I think that's a good idea.
I've had two glitches with Wink this week. Sunday night my internet connection was down for about a hour or so, and this afternoon one of my lights would not turn off(may be related to the api problems noted above). I did not turn that light on, and ended up resetting it and repairing it.
When Wink works, it works quite well. However when Wink takes on a mind of it's own and starts doing "it's own thing," that's when it gets frustrating. The lack of device polling by the hub is one of my biggest pet peeves with Wink. After a power failure for example, ALL of my GE Link bulbs will turn on, yet in the app they are being reported as being off. Plus, the hub will lose control of the bulbs completely, which means I need to do the "exclude/include shuffle" once more to get the bulbs to be recognized by the hub again.I have been reading this thread all day, (Blame sick day with daughter). But I have both a wink hub and a smartthings hub. I am in the infancy stage here as all I have is 4 or 5 caseta switches and 2 lamp dimmers running to the Lutron bridge. That all works like I want it but I want more. Basically I want motion, tstat, camera control with some water sensors and garage control. The only reason I am considering wink after reading this is the several hundred dollars worth of Lutron I already own. For those of you who went tge other way to smartthings which did you like better or had more pros than cons.
I'm holding out hope that Wink will be able to pull all of it's promises together and one day have a clean, tight, reliable home automation system, but until then I will keep a look out for what the competitors are offering while wondering why my Wink app is telling me my lights are off when in fact they are on.
For those of you looking for things to do with your Quirky Trippers, today I strapped one to my Postal Mailbox.
Read More:
http://winkworkshop.com/thread/quirky-tripper-postal-mailbox-winning/
how far away is the box from your home? how are you getting signal that far out?
The Hub is on the first floor in my office and right by the front window. I did not move it to accomplish this, it has always been there since I set it up.
I am getting Wifi about half way down the driveway. I have 2 Asus AC68U routers. One in the basement and one on the second floor toward the back of the house interconnected wirelessly at about 855mbps.
I do not believe the tripper requires Wifi, just Zigbee. I did pair the tripper while in the house at the hub though.
From Wikipedia: Zigbee Radio
Outdoors with line-of-sight, range may be up to 1500 m depending on power output and environmental characteristics[1][citation needed]. The output power of the radios is generally 0-20 dBm (1-100 mW).
However I am also reading that 10 meters is the Zigbee range for 1mW radios
My only obstruction is a Window with some vertical blinds, and the metal of the mailbox. Now when the tree fills back in with leaves in the spring this whole thing could go belly up.
Ah, yes, not sure why i was thinking wifi when its the protocol that communicates. that is some mighty fast wifi you are running there!
Totally off-topic but...
Primary router is an AC68U running DD-WRT
Second router is a T-Mobile cellspot hacked to be an AC68U, running stock firmware and configured as a media bridge.
I just moved and have yet to get a chance to pull wire to the upstairs bedrooms for the whole home media center system. No easy path as the first floor is an extremely open floor plan. I had to get creative.
Extending the O/T for a second since it relates to wink.
Have you had any issues with the AC68U? Some of the reviews I was reading indicated not so great things with the firmware. I just had to send a customer's Netgear R8000 back because it kept dropping the connections after 4-24 hours (Smart Connect, second band was the issue) and this in turn caused Wink to be...useless. They sent a new one out (with a different model number addition) and it was running second to newest firmware so I haven't touched it since it has not crashed but in the event it fails that was the alternative router I was looking at (AC68U) - any issues at all with the Hub?
No Issues whatsoever with the AC68U routers. You can always use another firmware if you don't like the Asus stuff. I have had great luck with the Kong Builds of DD-WRT on the AC68U.
I just installed a R8000 for my father though. Seems to be fine but it has only been a few hours. It is replacing some old Linksys E2000 devices. Hopefully it wont have any issues.
No Issues whatsoever with the AC68U routers. You can always use another firmware if you don't like the Asus stuff. I have had great luck with the Kong Builds of DD-WRT on the AC68U.
I just installed a R8000 for my father though. Seems to be fine but it has only been a few hours. It is replacing some old Linksys E2000 devices. Hopefully it wont have any issues.
Good catch. No, a typo. .56.Are you sure your hub is on .57? That's the first I have heard of this version.
As I said, mine is the GoControl. Good value, when it worked. Do you recommend yours? Separately, happen to have a recommendation for an outdoor PIR?As for your z-wave trouble I am surprised. I have ALOT Of zwave devices both supported and unsupported and I have never once had one loose pairing or fail to pair the first time. I have a generic zwave motion sensor that has been flawless.
It's a little flakey, but mostly works, at least to the extent others are working.I wish I could get the same reliability out of the quirky zigbee products. I'm almost wondering if you have a faulty hub or some other kind of interference causing issues.
Good catch. No, a typo. .56. As I said, mine is the GoControl. Good value, when it worked. Do you recommend yours? Separately, happen to have a recommendation for an outdoor PIR? It's a little flakey, but mostly works, at least to the extent others are working.
This is the one I have been using with good results. http://www.amazon.com/Ecolink-Z-Wave.../dp/B00FB1TBKS