@ward
Staff of eWeLink
I noticed you use the SmartThings platform with eWeLink devices. I wonder how’s your experience so far?
Do you mind telling us about your use case? And what’s still missing but important for you in this integration?
I run my smart home on Smartthings, which since 2022 is local (although the phone app runs in the cloud) and has one of the best automation machines in the app for writing routines. As a bonus if you need a little bit more there is the complementary Rules API for more complex routines.
That accounts for 90% of my needs, with Alexa as a voice assistant. Also as an integration of Zigbee devices the Smartthings community has developed drivers to bring in nearly every device, so personally I have no interest in creating yet another Zigbee mesh, having already Hue as well.
To go a bit further, but with no desire to reinvent what was already running I wanted a smart looking alternative to a Raspberry Pi, as an always-on computer server device. The iHost as a bonus brings in all my older WiFi LAN devices (that’s NOT all WiFi devices). With doubts, having already read about it’s development issues I now think its great.
I’m pleased with mine, local operation, runs Node-red perfectly, has my MQTT broker and integrates everything with my Smartthings system as a Matter bridge.
Cons…
- Not being able to use the 1883 port on Mosquitto means I can’t subscribe my Smartthings MQTT driver which would have made things much easier.
- My Micro USB switches do not integrate correctly on the Matter bridge - they don’t switch.
- Virtual switches are extensively used in Smartthings and there need to be more types in the Register node.
Will get back with more when I get time…
. I have shared your post and the issues with our team.
