Some suggestions for sonoff/ewelink staff. I think you should make your devices as flexible as possible and let users choose their way. Examples of settings i would see in my ewelink app/devices.
1 - Temperature sensor graph. Why a fixed one hour delay between points? Maybe users want to choose half an hour? A quarter of an hour? Is it a question of zigbee bridge memory? Power saving? Let users decide what is important for them.
2 - Adding new device to a bridge is always a waste of time if the new device is not a sonoff one or a supported one. Letâs start with pressing add new device button on ewelink app. Then place your device in pairing mode. Now your device blinks to show pairing mode, wait a few seconds⌠stop blinking⌠is it connected? Unfortunately not. Well, in some way sonoff gateway has discovered my new non sonoff device but 0 device detected shown in ewelink app, why? Why donât you clearly show that actually a new device has been detected but not supported? Why donât let user know that some âxxxâ device was detected but unsupported? That âxxxâ reported device name would be so simple to be forwarded to ewelink/sonoff staff to be added to the ecosystem should there be enough users requests.
3 - what is a device and what is a router?
Iâve just set up a new zbbridge-u net. Letâs add some router first. I have my S26R2ZB which is a router, letâs pair it with my Zbbridge-u. I should now see a ROUTER connected but, ehm no, just a generic sub-device. Maybe itâs not a ROUTER? ZBMICRO surely is, letâs add it. Guess it? Same as with S26R2ZB, a simple and useless sub-device detected and paired. Is somewhere clearly shown how many devices I still can connect to my bridge? How many ROUTERS are connected? Thanks to which ROUTERS can I add ânnâ devices more to my net? No clues at all!
By the way, another request for a zigbee network map here.
4 - letâs talk about a specific device, for example SNZB-02D temperature humidity sensor. How often does it update itself? How often does it update ewelink data? (Iâm sure lesser than an our). What about the lcd display? Is it always useful? Maybe in some occasions letting users turn it off by app would be more useful, saving battery consumption when direct lcd reading is not necessary. A simple LCD turn OFF toggle switch would be simple and useful.
5 - I bought some TRVZB sonoff valves. Do you know why I chose them among others? Well made valves and surely supported and upgradable. I first used them with home assistant and better thermostat. I could setup a good working thermoregulation with some external temperature sensors of different brands. Then an update of TRVZB valves added the possibility to use an external temperature sensor natively. Thinking that this would be nice I gave SONOFF/EWELINK ecosystem a try. I bought a zbbridge-u, added my TRVZB to it but then couldnât add my thermometers to it because âunclearly unsupportedâ as described in a point before. Only a pair of SNZB-02D I own could pair and operate as external sensors for the valves. Only to discover other TRVZB unsupported features that many users in this forum is requesting, âtemperature hysteresisâ. Search for it if you want to know what am I talking about. And lot of other features that every OLD LEGACY UNCONNECTED thermostatic valves had (also implemented in home assistant/better thermostat) but sonoff ecosystem still doesnât support but promised to support, maybe, in futures upgrades. Maybe one of next winters.
NOW itâs time to support already existing devices and optimise them. This should be done before developing and releasing new bugged devices.