Remote control power with automation

I have been using the Swedish Telldus Tellstic Net for many years, and I’ve been quite happy with the stability and functionality.


Now however I needed to automate the power for a heater remotely.

In regards to automation I wanted it to be turned on when the temperature drops below a certain limit.
This can be done with the Telldus TellStick Net unit IF you go ahead and subscribe to the Telldus Live Pro services.

However I was looking for a bit more exitement… and wanted to have the option to program some of the funky stuff myself if needed.
Luckily Telldus recently came out with a new shiny unit, the Telldus Tellstick ZNet Lite v2

This bastard has got severeal advantages over the older unit.
Its now supporting two types wireless standards; the 433MHz and the Z-Wave,
communicating 2-ways in both bands.

You also get the possibility to run Lua scripts
Local events and scheduler and a local API

This means that in the event of a internet connection failure, the unit will still be able to handle the programmed schedules and triggers.

I also wanted to test out a Z-wave product so I landed on the Fibaro 2500W wall plug switch.
This has even got power metering, so you can graph and tell how big the power consumption is.
Looking swell with colors changing depending on the current power pull.

So for the automation, cheap temperature sensor does the trick, so I got a bunch of these (WT450H):

These gadgets are really made userfriendly, they just plug and play really.

A new thing (for me) I just testet out is the IFTTT (If This Then That)
This is really cutting the cheese, and I easily got the temperature automation of the switch that I was looking for right out of this “box”

Using the Google Assistant and the IFTTT Applet framework i set this up on my android Cellphone.
Telling the IFTTT to talk to the “Telldus Live!” app and monitor IF the temp from the sensor above is below 0, well THEN turn ON the Fibaro 2500W wall plug switch.

-this couldn’t be simpler and cleaner. Very nice experience right away i must say.

And the other way around: IF the degrees are rising above lets say 5, then turn the power OFF.
Green and clean, saving power and the environment 🙂

You can also get a load of other If’s and Then’s through the same IFTTT collection of applets.
Like dropping you an email or SMS, writing data to Google drive etc.
Also you can use the Google Assistant to capture your voice command, lets say “Livingroom lights on” and point it to the Telldus Live App for execution.

Overall good bang for the buck here, alot cheaper than readymade Home Automation systems for sure. Very compatible too, now supporting two radio bands.

Two words/wishes for the Telldus;
-would be nice if it also had Wifi, -no it’s only got Ethernet and mini USB. (however there are accessories to solve this.)
-would be nice if it had PoE (Power over ethernet) capability, -no it  doesnt,.

There is an API for the cloud solution https://api.telldus.com/
This is the way to go to when you wish to create your own controller/sensor software.
And there is also even an API for a local solution, the Telldus Znet Lite V2 has got a local API https://tellstick-server.readthedocs.io/en/latest/api/intro.html

This is great news when you need to rely on power automation and sensor readings even without an inernet line/ when the line goes down.

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