@dbemowsk It is not if you know and keep it attached. It is just terrible design in general, that would never be approved.

@dbemowsk I have not flashed it. You can get one with a connector, but keep in mind that the exposed connector in the base is probably dangerous.

@dbemowsk There are a lot of reviews around. Some units are fine, some have exposed metal parts connected to the powerplug (which can put mains phase on them at least in countries with unkeyed outlets, and some have the wand attached with a connector and habe mains phase on a connector pin that can be exposed

Apart from that, I am quite happy with mine. There is even custom firmware.

@dbemowsk That is actually what I meant, and what my warning was about. Some of these are deathtraps.

I would suggest to get solder paste and a hot air gun (I have one of those 40$ thingys, which works fine after checking that it is not one of the units that have mains potential on the metal parts :D).
Maybe also stencils. I just had one made at jlcpcb for 7$ + shipping, it is still in the mail, though.
If you only have two left hands and no serious condition, that should make soldering them quite trivial.

@gohan Can't, as I said I don't know from which of multiple shipments it came. Only noticed when I used it.

A thought I had recently: Those moisture pitchforks are usually HASL coated. Do I really want that in the soil of a plant I probably want to eat? Any thoughts anyone?

It indeed does. Thanks for the overview, looks different from the HopeRF website (seems to actually be the CW version). Certainly have not ordered that.

As far as I understand, I am not allowed to user 20dBm in Germany anyway, so 13dBm isn't that bad. Will try to run it later. There are a few nodes close to the gateway for which it will be enough.

As my MySensors world is growing, I ordered a few more RFM69HW modules from China. When I set up a new node yesterday, I had connection issues and a closer look revealed that the modules have less components than usual:

In comparison, this is a usual one:

Did that ever happen to anyone? Any idea what is missing there? Anyway, keep an eye on your shipments, for me it is too late to go for a refund, as I got a few pairs from different suppliers and do not know who shipped these.

Ok, my setup is running now (including personalization, encryption, and soft signing) and stuff is published to mqtt.
Thanks everyone for the help! I really like this community.

Now I need to resolve the issue with the OpenHAB binding but that's no topic for here.