, it can support my ....." to then find that the App didn't work or had faults. Then we uncover unanswered comments from users with issues and un-acknowledged bug reports on that App's GitHub source repository and it just gives an uneasy feeling that you're at the mercy of so many third-parties.

There's also several glaring omissions in functionality, some of which we've already mentioned which maybe aren't so serious, but others that would almost seem crazy to be missing - for example there's no way currently to do a backup and restore of your Homey system!  So if your Homey suffers a hardware fault or some other failure and you need to get a replacement, or perhaps you'd like to revert to a configuration "checkpoint" before something started going wrong, you have ZERO capability in this area.

Come on guys, even the FREE open-source non-commercial Smart Home software like Domoticz has that functionality, but Homey doesn't!

Whenever we review a new Home Automation controller we always have to compare it with "what we know" which typically comes down to Vera & Fibaro.

So, ultimately is Homey any better than an £99.99 Vera Edge?  OK it has all those extra radios, but none of them are usable out-of-the-box without adding Apps, many of which are provided by third-parties where you are reliant on them for support or adding device compatibility.  Even after adding some Apps to enable LightwaveRF we found that the 433MHz range wasn't good enough to be relied on for day-to-day use.

A Vera Edge with the venerable RFXtrx433E will set you back £183.98 or make it a Vera Plus and RFX for £233 - both those will give superior 433MHz performance in our experience. While Z-Wave device compatibility can (frustratingly) take time to get right at least you have an "official" support channel that will investigate your issues and if necessary forward the data to the development team so that the compatibility can be added to a future firmware update.

Moving up the scale and comparing Homey to the Fibaro controllers, an HCL is available at a similar price and it's not much of a leap up to an HC2.  The graphical Scene editor in Fibaro is probably the most user friendly we've ever used so it compares well to Homey in that respect. Plugins on Fibaro are limited to "official" offerings (but at least they are ALL supported by official channels) and the HC2 offers LUA scripting for advanced users to get under the hood if they want to (as does Vera too it should be said).  Again, Z-Wave device compatibility may take time to get sorted but it does, eventually!

At this price point you're also into HomeSeer territory and regular readers will know that we rate that pretty highly, so we'd be hard pressed to recommend Homey over HomeSeer given that you can pick up a Zee for quite a bit less than Homey.  Add on an RFX too and that's a powerful combination.

That said, clearly it's impossible for us to cover every single aspect of a Smart Home controller in one review and undoubtedly there are things that we missed which may well have been "killer" features.

Overall we think that we've covered enough of Homey to give a balanced view of the system based on the stable 1.3.1 firmware that we've been using for the past few months. We should also add that we test a LOT of Smart Home controllers at Vesternet, both newcomers, upgrades to existing devices and additions to current ranges.  Some of those don't even make it to the review stage because frankly it's just not worth the huge amount of effort that's required to do the in-depth testing and produce the content.  So the fact that Homey has gotten such an extensive review should show that we hold it in high regard alongside the likes of Devolo and HomeSeer.

Conclusion

So, where do we go from here then?

Well we're crossing our fingers in the hope that Homey eventually fulfills its on-paper potential and in fact you can track much of this progress in the Homey Software Status page.

There's a lot of functionality that's being worked on in the "experimental" releases as can be seen in the link above and some of the comments that we've raised have been resolved in the latest 1.5 release.  Others are in the process of being resolved for future releases, in particular the Backup & Restore functionality appears to be high on the priority list.

All in all Homey has a lot going for it with many highlights and aside from the few niggles we particularly liked the device and App Wizards, the Flows editor and the Insights section.  With improvements in the latest release and more planned for the near future Homey should certainly be amongst your considerations for a Smart Home controller.

We really do believe that Homey has a bright future and we'll likely revisit it later in the year to check out the improvements and fixes that are being worked on, but if you're comfortable being part of their journey in the meantime then get yours on order today!

Bye for now

Martyn

With the nights drawing in and a definite chill in the air it seems that the UK Summer is already a fading memory :-(

As we move into Autumn and we all start to look at all those Smart Home projects that have been put on the back burner while our attention was focused on sunshine and holidays, we thought we'd take a look at some of the recent releases in the Z-Wave world once again.

Fibaro Door / Window Sensor 2

We're not sure what happened at Fibaro in the past few years, but they've been releasing device after device during the past 18 months!  Hot on the heels of the Swipe last year came the new Single and Double Switch 2, swiftly followed by the Button.

This year has showed no sign of slowing down with the release of the Keyfob and now the Door / Window Sensor 2 that we're looking at right now (not to mention the CO Sensor that we'll also be checking out in this very same blog post).

That's a LOT of new releases and it's pleasing to see Fibaro leading the way with some really solid devices.  That said, when we first saw the specifications of the Door / Window Sensor 2 we had mixed feelings.  On the one hand it's a nice looking device, but it's more of an evolution than revolution in our opinion.  It comes in at slightly smaller than the previous version as can be seen in the image below.

We were also pleased to see that it now INCLUDES a built in temperature sensor, so there's no more requirement to purchase an additional DS18B20 to install inside.

On the other hand though, they've removed the binary sensor input terminals!  That's a real travesty because it means it can no longer be used with an external switch, something that's been really useful in the past to Z-Wave enable all manner of objects such as doorbells, pressure mats and letter boxes.

Fortunately we do still have some of the previous versions available, so if you're in need of one we'd suggest ordering without delay before the stocks are finally depleted.

So the all important question on device compatibility arises again.  Well for Fibaro controllers such as the HC2 and HCL we'll make the assumption that it just works, it would be silly to release a device that doesn't work in your own controllers! Just make sure that your HCL or HC2 is running the latest stable firmware (or bleeding edge Beta if you like taking risks) and you should be good to go.

Athom Homey also appears to have support, so make sure you're running the latest version of the Fibaro App.

And what about all you Vera users?  Well unfortunately, once again, Vera are lagging behind as it doesn't work out-of-the-box.  That said, it's a relatively simple fix involving changing the device files - if you don't fancy doing that yourself then Vera Support should be able to handle it for you.

Overall we like the new Door / Window Sensor 2 device, it's a smaller, simpler device than the previous version and with the built in temperature sensor there's nothing else required to have a fully functional sensor out-of-the-box.

Philio Motion Sensor

Next up we have a new release from Philio and it's a pretty cool device in our opinion.  On the face of it there's not actually much to say - it's literally just a motion sensor in a rather familiar golf-ball style design, nothing more, no additional multi-sensor bits like temperature, humidity or light level.

Often though simple means more reliable.  It also allows the manufacturer to concentrate on making the device do its sole task perfectly and it's here that we think Philio have excelled as can be seen from the specifications of the device. It's IP43 rated (and actually has a rubber seal between the two halves of the device) so it's perfect for outdoor use, it has a detection range of up to 12 meters and is available in several different mounting styles.

We had our hands on the version with the magnetic wall mount and lens shroud cover but there are also versions with round and square ceiling recessors. AND they are all the same price, no additional cost for the recessor - are you listening Aeon?

One small issue we found with the magnetic mount is that by its design it's not exactly "screwed down" so that could be an issue when mounting them outdoors.  That said, the magnets are incredibly strong and we certainly didn't experience any movement of the device during normal use.  If the magnet doesn't do the job well enough for you then it wouldn't be much of an issue using some "no more nails" type sticky tabs to further secure the device, although that may make future battery changes a touch challenging!

As far as compatibility is concerned we weren't expecting any great dramas to be honest - surely you can't get any simpler than a single function motion sensor?

Well, Athom Homey users should be OK as long as they have the latest version of the Philio App.

But that's about as good as it gets unfortunately because Vera, yet again, fails miserably.  And Fibaro, well firmware version 1.40 is hot-off-the-press and we'd already loaded that this morning so we're not sure about older versions, but as of the latest and greatest the Philio PSP05 is about as useful as a chocolate teapot!

Come on guys, this is such a simple device it's ridiculous that it doesn't work out-of-the-box.  We recommend customers contact Vera or contact Fibaro and push them for a resolution - and no, we don't want "it will be supported in a future firmware update" and then to have to wait 18 months for it!

So, if you can get it to work in your controller, we thoroughly recommend the Philio Motion Sensor, it's a decently styled device, has good quality hardware and does exactly what you'd expect it to do.

Aeotec WallMote Dual / Aeotec WallMote Quad

Ok, so the Aeotec WallMote isn't exactly a "new" device although the dual version has only just been released in the past few weeks, so we think it counts as new :-)

Plus, some early adopters of the original WallMote Quad were affected by various issues with battery life and stability.  We're pleased to say that it appears that those issues have been resolved - existing users may need to update their device firmware.

So to recap, the WallMotes are rechargeable switching devices for direct control of other Z-Wave devices by Association or for Triggering Scenes within your Z-Wave controller.  A magnetic wall mount allows it to be mounted pretty much anywhere and then removed to recharge the battery or to simply use it as a mobile "remote control" device.

They're pretty unique the way they work too as they don't have any physical buttons, just two (Dual) or four (Quad) touch-sensitive surfaces that react to tapping, tapping and holding and even swiping up / swiping down. Oh, they also have audio and haptic feedback, so they can beep and vibrate in response to being touched (you can turn this off too if you wish).

And the dreaded compatibility question?  Well you'd really hope the WallMotes would be working out-of-the-box now given that the original Quad version was released back in February! Too much to expect?

Good news for Vera users, the Quad appears to be working pretty well with minimal effort - it's even featured in the Vera Device Wizard. Basic Scene Triggering was simply a case of assigning the Scene to a "button" 1 - 4 to represent the four touch surfaces on the Quad. For anything more than that you'll have to get creative though!

The Dual however .... well once again Vera manages to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory as the Dual doesn't work at all out-of-the-box.  Sure, you can mess around with device files, LUA scripting and other such nonsense and you may get it working, but that's hardly the point. Hopefully given the Quad is already implemented Vera Support will be able to resolve the problem pretty quickly.

Association wise the WallMote really comes into its own, within a few minutes we had it controlling various dimmer devices using the up / down sliding motions as well simple on / off control of relays and sockets.  Fortunately this also works on the Dual as all you're using Vera for with Associations is to set the configuration Parameters and assign the Association Groups. Being a Z-Wave Plus device, just watch out for trying to control a Secure device if you've Included the WallMote without Security, or vice-versa.

On Fibaro Home Centre we were pleasantly surprised to see that the WallMotes were also "sort of" working out-of-the-box. While the WallMotes look a bit odd on the FIbaro UI (you can hide the extra devices if you wish), they can be used to successfully Trigger basic Scenes for each button 1 - 4 (Quad) and 1 - 2 (Dual). Equally surprisingly the UI seemed to react correctly to "hold" and "release" too. We're not sure if that's more by luck than judgement though, but whatever, we'll take the win :-)

Athom Homey users should also be OK, as the Quad appears to be supported with the latest App, we'd assume that the Dual should work too as they share the same basic functionality, but given that this isn't the case in Vera we'd suggest checking with Athom first!

All in all the WallMotes are pretty cool devices in terms of functionality in our opinion, not to mention they're really aesthetically pleasing! We've actually started to use them in our own homes to replace older, less user friendly devices such as the POPP or Z-Wave.me Wall Controllers.

Fibaro CO Sensor

Yes indeed, yet another device from our Polish friends at Fibaro!

To be honest there's not really much to review about this one - it's essentially exactly the same as their Smoke Sensor but obviously it uses a Carbon Monoxide sensor internally.

We all love Fibaro marketing, so let's enjoy their video for the CO Sensor.

Compatibility wise we're pretty sure it will work in the Fibaro HCL and HC2 controllers and you'll get some of the amazing features covered in the video above.

Looking at the Athom Homey Fibaro App it's listed as a compatible device so Homey users should be OK there too.

And Vera, well it's a new device, released what, nearly TWO months ago?  So I guess we can't expect for it to be supported already, can we?  It's OK though, all your Samsung Appliances should be working great...... just submit your frustrations here.

As far as the device itself it concerned it's pretty much identical to the Smoke Sensor as mentioned previously, so we expect the functionality to be similar.  Unfortunately we don't have a way to simulate a CO leak so it's a bit difficult to test if it works well or not in that respect, but pushing the "Test" button elicited a familiar shrill beeping and LED flash.

So there you go, buy one now ....... or as Fibaro state in their video above ....... you may die. Period.

You could also read our "Choosing a Smoke Alarm" guide which covers some of the other options.  We're a fan of the Nest Protect ourselves but it's difficult to integrate these into a wider Smart Home system.

If we hadn't already gone down the Nest route then the Fibaro CO and Smoke Sensors would be the way we'd go, especially given how small these devices both are!  They really are tiny and can easily be hidden or lost in your room's decor.

Aeotec LED Strip

Like Fibaro, Aeotec also seem to be on a roll this year too, with many new products released and more in the pipeline!

We love a good LED strip at Vesternet, previously Philips Hue has been one of our favourites due to being a self-contained device.  Up until now with Z-Wave we've been limited to using the Fibaro RGBW Controller or the Qubino RGBW Dimmer Plus, both of which are very capable devices of course, but do come with the added complication of you needing to source your own power supply and LED strips to use with them.

That all changes now with the Aeotec LED Strip - 5m of RGBWW LEDs, power supply and module all in one package.  And that "WW" isn't a typo - the device features 30 RGB LEDs per meter, 30 Cool White LEDs per meter AND 30 Warm White LEDs per meter.  So that's RGBWW :-)

The specs don't stop there, the LED Strip offers 3000 - 6500 Kelvin colour and white range with a maximum of 5000 lumens brightness, is waterproof to IP65 rating making it perfect for outdoor use and has 80 CRI colour accuracy which is pretty impressive!  Factor in a lower power consumption of just 72 watts at maximum brightness and you have an incandescent equivalency of 250 watts.

Oh and to round things off, it's a Z-Wave Plus Gen5 device, has a 3M sticker on the rear which is *really* sticky and can be cut every 20cm which should make it really easy to use in any installation scenario.

In terms of the hardware itself it's pretty good quality, we've had a number of LED strips over the years and the Aeotec compares well. If we were being ultra picky we'd say that the plug where the LED Strip connects into the control module is a bit of a poor fit and would probably warrant some sticky tape to ensure it's held firmly. The initial connecting wire is also a bit on the short side, just 12cm before you hit the LED strip itself, so that's something to bear in mind as it could make installation a bit tricky outside for example.  That said, we don't see any reason why you couldn't carefully cut and extend the wire to suit (although you'd obviously void your warranty).

So the most important question is obviously how does it fair in the common Z-Wave controllers?

Well for once, Athom Homey users are on their own since the official Aeotec App doesn't have support for this device and the developers appear to be deferring to the community to "have a go".  Unfortunately this is something that we noted in our recent review of the Athom Homey, but hopefully somebody, somewhere, at some time, will eventually add support for the device!

For Vera, somewhat surprisingly, it almost works out-of-the-box!  By default it is recognised as a single dimmable bulb on the UI, but by simply following Aeotec's guide you can almost make it fully functional :-)

We say "almost" as we kept experiencing an issue where Vera would get the device stuck in Cool White mode and wouldn't change to Warm White or to RGB. Hopefully this is something that the Vera developers can fix in a future firmware update.

And what of Fibaro? Will that be the shining star? Well no, despite the fact that it appeared to Include correctly with a nice RGB colour control and separate controls for Warm White and Cool White, we couldn't get the RGB colour control to do anything at all and found that Cool White worked perfectly but you couldn't have Warm White on its own without also having Cool White "on a bit" too.

So near but so far .......... and as with Vera, hopefully this is something that can be fixed quickly in the next firmware update from the Fibaro developers.

Overall the Aeotec LED Strip looks like a really cool device - the RGB, Cool White and Warm White LED specifications are great and from the limited amount of testing that we were actually able to do we genuinely like the range of colours available.

Conclusion

Well if you got this far then you may well wonder why this review has been a little on the terse side when it comes to controller compatibility.  To be frank, we're really disappointed with how the device and controller manufacturers fail to work together to ensure that their devices work perfectly out-of-the-box in the most common controllers!

This isn't a new situation by any means, it's been like this for YEARS and we find ourselves asking the same question over and over again - exactly how many devices do they expect to sell if they don't WORK in any of the controllers? It doesn't matter one jot if the device is "technically compliant" if it DOES NOT WORK!

It seems absolutely crazy to us that this situation continues to occur, it's not like these devices are dreamed up on a Friday night and roll out the factory on a Monday morning to hit the retailer shelves the following day! Devices like this typically take months and months to develop, why not work with the controller manufacturer during that time to ensure that the devices work perfectly once they go on sale?

Sadly it seems that our constant pleas are ignored and that we'll have to bumble along with the way things are for the foreseeable future :-(

It's such a shame as there are some truly cracking devices here and yet most of us will struggle to use them!  Maybe you'll have more success than us, so if you do please let us know!

Bye for now.

Martyn

At Vesternet we're always on the lookout for new product ranges and we test many, many products every year to see which devices will enhance our Smart Home systems.

We're therefore pleased to announce that we've recently added the Innr Lighting range to the site after having had the products on our test systems for the past few months!

We'll be publishing a full review of the Innr Lighting products in the not too distant future, but in the meantime you can check out the dedicated Innr Lighting section on our Lighting Guide.

Suffice it to say that there are some really great devices in the Innr Lighting range.  Not only do their LED bulbs compare favourably with Philips Hue equivalents, but they also have some really unique products too.  We particularly like the Track Lighting, Shelf Lighting, Under Cabinet Lighting and Puck Lighting - never has it been easier to add Smart Home controlled lighting to areas that need more than a simple bulb swap!

As regular readers will know, we're big fans of the Philips Hue range at Vesternet and we've previously published many guides to show how they can be integrated into other Home Automation controllers.

Since the new Innr Lighting range uses the same underlying protocols as Philips Hue - they are all ZigBee based devices - it means that the Innr Lighting devices can all be used within the Phililips Hue Bridge.  Not only do they show up and work in the Philips Hue Apps like normal Philips Hue devices, they can also be voice-controlled by Alexa and Google Home.

This interoperability then subsequently means that Innr Lighting devices are immediately available in controllers such as Vera, Fibaro and Athom via their respective Philips Hue plugins!  So you're free to mix and match across Z-Wave, Philips Hue and Innr Lighting ranges to pick the best devices for your requirements.

Oh, and did we mention that the Innr Lighting range is excellent value for money too?  In most cases Innr Lighting works out cheaper than Philips Hue on like-for-like devices and for those other unique products that we mentioned above we don't think you'll find a more affordable solution!

So what are you waiting for?  Check out the Innr Lighting range today, it's all in stock and selling fast!

Speak soon,

Martyn

It's not often that we get excited by what could be considered a "dumb" device, but the Eutonomy euFIX Fibaro Module DIN rail Adapters are probably the smartest dumb device you'll ever lay your eyes on!

First of all, what does a "DIN rail Adapter" do?  Well. the DIN mounting system has been around for years and if you're familiar with how a reasonably modern electrical Consumer Unit works you'll no doubt already have seen a DIN mountable device in action.

Put simply, a DIN rail is a metal rail of a standard sizing and is widely used for mounting circuit breakers and control devices inside equipment racks.  It allows for easily building a modular system of interconnecting devices.

But DIN rail isn't just for Consumer Units and equipment racks, you can get DIN rail enclosures in all sorts of shapes and sizes, including ones designed for external use.

So what does this mean in the world of the Smart Home?  Well, up until now there were very limited options for using DIN rail mounting in your Home Automation systems.

Sure, Qubino have a few modules specifically designed for DIN rail mounting, but they are expensive and have limited functionality.  We've also written a short guide about using Camden Boss enclosures before, but these don't really fit very well with the newer Fibaro modules.

Enter Eutonomy euFIX - the first, custom designed, DIN Adapters made specifically for Fibaro modules! What  makes these so special is that they are built to exceptionally high standards and they allow the modules to be securely mounted to the adapter, with all connections properly broken out onto screw terminals externally.  There's no manual internal wiring or hot-glue needed with these!

They are also fully CE certified and we've gone over them in fine detail and haven't been able to find a single fault.  Each adapter is designed specifically for a particular Fibaro module with the PCB being appropriately rated to suit. Since a picture speaks a thousand words, we'll let our photos do the talking .....

We really can't stress enough how good these are in the flesh, but hopefully the photos above will give you a good idea! They're available to suit 6 Fibaro modules currently and there are versions with push-buttons (as shown above) and without push-buttons.

The push-buttons are wired in parallel to the inputs on the module which makes it really easy to test them locally (perhaps before the switch cables are connected).  Not to mention making it super simple to Include and Exclude the modules on the Z-Wave side of things.  We think that for the extra few pounds it's well worth having the push-buttons, even if you don't think you'll need them.

So what does all this cost you?  Well quality doesn't come cheap, that's for sure, but at just £22 (without push-buttons) and £28 (with push-buttons) we don't think that these will break the bank either, especially when the pricing is considered as part of an overall install.  Some of the other solutions we mentioned previously were getting on for that sort of price too and frankly they are pretty poor in comparison!

At Vesternet we practice what we preach and we've got a number of projects on the go currently where we'll definitely be using the euFIX DIN Adapters.  For example we recently installed a Fibaro Single Switch 2 to control a low voltage AC garden irrigation valve and a euFIX DIN Adapter would finish this job off perfectly.  The low voltage AC PSU that we're using is even DIN mountable itself, so this would look much more professional when mounted in a nice IP rated DIN enclosure side-by-side with the Fibaro module in the corresponding euFIX DIN Adapter.

That about wraps up this post, the Eutonomy euFIX Adapters are in stock and ready to ship so check them out today!

See you soon,

Martyn

Today we launch our Black Friday 2017 Sale - with massive discounts across a range of popular smart home products - check out what's on offer here:  www.vesternet.com/smart-home/black-friday

Regular readers will recall that we launched a new Wiring Diagrams section on the Vesternet web site a few months ago.

Since then we've been working hard to add more diagrams, but it's a really time consuming process!  So far we've created somewhere in the region of 200 diagrams spanning over 30 pages !

We're slowly getting there though and have recently added sections for Aeotec and Qubino as well as expanding the Fibaro section to cover 3-way circuits and to include alternative 2-Way circuits.

Check it out and as always, any feedback you have will be greatly appreciated!

Bye for now!

Martyn