Anyone using Energenie / MiHome

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Hi all

Have been using MiHome from Energenie for a couple of years but only as far as the plug-in adapters but have now replaced 90% of the light switches in the house with the single switches.

I am also playing with IFTTT to try and automate a few things like geofencing etc so would welcome any ideas of which applets are best.

If we get enough interest then I will suggest to admin that they creat sub-groups under Home Automation for specific brands like MiHome, Nest etc
 
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I have had really patchy success. I have a few plug-in smart sockets that “generally” work (the cheaper ones that don’t monitor energy consumption were rubbbish since they don’t report back their state so you don’t know whether they really switch or not - mostly they didn’t; the newer ones are slightly better). The single switches were absolute rubbish. I tried two in separate rooms. Two were dead on arrival. The replacements sort of worked but would randomly switch on all by themselves. I really wanted to like them and kept giving them second chances but finally had enough. Replaced with Fibaro Z-wave dimmer switches and 0 issues so far. It’s a shame - Energie are attractive price wise and seem to have a good range but I am not impressed with quality and reliability.
 
I have been following Energenie / MiHome for a few years after getting the plug adapters initially and like yourself had mixed opinions however I kept chatting to the tech guys and they kept me on hold for year as I was pushing for specific things like the dual light switch which was taking a long time in development but in that time a lot of the range has been replaced and relaunched and looking at the old and new they are certainly different design and build so I am holding out high hopes that this may be a bit of a relaunch.

I am keen to push to see what I can get them to do and will be getting a few motion switches to automate the lights around the house and pair the Hive bulbs which are in a few areas (which I got whilst waiting for the double switches). Certainly not writing them off yet and happy to give them more of a chance.
 
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Last seen 7th Jul 2021 so maybe no longer active. Which I had seen this before. I started with Energenie back in around 2017, I had a problem with a social services installed extruder alarm, I wanted to be able to disable and re-enable the alarm which was up-stairs from down stairs before answering the door, and wanted it to auto switch off at the times carers were due to visit. The advantage was energenie combined both time and remote controls, and once the hub was bought then extras were not that expensive.

Second problem was central heating, and the TRV heads worked well, and were claimed to work with Nest, however they worked that well decided not to bother with Nest with that house.

So then added a light switch so could use the remote at bed side as not two way lighting in that room, all working very well, as stated by @mri_ice lack of two way coms, resulted in not knowing it the unit had actually switched, so also got the plug in switch and energy monitor, which was very handy.

On my mothers death house was sold and new owners did not want the Energenie stuff so all removed and brought to the new house, Home Base did a sale of Energenie stuff so bought a load more, and fitted in new house, it was then we started to get problems.

1) Nest Gen 3 now fitted, but when we tried to get the TRV to work with Nest, one seems wrong way around, instead of the TRV telling Nest what to do, Nest was telling the TRV what to do, or at least some times, set Nest with app and the TRV followed, but if Nest changed due to other reason, geofencing, or timed change, it failed to change the TRV, talking to Energenie seems Nest had removed support, so had to remove the link.
2) Of the 5 light switches, now only 2 still in use, they would do their own thing, and need power at consumer unit turning off/on to get them working again, as we remove some the remaining seemed to then work OK, also had one socket turn its self into a flasher unit.

I moved to zigbee, and although zigbee smart bulbs and plug in socket switches don't report energy use, they do show on the app if switched on or off.

I do have a fair few devices Mihome-used-crop.jpg and only 4 removed, rest still working well, in the main used as simple timers, turns on lights when it is due to get dark, the 4 way extension lead turns on display lights in the living room display cabinet so if I drop off in the chair, I do not wake up in total darkness.

But the latter electronic TRV heads were eQ-3 far cheaper, bluetooth not wifi, only show target temperature but have window open feature, and seem to work better, including ability to pair them when two radiators in one room.

It seems IFTTT is now charged for, but no longer need it, only used it because only three time slots and wanted four.

I will say the energenie app is faster than the smartlife one, and will work with PC direct, where smartlife needs an emulator to work, using smart bulbs rather than smart switches allows one to also alter colour temperature and colour and dim the bulbs, however with an 8 bulb chandelier would work out expensive.

Found even with a 5 bulb chandelier the load was too low with 5 x G9 bulbs and it would flash when off, cured using load capacitor, load-capacitor.jpg and shimmer when on, in the end found larger bulbs which worked G9-comp.jpg can't get G9 smart bulbs yet.

Also smart bulb on removing power defaults on, where the energenie light switch defaults off, so after a power cut lights say off, which means a danger trying to find phone or light switch in the dark.

Would be interested to see if originally posters still monitor this thread.
 

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