Alexa still not an entry level hub replacement

I was writing up a response to someone about IFTTT and Alexa / Wireless Tag integration which will probably but useful later so I'm saving it here as it reflects on Alexa's poor support for sensors. Note Alexa's home automation interface is still better than Google's almost non existent one. (See compare below.)

Why go through IFTTT when you can integrate Wireless Tags direct with Kumo? As in as in my fridge / freezer monitoring setup which updates values as they change in my Homeseer instance which then can trigger any action Homeseer can perform. Which is just about anything. Plus IFTTT was become very unreliable this year.

Alexa Wireless Tag integration sort of works. I can ask the temperature of a sensor for example, "Alexa, what is the temperature of the freezer" and it tells me the reading from my regular sensor in the freezer. Though oddly in the device list I only see motion values for the regular tags and what appears to be temperature for the soil moisture tags. (Not all my soil moisture tags are dead.) Again oddly you can't use the sensor values in routines. Though finding anything in the Alexa device list is almost impossible since it is designed for people the just have a few things. Even stranger:

• You can sort the device list in the web interface but not the android one. 
• The web interface does not let you do anything with the devices on the list other than forget the device.
• Routine management is missing from the web interface.
• The android list interface does have some groups to narrow down the list but way to few. For example, the only way to see a list of the 12 of my 348 devices Alexa sees as "sensors" is to try to create a routine with one. 
• My Homeseer sees 3137 "devices" as I write this. (Note a "device" is data stream or parent. As in a Hue Sensor would be seen as 5 "devices". A parent and 4 sensors, light level, temperature, motion and battery level.) Alexa only sees 348 of those (note some of the 348 are Alexa devices not in the Homeseer count) and only 12 of those as sensors from SmartThings, Wyze, Ring and Hue so far. Even then for example the Hue sensors report motion, temp and light gut Alexa only sees motion info.
• Lack of complex triggers. For example: if no motion has been detected and door opens, turn on light. If motion has been detected and door opens turn off light. Or if any of room motion sensors are tripped reset occupancy timer. When occupancy timer hits X minutes turn off everything in room.

When you have 348 devices (that Alexa sees) like I do, it is almost useless. Amazon REALLY needs to improve their interface so it can scale if they want people to use their routine framework for any logic. So while it would be nice to have Wireless Tags usable as sensors in Alexa to, for instance, announce the fridge is too warm, I do not really see it as big deal till Amazon makes their configuration interface more usable.

To be fair when Alexa is compared to Google's Home:

Cons:

• Google does not even have a web interface so everything must be done via phone or tablet.
• Often skills like Harmony where with Alexa you would say "Alexa, turn on Netflix". With Google that worked then it went to you had to say "Hey Google, Ask Harmony to turn on Netflix." and then often tells me it did not recognize me and would not do it. Now it seems to be back to just "turn on" BUT for instance when I say "turn on Hero" (my PC's name) to Alexa is just works. I say "turn on Hero" to Google it starts playing something from Pandora.
• It appears too that at some point Google Home lost some of the account links I had setup.

• Lately the Googles (I have a Home and 3 minis) seem to say try again in a few seconds a lot.
• To discover new devices you say "Alexa, discover devices." You say this to Google and it finds phones and asks if you want to ring them. Ask "how do I get you to discover devices", you get "I don't understand" and "I found a related how to get Alexa to discover devices"! It is also easy to do from the Alexa app with a swipe down. Instructions I found online say Google's Home should do that too but it appears to do nothing for me.
• Google appears to allow one Harmony hub to be connected while Alexa allows many. (I have 5 currently)
• Adding skills to Home is an egg hunt compared to Alexa. I just tried to add the Wyze skill for example and I had to search on line to even figure it out. Then while trying to link the account it just exited half way through me entering my login info.
• Wyze, Alexa sees all the cams, motion and contact sensors I have. Google sees on the cameras and contact sensors.
• Google routines still appear to be voice command triggered only while Alexa's allow triggering using voice, time, some sensors (see above), location, alarms, echo button presses and "Guard state".

Pros:

• The devices list in Google does seem to use the room from Homeseer. However I had to add each Wyze and Wireless Tag device to a room during the setup process manually. 

Rechargeable batteries for your IoT

Background:

I've got a lot of half used batteries from left over from recording shows (house concerts) and I've got enough sensors now that number of batteries getting tossed is becoming significant. I've tried rechargeables in the past but they did not seem to last all that long in devices, on the shelf or recharge that many times before going bad. Plus the size options were limited. There are a new options now though including smarter chargers, a lot of Li-ions that are lite and no memory issues that should make them perfect for environments where you might want to swap out batteries before they go dead without wasting them.

Here is what I've tried this time around:

Large "watch batteries" for Wireless tags, Ambient moisture sensors and such.

CT ENERGY Coin Button Cell Battery Charger LIR2032(LR2032)/2025/2450/2016/1620/1632/1220 USB Charger for Rechargeable Batteries 4PCS LIR2032 Included Replacing CR2032
Hillflower 10 Piece LIR2032 2032 CR2032 LM2032 BR2032 Rechargeable Bulk 3.6V Long Duration Lithium Battery

9v batteries

9V Battery Charger Tester Analyzer Model BT-C96 for NiMH NiCd 7.2V 8.4V 9.6V PP3 6F22 6HR61 6KR61 9V Rechargeable Batteries
EBL 9V Rechargeable Batteries NiMH Everyday 280mAh 9V Battery for Smoke Alarm Detector, 4-Packs

Most other sizes

Miboxer 18650 Battery Charger 8 Bay Intelligent Automatic LCD Display for Li-ion LiFePO4 Ni-MH Ni-Cd AA AAA C 18700 21700 20700 26650 18350 17670 RCR123 Batteries and More
Arlo Certified: Tenergy 650mAh 3.7V Li-ion Rechargeable Battery for Arlo Security Cameras (VMC3030/VMK3200/VMS3330/3430/3530) RCR123A Batteries UL UN Certified 4 Pack
Panasonic BK-4MCCA4BA eneloop AAA 2100 Cycle Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries, 4 Pack
Panasonic BK-3MCCA4BA eneloop AA 2100 Cycle Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries, 4 Pack
Panasonic BK-3HCCA4BA eneloop pro AA High Capacity Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries, 4 Pack

Results so far:

For other posts in this blog with interim rechargeable impressions click here

Panasonic BK-3MCCA4BA

Note they say these hold a charge for a long time but I fully charged them then put them in a drawer for a couple days. When I stuck them back in the charger to check them though they said about 70% Not clear if that really means 70% or how much that affects the runtime. Take the following percentage in that light though.

I put a set in my Zoom H4n Handy Portable Digital Recorder and left it to record for the day. After about 6 hours it was still going so I decided to try them in a show. With backups just in case.

Next I charged up a couple sets for a show, used one set for about 3 hours then left them for a couple week till I had time to check the battery levels.

The one from a shotgun mic said 59% when put back in the charger.

Then two from the H4n said 40%

Panasonic BK-4MCCA4BA

Put a set each in a Netatmo indoor module and a wind module. The alkalines last about 6 months so may take awhile to see how these do.

Panasonic BK-3HCCA4BAs

These are supposed to be a bit more heavy duty than their standard AAs. Stuck a set in my Bescor Motorized Pan & Tilt and left it on automatic for about 6 hours. It was still going which was pretty impressive given I've had older, but unused, alkaline batteries be too weak to run it at all.  

Between these and the other AAs I should definitely see a savings since I swap batteries every show so I don't have to worry about them dying during a show. Used for thew above show without and issue. A couple weeks after the show they said 57%.

EBL 9V Rechargeable Batteries

From another shotgun mic from same show. Charger said 8.97v but then the back up that was not used said 8.98v so basically it was still fully charged. Not unexpected though as this mic I usually only swap out batteries about every half dozen shows or so and that is mainly just to be safe.

LIR2032

Have a few of these in Wireless Tags. The non rechargeables last 3-6 months in those so should have some data on those a bit sooner.

Update 5/24/2019: 

First freezer battery lasted only 2 weeks! Hopefully will not be the norm.

Update 7/27/2019:

Think I need to call these a bust. Here is my battery change log for the Wireless Tags. The time where I replaced the battery with a CR2032 are purple and the times I replaced with a LIR2032 are green. Basically it comes down to a month base case and as little as a week even at room temperature. This compared with and average of about 155 days with the CR2032s.

RCR123A

Planning on trying these in some Z-wave sensors like the Aeon 6n1 and Homeseer motion sensor though those tend to last up to a year. Probably will try some in a Dakota Alert 3000 Wireless Vehicle Detection Probe Sensor VS125 too.

Check back for updates here and posts tagged Rechargeable stats.

For another option with Wireless Tags I found this. But the also have a USB powered version out now.

Update: 1/25/2020 getting varying results depending on device. Here is the updated data.

Update 7/18/2020 Even more varying results depending on device. Here is the updated data.

I've also added High capacity non rechargeable Li-ion 2032s to the mix

Click here for current sheet.

Monitoring soil moisture

Someone asked on Stacy's podcast about a good way to monitor soil to know when to water.  So I was motivated to finish this and get it posted.

Real Options I've tried:

Davis Soil Moisture station
Expensive but works.
Pros:

• Prosumer grade gear. It still is working 7 years later with little maintenance. 
• You can expend to many units as the the consoles and hubs are coded to each other. 
• I've ran Davis on cables up to 100 feet with chewed wires and ants getting into the hub being the only issues and the hub upto over 50 feet from the gateway/console.
•  Leaf Wetness Sensors come with 40’ (12 m) of cable standard and can be extended up to 200’ (61m) using 6-conductor 26 AWG cable.
• Soil Moisture Sensors come with 15’ (4.6 m) of cable standard and can be extended up to 1000’ (300m) using #18 gauge UF cable.
• Temperature Sensors come with 15’ (4.6 m) of cable standard and can be extended up to 800’ (242m) using #24 AWG shielded cable or up to 1200’ (260m) using #22 AWG shielded cable.
• Sensors can be placed as deep as you want.
• Temperature reading is true at depth and unaffected by air temperature.

Cons:

• Sensors are wired to transmitter though this might be a plus too given only one solar charged battery is needed per 4 sensors.
• $466 to $600 for hub and 4 sensors pairs. Plus you need base / weather station for it to talk to plus more if you want it to upload to cloud services so another $500 - $1000 depending on models and features.

Ambient Weather WS-8482 $87
Probably best on a budget.
Pros:

• Way cheaper. Even with base plus 7 $29 soil moisture sensors still costs less than the Davis base unit with only 2 temp/moisture pairs. 
• Wireless sensors though that also means a battery for each.

Cons:

• Some of the sensors seems to not work all that well while others track closely to the Davis units. So might still be cheaper even if you have to toss some of the sensors but you might need to toss some.
• You are limited to 7 sensors total (plus station temp/humidity) or placing stations out of range of each other as only 7 radio channels. Some of my sensors are over 50 feet away so hard to say how far that separation might need to be.
• Hub needs to be indoors with AC power and WiFi so may not reach to some areas.
• Limited to reading about 8 inches down max since transmitter top needs to be above the ground.

Tried but failed:

Wireless Tags Water/Moisture Sensor and Plantlink both were completely worthless for more than telling when being watered. Neither seemed to last long either. The Wireless Tag you can not even change the batteries in.  Scotts bought Plantlink on 2016 then discontinued it. I appears they used the tech to create a new Scotts' version.  At $99 for a hub and one sensor then $40 for each add on sensor, it seems overpriced. Amazon reviews are NOT good either. Oddly those on their site generally are. That ought to give you pause right there.

Though Wireless Tags indoor sensors are great and damn cheap for what you get (temp, humidity, vibration, signal level, and battery level). Especially if you buy 5+ at a time. I even use them inside the freezer.

Also tried Wimoto SEN001 Sentry Bluetooth Smart Water Sensor, alos no longer available, a couple years back but those kept losing connection on top of the iffy data.

Compared:

Homeseer can link to Ambient and Davis via the Ambient site plugin.
Wireless Tag talks to Homeseer directly through REST api calls from the gateway.

Sample Ambient site screens of my Ambient Weather WS-8482. Note the Ambient site also works with Davis stations. Both also go to Wundergound site. When Wunderground is not having issues. Currently soil moisture is not showing there.

Monthly compares
Rain fall (not including from sprinklers)

A Davis sensor recorded (note only one seems to make it to the cloud)

Note the Davis sensor moisture data is sort of inverted as it really reports dryness.

An Ambient sensor about 6 inches away.

Just for grins here is the chart for the same period for the one Wireless Tag that is still "working".

The sun can really throw off the temp readings. The moisture setting had been adjusted to match a meter but quickly started to vary. Finally just left alone. Note this is outside in a pot and the spikes appear to be sprinkler times.

This is the matching Ambient sensor

Though if you are using Rachio to water an area (no pots) then checking the soil a few times with a cheap manual $10 meter to get it dialed end might make the soil monitoring unneeded since the Rachio takes weather and soil type into account and adjusts as needed.

Wanting to monitor your fridge / freezer?

For fridge / freezer monitoring this Wireless Tag is definitely the way to go.   They also give you motion alerts, talk to about anything, cheap compared to most and will even give you verbal alerts in a browser.

There is both a simple interface for things like basic notifications

And a scripting interface called Kumo Apps that lets you do even more and call local URLs making it easy to interface with home automation like Homeseer. There are lots of templates to get you started.

Here is an example of how to send the data to Homeseer
var tags = <#tags_[12|13|26|32|52|62|72|21]_N#>;
tags.forEach(
function (tag) {
tag.updated = function () {

//KumoApp.Log("Updating:"+tag.name);
if(tag.name === "Comp Rack 0"){
 KumoApp.httpCall("http://10.10.1.45/JSON?user=USERNAME&pass=PASSWORD&request=controldevicebyvalue&ref=3121&value="+((tag.batteryVolt - 2.75) / 0.45 * 100),"GET");
 KumoApp.httpCall("http://10.10.1.45/JSON?user=USERNAME&pass=PASSWORD&request=controldevicebyvalue&ref=3122&value="+(tag.moisture),"GET");
 KumoApp.httpCall("http://10.10.1.45/JSON?user=USERNAME&pass=PASSWORD&request=controldevicebyvalue&ref=3123&value="+(tag.eventState),"GET");
 KumoApp.httpCall("http://10.10.1.45/JSON?user=USERNAME&pass=PASSWORD&request=controldevicebyvalue&ref=3126&value="+(tag.rssi),"GET");
 KumoApp.httpCall("http://10.10.1.45/JSON?user=USERNAME&pass=PASSWORD&request=controldevicebyvalue&ref=3124&value="+(tag.temperature * 9 / 5 + 32),"GET");
}

Change the bits in orange of course to match your set up.

That gets you:

• Battery as percentage (note battery voltage reading is affected temperature. From my experience with my tags, at room temp 3.2 volts is what you will see for fully changed and is about to die around 2.75.  But in the freezer it will bounce between ~2.6 @ 10F and ~2.5 @ 0F. When it drops below 2.5 it is near the end. A little experimenting might be needed to dial yours in. UPDATE: After starting to phase in rechargeables I'm thinking just sending the voltage might be better and adjusting status on the HS side based on historical data. See UPDATE 5/24/2019 below.)
• Humidity (moisture)
• Armed Status (eventState)
• Signal strength (RSSI) in -db
• Temperature converted to Fahrenheit

See end for sample status setting for virtuals.

How well do they work?

I've been using them for years and on a whim stuck one in the fridge and another in freezer last February along with a AcuRite 00782A2 Wireless Indoor/Outdoor Thermometer (outdoor module in freezer). They stayed close to each other in readings. Note battery life is reduced by the cold. Freezer one lasts only about 3-4 months. Generally they last closer to a year.

You will need a hub "Ethernet Tag Manager" for them to talk to but it is low cost too.

Note though I have had no luck with the Wireless Water/Moisture Sensors The soil moisture never worked and even the temp sensors seem erratic in the new ones. Plus the batteries are not replaceable like the indoor models.

Also if you start seeing random false motion alerts it probably means the battery is about ready to be changed.

Sample Status Graphic setting for the virtuals for above.

Nothing fancy, just using standard icons though I should probably go through and make a full set of 32 by 32 icons given I'm almost to 2000 devices. An 8 kb is does not take long to send and render but 2000 of them plus all associated data can slow your browser down more than you would like.

Note on battery sometimes the batteries read as high as 3.3 volts even in the freezer fresh from the pack. Homeseer will just ignore and value sent that is out of range.

To avoid this set the high end on battery at 120 to 200 so even if you set the freezer formula to a more accurate ((tag.batteryVolt - 2.5) / 0.45 * 100) it will just should overcharged till it settles down. That way a checker like ChkSensors.vb will not mark it as offline. Again, tweak as needed for your setup.

Note the mismatched default sized icons in the following examples that should be made all to be 32 by 32.

UPDATE 5/24/2019:
Note you should probably adjust the battery notification levels.

The default is 2.5. For a tag in the freezer that is a bit high or low depending on battery type. Below shows a tag's voltage report over 3 standard CR2032s followed by 2 rechargeable LIR2032s. Note the "dead voltage" (just before it spikes up from the battery change) for the rechargeables seems lower despite the much shorter run time.

For tags in warmer areas though it looks like more the reverse is true. 2.85 to 2.75 seems a better setting for these with CR2032s but the rechargeable have held a steady 2.84 since install 15 days ago.

In the fridge the batteries seem to almost match. Here is the chart for the tag in there. The first 2 are CR2032s and the third a LIR2032.

I should note the gaps in the above charts point to how important monitoring the battery level and or a heartbeat of a sensor is. With your notification level too low you might not know for days that the sensor if offline.

New Amazon Echo Skills!!!

I went into the Alexa app to link to my Harmony since the Harmony / Homeseer link has been a bit iffy lately and OMG the stuff that has been added since I last looked! 23 PAGES of just smart home / automation type skills alone. Wireless Tag even has a skill now.  I hear Vera is planning to have a skill soon. They look to be one of the few that does not have a skill already so they better get moving.  I only have my Harmony, Nest, SmartThings (as backup Hue channel) and Homeseer devices linked up. The Wireless Tag skill is only useful for changing settings and how often do you need that? That gives me 109 devices connected to my Echo now. Note if you want to trigger Homeseer events you still need to use the IFTTT skill. One complaint though Amazon still does not seem to realize their success yet. When you go into a group to assign devices for instance, they appear to have no order to them which makes grouping a few of 109 devices a bit more of an adventure than it ought to be. I did get a group created to turn on every connected light in the house and shop so I can turn them all off or on. I already have an event setup to turn on all exterior lighting which brings the up in groups. Can't wait till dark to see what the lag time is and if they all come up at once. I also created a group called fan since it could not seem to deal with Mbed_fan as a name. Having to rethink names of some of the Harmony linked devices too so I can avoid confusion.