Support Clipsal Control Link and Wiser Room

[asomervell]

Clipsal has released their very low cost "Iconic" range of light switches that will replace the old school ones you see in every house.

They have "mechs" that are programmable by BLE and work together in a room.

https://www.clipsal.com/iconic#new-technology

We must be able to intercept or control them by BLE with the homebridge for epic dimmer and power and lighting control in AU, NZ!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMt_zeA56LI

http://www.clipsal.com/Trade/Products/ProductDetail?CatNo=41EPBM

[asomervell]

And Google Assistant https://developers.google.com/assistant/sdk/overview

BLE info https://www.jaredwolff.com/blog/get-started-with-bluetooth-low-energy/

[kenhuang]

Just need another plugin: https://github.com/anthonywebb/homebridge-cbus

[asomervell]

Mmmm cbus != BLE with new stuff though. Maybe they do talk.

NZ Site and brand
https://www.pdl.co.nz/Trade/Ranges/Products/Switch-Socket-Ranges/Iconic

Maybe the Saturn brand is the one to go with that does do cbus
https://www.pdl.co.nz/Trade/Ranges/Products/Switch-Socket-Ranges/Saturn-Zen
http://updates.clipsal.com/ClipsalOnline/Files/Brochures/A0000291.pdf

On further investigation, cbus requires you to wire everything back to controllers (rewire the house). But I can see exactly how if that was done in the first place you'd be stoked with that integration!

[sj26]

I’m planning to install Clipsal Iconic BLE switches into my new apartment. I’m already using homebridge quite a bit, so I’ll probably write a homebridge plug-in. I’m writing this partly to advertise my interest and intent, but also to know if someone beats me to it. :-)

[sj26]

It looks like there’s already a plug-in for wiser, but nothing to directly control the ble switches yet:

https://github.com/paulw11/homebridge-wiser

[CalumOchkas]

Hey @sj26 - did you have any luck with this? About to buy a whole heap of switches in the next few days, wondering if I should invest in the BLE options

[sj26]

I haven't managed to grab any BLE switches myself yet, sorry. :-(

[sj26]

It sounds like installing the Iconic stuff is a good, future-proof plan, though. The mechanisms can be swapped out for BLE options later. And there are rumours that Clipsal may end up offering direct HomeKit and other integrations themselves.

[CalumOchkas]

Don't be sorry! Let us know if you have any luck once you get your hands on one. I'll grab just one for now so I can start playing, and I'll do the same!

[RobDeVoer]

Trying to decide to get PDL/Schneider iconic range for my new home or not. Unless there are any updates since Aug 2019 I think I may just opt to place SONOFF MINIS behind my switches and either control those through my own code or a Home Assistant setup. All advice/critique is welcome. Only 1-2 weeks away from getting the gib on the walls... ;)

[CalumOchkas]

Hey mate! I'm using the PDL BLE dimmers now. They're OK, do as they say but I've struggled to figure out the correct codes to send commands via a Bluetooth transmitter. Also, I've struggled to find an LED bulb that dims nicely. They all flicker, some worse than others, and completely randomly. I don't have this problem with incandescent bulbs. When I spoke to electricians they just say that's to expect with the push button dimmers vs LED bulbs. YMMV

…

On Fri, 13 Mar 2020, 20:44 Rob de Voer, ***@***.***> wrote: Trying to decide to get PDL/Schneider iconic range for my new home or not. Unless there are any updates since Aug 2019 I think I may just opt to place SONOFF MINIS behind my switches and either control those through my own code or a Home Assistant setup. All advice/critique is welcome. Only 1-2 weeks away from getting the gib on the walls... ;) — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AHJ6XOSJI4YXE2ZFSGIQIZTRHHP2JANCNFSM4ENL5OGA> .

[RobDeVoer]

At the moment I am only concerned about remote on/off as we have two lighting sets in each room. Mood lighting (pendants, tiny LED lights, and LED strips) or full light (LED lights in a grid from the ceiling). Dimming may happen in the future although our current system hardly ever asks for dimming as mood lighting is nice and low already. Sounds from your experience I may be better off with the cheap Sonoff mini option.

Am surprised about your experiences with LED dimming since I have done that without any issues before with regular dimmable LED lights.

Big thanks for sharing your experiences!

[joshua-j-morley]

How has everyone gone with this? I'll be moving in to a house in 2 and a bit weeks with clipsal iconic and the BLE switches
Definitely keen to see if anybody progressed in adapting iconic series for wifi use before i sink some time into it

[phindmarsh]

I picked up some of the dimmers (under the PDL brand in New Zealand, but they are the Clipsal equivalent and work with the Wiser Room app) and have been poking at the BLE side of things for a few weeks.

I’ve managed to work out the GATT profile allows you to remotely turn it off/on, set the level, and toggle the current state. This works with a generic BLE app off the App Store, but I haven’t yet got it working with with a Raspberry Pi. The services and characteristics have descriptors so it’s pretty easy to find the correct characteristics, but writing the value from python is where I’m stuck.

The basic problem seems to be that the underlying Bluetooth library on the Pi disconnects automatically after a few seconds of connecting, sometimes more like 30s, and attempting to write to the characteristics with similar values used in the generic BLE app does nothing.

I’ve also tried sniffing the BLE traffic with the iOS sysdiagnose logging and pulling the actual data that the Wiser app uses, but that’s also been difficult because I’m not really familiar with that level of reverse engineering.

My plan was to first work out how to control them using the CLI on a Pi, then port those commands to python, then wrap that into a home assistant integration. So far I’m still stuck on the “control them with the CLI” part...

I don’t have another device with a Bluetooth stack other than a Pi and a MacBook, and many of the python BLE libs don’t support macOS so my next thing was to try something in Nodejs or something to rule out a bug somewhere in python land. I’m pretty sure the issue is lower down than that, but I’m not that familiar with bluez or the lower level Bluetooth stuff yet.

[sj26]

Ooh, nice one @phindmarsh, that's what I was hoping to do. Any chance you could share the gatt profile descriptions in copy pasteable form?