Guys… it’s time to face it… you need to support more than Z-Wave. It seems like new automation controllers are coming out everyday and they are looking to support every smart device possible. Like the Webee, Wink Hub… etc…
The Wink Hub poses an interesting opportunity though. It’s a $50 device with a BTLE, Zigbee & ZWave baked in. I’m already using it as a scene controller in Vera.
What they don’t have yet is any real automation in their controller software.
It’s time to capitalize on this and make it an officially supported Vera device. You get a low cost Zigbee controller and a cheap way in to a huge and widely available device eco-system.
Don’t count on GetVera to develop support for a competitor’s hub. It’s unrealistic and would be bad business sense. Especially with the new Vera Edge Plus listed to have Zigbee and 433Mhz support. However, someone or someones with the right programming skills in the community might be able to write a plugin that could communicate with Wink and use it as a slave.
The bad thing about Wink is that it is cloud based. However, it seems it can be ‘modified/rooted’ to run locally and someone actually made an Android app to access it that way . Still in infant stage but it shows the possibilities.
Yes, I have one sitting in the cupboard just in case such a plugin materializes as I got a good deal on it. I have no intentions of using it stand alone due to it’s cloud dependence. As in no internet, no HA.
[quote=“mhedhli”]Guys… it’s time to face it… you need to support more than Z-Wave. It seems like new automation controllers are coming out everyday and they are looking to support every smart device possible. Like the Webee, Wink Hub… etc…
The Wink Hub poses an interesting opportunity though. It’s a $50 device with a BTLE, Zigbee & ZWave baked in. I’m already using it as a scene controller in Vera.
What they don’t have yet is any real automation in their controller software.
It’s time to capitalize on this and make it an officially supported Vera device. You get a low cost Zigbee controller and a cheap way in to a huge and widely available device eco-system.[/quote]
I had my wink hub as a scene controller in vera, then some weird things happened after a month of no problems. At random times the wink hub would alter the zwave thermostat ( that vera had been successfully managing). It would randomly dump the thermostat to 50. The zwave thermostat has been in the vera network for 3 years. Never happened before the wink hub and never happened after I removed it.
Second item. I then reset the wink hub and did not include it in the zwave network. I have 12 link bulbs. 6 are constantly powered and wink turns them on and off via a timed schedule. It works with about 92% reliability. The other 6 bulbs are in can lights and they are not powered on very often. I find that if I power them on via wall switch every few days they will work via wink. If I leave them unpowered for 7-10 days they have to be completely re-paired with the wink hub. The spotters are wifi, which is kinda weird. If you remove the hub after setup. The spotters still work in the app and robots can be built for spotters. Without even having a hub. I am awaiting anything to replace wink and hopefully a vera or another controller with zwave+ and zigbee. I’m tired of having to kluge together pieces parts to build a setup.