The Wink home automation thread

[ramblinwreck001]

Anyone have the lutron casetas with this and like the way it works? I was originally going to go with a mix of Lutron Casetas for dimmers and then levitron switches for 3 way, however I am leaning more towards all Lutron now given that they are a simple three wire install and Lutron has a pretty good rep for quality, only problem is the switches are pretty rare and its actually cheaper to do all dimmers even though I don't need them.

Any thoughts appreciated.

I've got:

• (1) plug-in dimmer
• (3) in-wall dimmers
• (1) in-wall switch (on the way, not yet installed)
• (2) pico remote wall plate adapters

My experience has been good, and in line with what others have written here. In summary:

PROS:

• Ability to create 3-way switch control where it didn't exist before, without dropping new wires or adding a new box. This solved a problem I've had for a while. I avoided the need to hire an electrician, so in my view these switches already paid for themselves. No other product in this category can do this, far as I can tell (Leviton's remotes for 3-way Z-wave still require power from the wall).
  
• Pico remotes -- no other product in this category has an equivalent, far as I know.
  
• Ability to mount Pico remotes on wall (with separately purchased Lutron adapter). I used the wall plate adapters to install two remotes in a 2-gang plate over an existing 1-gang box. Looks great with the Claro wall plates. You'd never know it wasn't a "real" switch.
  
• Not requiring neutral is much appreciated. One less wire to have to deal with in the electrical box.
  
• Well written and useful "Advanced Instructions" document.
  
• Pico remotes seem 100% reliable, and fast. Even though you use the Wink app to associate the remotes to certain switches, I'm pretty sure the remote is talking directly to the switch(es), and not sending the command through the hub. There is absolutely no delay in response to pressing a button on the remote, unlike using the app.

CONS:

• Proprietary RF control -- currently "locked-in" to Wink, Staples Connect, or Lutron's own overpriced hubs for (remote) control. Would have preferred Z-wave, but I couldn't get the above "PROS" with any Z-wave solution. Hope to see more support for Lutron's RF in other hubs. Even if Wink goes belly-up (or gets bought out, etc), I'm fairly certain that Lutron will continue to make a hub for their own switch products. That is one reason I feel like I should stick with Caseta now that I've started with them, rather than having a mix of devices (Lutron's hub won't control Z-wave..).
  
• Light status is not always correct in the Wink app. This is odd because everyone says Lutron is supposed to "just work" (unlike Leviton), but it definitely does not work consistently for me. For example, if I use a shortcut to turn on/off some lights, the status simply does not change in the app. But it does if I turn on/off the light from the "lights" screen, or (usually it works) with the remote. I think this is a Wink bug not a Lutron bug, and hopefully Wink will fix it soon.
  
• Buttons are a little small, especially if you wall-mount the Pico remotes. Much more difficult (compared to standard decora rocker or old-school toggle) to turn something on/off purely by feel, for example in the dark.
  
• Non-dimmer, "switch-only" model (PD-5WS-DV) is more expensive, harder to find, and might require (Lutron suggests that you do) wire in an additional component called LUT-MLC (Minimum Load Cap) to ensure the switch works properly for low wattage loads (see page 33 of above linked document). And the switch isn't officially supported in the Wink app but according to Wink it will actually appear as a dimmer in the app.

And as other's have said, you have to use compatible bulbs. I've found that GE Reveal LEDs (BR30s) as well as the 1st gen Cree A19 bulbs from Home Depot work just fine. As do incandescents. I've not tried any "dimmable" CFLs, generally trying to avoid those now.

 

[atyoyo]

Tripper doesn't have any activity log and the timestamp of last status is inaccurate most of the time.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Tripper doesn't have any activity log and the timestamp of last status is inaccurate most of the time.

Yeah, that definitely needs to be remedied. I mainly bought my Trippers as a cheap way to determine if a garage door is opened or closed, but I'm going to need to build a little bracket for each door to get it to work.

Also, Kaido for elite. This thread is definitely the best source of Wink info on the internet. Wink should really have a rep here too.

 

[Sid33]

Tripper doesn't have any activity log and the timestamp of last status is inaccurate most of the time.

Yep, it would be nice to have a time stamp in the app for the trippers. I have a robot for each of my doors that sends a notification to my phone when they are opened and I get a time stamp on the notification.

 

[TexasWinkUser]

I received my trippers today. Horrible lag, and my robots work 50% of the time if I'm generous. Pretty sure I'm sending back everything I bought to quirky, don't feel like this system is ready for prime time. I'll give customer support a chance to see if they can help remedy my problems (which are MANY), but I'm not optimistic at this point. The geofence for whatever doesn't work at all.

I recently purchased a homeboy security camera, and it works great, without fail, every time I leave/arrive at the house. Not sure what's different in the Wink system.

 

[RossMAN]

Also, Kaido for elite. This thread is definitely the best source of Wink info on the internet. Wink should really have a rep here too.

Sorry for going OT but I totally and absolutely 110% agree with you!

1) IMO Kaido represents the true essence of an Elite Member, always going above and beyond with incredibly helpful and knowledgeable information. Whether it's help with Apple products, home improvement/automation, health & fitness, Intel NUC, home automation or cars he always has great advice to offer with a friendly demeanor.

Here's a small list of his incredible posts and my endorsements in chronological order going back to 2007:

BluRay reader - my post

RC planes - my post

Intel NUC - recognized by mechBgon and my post demanding he be banned

Moto G - my post

When a newer member had questions regarding a computer repair business he sprang into action - my post

Modern home materials & technology - my post

Again that's just a fraction of his helpful posts and overall positive contribution to the community. I recently resurrected a thread asking what keeps you here?, my answer is members like Kaido.

2) I've noticed an increase in new members here who have 1-3 posts all in this thread. If you search Google for "wink forums" this thread is the 3rd result after Quirky's own forums, that's an impressive feat.

I wonder if Quirky headquarters is aware of this thread and monitors it for feedback? Perhaps we can drop them a hint via social media with a link to this thread

@benkaufman, Quirky founder and CEO.
@cflexman, Wink general manager.

 

[bozack]

Ramblin, thanks for the info one question though, do you need to use the Lutron wall plates if your wall mounting a pico remote or can you use any old plate, I ask cause I don't want to feel compelled to redo all of my wall plates to match, otherwise sounds like Lutron dimmers it is.

The switch thing is a bit of a bummer as there are plenty of locations I would much rather have just a switch, and I would assume they would be less expensive, but like you said they are more money and way harder to find, also the fact it shows as a dimmer in wink kinda stinks.

Thanks

 

[MjnMixael]

You can use whatever wall plate you want for Pico as long as it's the right shape opening of course. However, you will still need the Pico mounting bracket if you want it to be snug on the wall.

 

[atyoyo]

don't feel like this system is ready for prime time.

Completely agree. Very unprofessional overall. For 99 cents for the hub it was fun to play with but there are so many issues it's beyond ridiculous.

I'll give customer support a chance to see if they can help remedy my problems (which are MANY), but I'm not optimistic at this point.

I waited at least 30 minutes per call. They had me do so many deletions, repairings etc I couldn't believe it. Solved absolutely nothing. Maybe my bug reports will be fixed in the future but as it stands this is one of the most embarrassingly poor products I have ever used. As an unreliable trinket it's pretty cool. For masochists it's GREAT!

Judging by the low reviews on Amazon accompanied by sham 4/5 star reviews by 1 product reviewers I think Quirky employees are also aware of how crappy of a product they have.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Completely agree. Very unprofessional overall. For 99 cents for the hub it was fun to play with but there are so many issues it's beyond ridiculous.



I waited at least 30 minutes per call. They had me do so many deletions, repairings etc I couldn't believe it. Solved absolutely nothing. Maybe my bug reports will be fixed in the future but as it stands this is one of the most embarrassingly poor products I have ever used. As an unreliable trinket it's pretty cool. For masochists it's GREAT!

Judging by the low reviews on Amazon accompanied by sham 4/5 star reviews by 1 product reviewers I think Quirky employees are also aware of how crappy of a product they have.

It is a rough product but in fairness, it has gotten MUCH better than it was. Many of my issues were resolved when I moved my Wink hub about 20 ft away from my wireless router and into a different room completely. Of course, this morning, nothing is working but it appears that I'll need to reboot my hub since their services appear to be up.

 

[ramblinwreck001]

do you need to use the Lutron wall plates if your wall mounting a pico remote or can you use any old plate, I ask cause I don't want to feel compelled to redo all of my wall plates to match, otherwise sounds like Lutron dimmers it is.

I believe the answer to your question is "Yes".

I haven't tried it myself, but it looks like it will fit any standard Decora/Designer/GFCI wall plate as long as you use the Lutron wall plate adapter (PICO-WBX-ADAPT) part, which is required to mount the remote securely in a wall plate.

I did find this image on a Home Depot product review page which shows the dimmer module itself (not the remote) mounted in an ordinary plate, and I know from personal experience that the remote (when using the wall plate adapter) attaches to the wall plate exactly the same way as the dimmer module, and is same shape/size as dimmer module.

Also, two of the Home Depot reviews on the pico wall plate adapter here mention using non-Lutron plates.

 

[MjnMixael]

It is a rough product but in fairness, it has gotten MUCH better than it was. Many of my issues were resolved when I moved my Wink hub about 20 ft away from my wireless router and into a different room completely. Of course, this morning, nothing is working but it appears that I'll need to reboot my hub since their services appear to be up.

Indeed. When I first bought it, I would have given the hub 2 or 3 stars. However, after moving my hub away from my router and after they have made great progress in the last few months, I'd give it 3 of 4 stars with my experience. With each passing eek of stability, I love the product more.

I will also note that the last 2 nights they were doing database maintenance and may be the source of any offline hubs. The maintenance was posted on Twitter and their status page. A simple reboot should get you back online, though I haven't needed to reboot mine.

 

[TexasWinkUser]

It is a rough product but in fairness, it has gotten MUCH better than it was. Many of my issues were resolved when I moved my Wink hub about 20 ft away from my wireless router and into a different room completely. Of course, this morning, nothing is working but it appears that I'll need to reboot my hub since their services appear to be up.

MUCH better than it was? Glad I didn't buy into this earlier. I mean, the things I have set up on timers work great. Lights turn on and off when they're supposed to, but simple things like having the light over my driveway turn on when I get close to the house has maybe worked one time.

The delay on the trippers to show up on my iphone 5s as open or closed was 10-15 seconds minimum. And then on top of that, the robots don't work. I really had high hopes for this. Was hoping to go all in, get the water detectors, thermostat, etc. I can tolerate a 1-2 second delay on this stuff, which is about what I get when I try to my links on/and off. Although even last night they weren't always reporting the correct state.

I've got my hub in a different room from my router and I still have all these issues.

Bottom line I think they've got to figure out how to get this stuff stored locally on the hub, and not wait on an action from the cloud to figure out what needs to be done next. I really hope someone from wink/quirky are reading these posts. There are lots of people here who want these products to be great. There are lots of people here who are tech savvy and can help get these products right with testing, etc. Wink...are you listening?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

MUCH better than it was? Glad I didn't buy into this earlier. I mean, the things I have set up on timers work great. Lights turn on and off when they're supposed to, but simple things like having the light over my driveway turn on when I get close to the house has maybe worked one time.

The delay on the trippers to show up on my iphone 5s as open or closed was 10-15 seconds minimum. And then on top of that, the robots don't work. I really had high hopes for this. Was hoping to go all in, get the water detectors, thermostat, etc. I can tolerate a 1-2 second delay on this stuff, which is about what I get when I try to my links on/and off. Although even last night they weren't always reporting the correct state.

I've got my hub in a different room from my router and I still have all these issues.

Bottom line I think they've got to figure out how to get this stuff stored locally on the hub, and not wait on an action from the cloud to figure out what needs to be done next. I really hope someone from wink/quirky are reading these posts. There are lots of people here who want these products to be great. There are lots of people here who are tech savvy and can help get these products right with testing, etc. Wink...are you listening?

I agree with your points. They definitely need the rules, schedules, etc. stored locally on the hub. I think they've dumbed it down too much and it is causing more headaches than the problems it is solving.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

So, what do you guys think about using Trippers outdoors? I have a gate outdoors that I'd like to monitor. It may not be in range of my Wink hub, but if it turns out to be in range, I'm thinking I can probably shrinkwrap the part with the battery in some plastic (or put it into a small weatherproof case) and I should be good to go. Thoughts?

 

[Sid33]

My trippers have a 3-4 second delay. If I set the robots to see the door close, it would never work. Once I set them to see door open, they work every time.

We definitely need to have the schedules and stuff store locally. That would solve some issues.

 

[Sid33]

Maybe in a vacuum sealed bag so you could still get them close together?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Maybe in a vacuum sealed bag so you could still get them close together?

I was going to mount the magnet on the gate's latch and the electronic piece would be sealed in plastic of some sort and mounted on the pole where the latch comes down. I actually just went outside and was amazed to see that the Wink hub could detect opens and closes that far away.

And yeah, there is definitely a delay with the Tripper. For my purposes, I just want to be able to see the door status at a given point in time, not necessarily monitor the doors in real-time. Contractors have a habit of leaving my back gate open and my dog has gotten out a few times (fortunately she stayed in the yard). Also, we'll leave the house and then wonder "Hey, did we remember to put the garage door down?" The Tripper should be adequate for those point-in-time statuses for the most part, IMO.

After a lot of trial and error and getting inconsistent results mounting the Tripper to the garage door rail, various places on the door, etc, I gave up and made a small metal Z bracket to mount on the top of my garage doors. That holds the magnetic piece while the electronic piece is mounted on the wall next to where this bracket will rest when the door is closed. I fastened all components to the bracket or wall with some of the heavy duty 3M picture-hanging Velcro, though I may go ahead and put a screw into the bracket to make sure it stays on the door. Seems to work great.

Debating ordering another set of Trippers now. I have a third garage door and the aforementioned gate that I'd like to monitor. I wish they came in black like my gate; I'll just have to paint them, I guess.

 

[Kaido]

A little OT, but if you're looking into the Relay ($300), you may also want to check out the HP Slate 21 Pro, which is on sale for $239 right now:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2414913

It's basically just a 21" touchscreen monitor with an Android board inside, which you can run the Wink app on - plus do other stuff like check out your webcams, pull up Evernote with your recipe library, or listen to some Pandora. It has a kickstand, so all you need is an outlet for power, or you can mount it to the wall with a 100mm VESA arm. I just got this setup in my kitchen & it's AWESOME!

 

[Kaido]

After a lot of trial and error and getting inconsistent results mounting the Tripper to the garage door rail, various places on the door, etc, I gave up and made a small metal Z bracket to mount on the top of my garage doors. That holds the magnetic piece while the electronic piece is mounted on the wall next to where this bracket will rest when the door is closed. I fastened all components to the bracket or wall with some of the heavy duty 3M picture-hanging Velcro, though I may go ahead and put a screw into the bracket to make sure it stays on the door. Seems to work great.

How close does it have to be? Any room for a bit of distance between the two contact sensors?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

How close does it have to be? Any room for a bit of distance between the two contact sensors?

So, it depends GREATLY on the angle between the two units. If you are orienting them as intended, Wink says to place them within 1/8" of one another. In my experience, you can probably go a little further but not much -- maybe 3/16". 1/4" is stretching it and may or may not work; it probably wouldn't be reliable.

On the other hand, while I was experimenting, I placed the devices on either side of the bottom seam between garage door panels. When I opened the door, there was at least 1/2" between them (and maybe more!) and yet, the Tripper would NOT report an open condition. They were at an angle though and that seemed to be the difference (don't remember all the equations from my EE electromagnetic theory classes 20+ years ago to explain it ).

 

[Kaido]

IMO Kaido represents the true essence of an ADHD Member

ftfy :awe:

 

[bozack]

I bit the bullet and bought one today, so initially setting it up was a pain, took a while to connect to their servers, and setting up the lutron cassettes wasn't as simple as they suggested, but once I got the hang of it things were ok, a slight delay in turning things on/off but not bad...will need more time to formulate a valid opinion.

 

[Apexvector]

Anyone try the staples hub or smart things and how do they compare to Wink...number 1 gripe I read about wink is people feel it was rushed and more of a beta, plus the necessity for network connectivity is often seen as a boo

I've done everything I can think of to keep my Wink Hub connected to my network. Mind you that I DO eventually get it to connect and work properly. Though every few hours it goes down again. I've tried everything for a more stable connection: Reserving an IP Address based on the unit's MAC address, extending the DHCP leases to 1 year, different areas of the house to find the sweet-spot for network strength and distance for it's own "network field", making sure my network is only 2.4GHZ. Even after all that and multiple hours on the phone with tech support at Wink I am still finding a hub that isn't connected every few hours. Just sitting there blinking yellow.

I've heard that there are some units that may have bad memory installed in them. It's possible I have one such unit. That only goes to show that their hubs were rushed beta tests, not final products.

 

[marvin67]

I saw this as a deal on Amazon, wonder if it will works with the Wink hub? Reviews say it works with SmartThings. I've read that Wink works with other Aeon products. Anyone know? This is the 1st gen, so it says it works with a battery only.

Aeon Labs DSB09104-ZWUS - Z-Wave Smart Energy Meter

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ag=dealnewscom