I just received an offer from Staples:
Purchase any two Staples Connect compatible devices at $29.99 or more and get a free Staples Connect Hub (D-Link).
I came here to find out more about this home automation hub, but didn’t find what I needed to make a decision.
I have a Veralite in my second home with 5 devices. I’m in my primary home now and was considering setting up something here. It says it has zwave plus and Zigbee. Will I regret getting into this Staples Connect system?
Give it a try and let us know how it works out.
I’d be very interested to hear what someone, such as yourself, with limit Vera experience thinks of the Staples device.
If you want to hedge your bets, then you could order 2x devices that will also work with Vera (or another Z-Wave controller)
For example, the Staples Connect compatible “GE Outdoor Module” appears to be GE’s standard Outdoor appliance module, and about the same price as Amazon charges for it.
I have 1 of these I use for controlling my Hot Water recirc pump, so I might just order another 2 to get the free hub (for future hacking) - these are also useful for Christmas lights (just leave them plugged in between holidays so you don’t have Z-Wave network issues)
And there are many other items that appear to be standard zwave.
This D-Link hub deal is good through Jan 3, 2015.
OK, I went down to the local Staples and ran into some resistance, but I left with:
AeonLabs Water Sensor - 34.99
GE Outdoor Plug-In - 39.99
D-Link connect hub - 79.99
$5 off $30 coupon
10% veteran discount for this week
Got it all for $62.98 plus tax
I haven’t opened the boxes yet, but I figure that I’m ahead of the game before even starting.
I’ll give updates as I get it going in the next few days or so.
I just ordered one as well to play around with… 2 windows sensors with auto 9% discount after multiple refresh. Will poke around with the upnp … I already have a vera 2 as secondary to the vera3 master … Will see how this go …
I’ve got the hub set up and the GE Outdoor Module paired quickly and easily.
Got the thing to automatically trigger at a particular time after a few failed attempts. The setup never mentions that you have to access the hub through the computer interface to set the correct time zone and current time. Duh. Other than that, I have used only my phone.
The Android interface is nice and clean. Very easy to use. When the event turned the switch on, I had the system send me an email and it actually had real words in it!
From what I can see, the software interface is designed to appeal to non-techies. It may lack some of the finer detail but it appears to do a good straight-up job.
Their help forum isn’t very robust yet, but questions and issues are addressed by “official” company people. Some of the answers are “will be fixed in next software update” but they do seem very responsive.
I will go to Lowe’s this weekend to pick up a First Alert Smoke/CO zcombo, and see what happens with that.
Overall, this has been a very good experience (so far).
I also purchased Staples connect hub but planning to return now. My main reason for doing home-automation is saving money and doing some crazy stuff by yourself. I found staples connect hub cheaper than Vera but vera’s community support is priceless. I think going by vera i can do much more stuff than staples connect hub and there are lot of people to give advice and help. Another reason why i am planning to go with vera is lot of plugin available which might will not work with staples dlink.
I am curious if there is any hack possible for the d link version. Apparently, a hack was discovered for the first version, but I have not seen anyone claim to do anything worthwhile with it.
Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk
True, but the Linksys model was out for a while before someone worked out how to trick the boot loader into ‘fallback’ mode.
The DLink version hasn’t been out all that long, and it’ll definitely get hacked… It’s hardware is more interesting so it’s only a matter of time.
I was playing around with this hub over the weekend. upnp scanning in Vera didn’t find any dlink hub. I tried to add this dlink hub to existing z-wave network and also via high power inclusion. Vera found the dlink but add as scene controller but gave error about couldn’t get version info. i tried to send the zwave info from the dlink but couldn’t get through that error. On the dlink side, It see a good number of vera device but can’t do anything with it. Unless I did something wrong. What is the right way to include a hub to vera?
Opened it up last night, and it has some interesting internals:
[ul][li]Marvell Processor 800Mhz by spec (88F6-BM12/Armada 370 Series ?)[/li]
[li]Winbond 256M of RAM (2Gbit module, W632GG6KB)[/li]
[li]Silicon Labs ZigBee module (EM357)[/li]
[li]Marvell WLAN/BT Smart/FM Chip (W8777)[/li]
[li]Freescale ??? (MCQE128C)[/li]
[li]A potential JTAG Header location (but not marked that way, just a standard 2x5 connector)[/li]
[li]A potential Serial Header location (but not marked that way)[/li]
[li]A u.FL connector next to every radio, in addition to the PCB Antenna[/li][/ul]
The case was a little hard to open, but got it eventually. To open it, remove the 3x rubber feet from the bottom, and remove the screws. Then [gently] squeeze the sides until they pop out of their clips. This is the part that can take some wrangling… There is a single PCB beneath that runs “front-to-back” inside the case.
Anyhow, it looks like the Z-Wave processor has been in-lined into the PCB, with suitably non-descript chip identifiers, so it’s not a normal looking Z-Wave “module” design that we’re used to seeing.
…something to toy with over the Christmas period 
@Guessed, Freescale specializes in extremely low current consumption micro-controllers. It has on board Eprom, EEprom and ram for a small bootstrap program to get it going. Has built in I/O channels and timers. That chip is the one doing all the heavy lifting.
You can just tell from all the devices you listed that this unit is more sophisticated/faster/better than the new Vera Edge, yet sells for less. Everyone can draw their own conclusions…
Yep, it’s a pretty nice piece of kit, hardware wise. It’s also extremely well shielded. I temporarily removed these to get all the chip id’s, and to take photos. The board itself isn’t much bigger than a VeraLite, just a little longer. That extra length is for all the extra onboard RF modules, which are cleanly separated from the main part of the board with a large ground plane.
Some of the PCB antenna are interesting as they’ve used a bunch of via’s so they can use both sides of the board…
It even has a coin-cell onboard for the RTC Battery backup. 8)
The ??? next to the Freescale was because I couldn’t work out the intent of the chip, and figured someone would chime in with what that specific chip does. It looks like Freescale don’t publish everything on their site, which is unfortunate.
There were a few of these on the board, and I didn’t have a Macro lens for their Id’s. I left out the raft of level converters (etc) as these were all over the board (which was manufactured by Plotech, apparently).
Is thread still alive? I recently picked up a couple of the new D-Link Staples Connect hubs. 1 to use, 1 to tear down/explore. It seems to be a nice piece of hardware, 4 antennas 2GB of NAND, etc. However, as a developer/maker/hacker I find the interface VERY limiting. I want to see if I can get into the OS and see how the radios work without connecting to the Staples-Connect network. I don’t recall agreeing to any terms about the device and this is all for non commercial/white hat style research. Any new updates on this device? Thanks
I tore mine apart, took photos and then stopped after the core-component identification (to go on vacation).
I don’t have a logic analyzer handy, or I’d look at the signals on the connector that looks like a Serial-header to see what it reveals.
I’ve never fired it up… no need really, since it was never my intent to use it as a Staples Connect device… unless they expose a formal API for access to it’s innards (which is always possible, it’s Software is by ZonOff which is the spinoff of Bulogics)
I know this thread is a little old, but did not see reason to start up another one.
Anyone still looking at this or has attention been focused now on the Wink with the root method posted (which I can’t seem to get to work, but that is another story) and the recent advent of the Vera plugin?
I was testing one of these and it bricked on me when I tried to add/remove a monoprice sensor.
One this I did find, which I did not realize, is that apparently will work without the “cloud”
http://staplesconnect.com/2014/07/03/no-internet-no-problem/
I know this thread is a little old but I just came across it and had to correct this totally incorrect post. The Freescale device is an HC11 family 8-bit microcontroller. It is NOT doing the heavy lifting. The Marvell Armada is a 32-bit ARM processor. THAT part is doing the heavy lifting! About 100x as powerful as the Freescale part.
[quote=“Wekurtz74, post:17, topic:184085”]I know this thread is a little old, but did not see reason to start up another one.
Anyone still looking at this or has attention been focused now on the Wink with the root method posted (which I can’t seem to get to work, but that is another story) and the recent advent of the Vera plugin?
I was testing one of these and it bricked on me when I tried to add/remove a monoprice sensor.
One this I did find, which I did not realize, is that apparently will work without the “cloud”
http://staplesconnect.com/2014/07/03/no-internet-no-problem/[/quote]
I haven’t been able to use it without internet connection.
Hello,
just wondering if there were any progress with going inside this device. I was trying to find any information about “rooting” it or some way to get direct interface (UART?) but no success so far: I only found old reddit thread about its teardown.
Would be grateful for any hints
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