Aeotec
Selected products from this vendor are presented on this page, with my assessments where I have personal experiences to share. The links are primarily directed to the vendor’s own pages, in English; for local pages/prices you will have to conduct your own search.
About the vendor and its products
Aeotec (opens in a new window) is a substantial supplier of products for smart homes. They don’t, however, as far as I can tell, no products that are Apple Home compatible so in our home we have only installed one device; a door sensor. Aeotec has chosen Z-Wave as the primary communication protocol and our door sensor was perhaps more a test of integration of Z-Wave products via Homebridge. If you are starting out with Z-Wave, their Aeotec USB Z-Stick seems to be the least inexpensive way to set up a Z-Wave base station. And having gotten that in place, a new world of products opens up, with Aeotec supplying many such. Some examples of interesting products are:
- Sensors, like the Door / Window Sensor 6, Water Sensor 6, MultiSensor 6, and some others
- Control devices/switches, like the Garage Door Controller, WallMote, and other types of switches/relays
- Alarm components, like Siren 6
- Smarte light bulbs, including some E27 versions for European lamps
- Smart LED Strip
As far as I can tell, Aeotec offers no app of its own, but relies on the components being controlled via the chosen base station and app/ecosystem for this. There is a Homey app (opens in a new window) and many of the products can be integrated with Samsung SmartThings.
Our experiences
See more specific experiences in the table below. I also made a go at establishing a Z-Wave base station using an Aeotec USB Z-Stick via our Synology NAS. Encountering various problems, however, I gave up and went with Samsung SmartThings.
Notice that on phones, the table might only display in landscape mode
| Component | Room | Experiences |
|---|---|---|
| Door/Window Sensor 6 | Outdoor shed (uninstalled) | This was located quite far from the Z-Wave base station, but worked very well for a long time. It did not recharging very often (and when it did, it was very ease to remove from the mounting bracket). After a couple of years, however, the sensor started becoming flaky, in that it would not update the door status when it was opened. Resetting and various other attempts at troubleshooting did not work and it was therefore replaced by an Aqara sensor. |