@rejoe2 I ordered better receivers and it's night and day. Now I can control things between walls without problem, so I'll stick with the RF network and gateway

I'm using RF 433 Mhz because most of the commercial RF power outlet are at this frequency. It allows me to control my lights without creating relays.

But I'm planning to use 868 Mhz for the roller shutter, but still hasn't found a suitable library to handle it with the Pi and Domoticz

@rejoe2 I ordered better receivers and it's night and day. Now I can control things between walls without problem, so I'll stick with the RF network and gateway

@rejoe2 I've read many discussions about choosing between nRF24 and RFM69, and all the people agreed that the range of nRF24 was really bad.

I haven't tested it myself, but I'm using that kind of things :

And the range is really bad, I can't communicate from one side of my apartment to the other (even with self made antennas! - 2 walls to pass and about 12m).

I'm buying a house, the place will be bigger and there will be a second floor, so I want to invest in something working at longer range

For what I've read, I like the idea of MQTT Broker and the use of Node Red with Domiticz to handle the sensors. But I'm still open the the RF way for small cost sensors... Since my Wifi sensors won't need a gateway, I can still use my Pi as a RF gateway and use both networks if I need !

Someone should create a Doc page with the pro and cons of each communication method, like in this topic, it could help people like me trying to choose the right things

Thanks guys!

So If all my nodes use esp8266 and are declared as gateway, I don't have to make my raspberry work as a gateway right ? So I only need to install MySensors lib for my Arduinos sketchs.

@Nca78 I didn't know about Sonoff, it could replace my whole relay installation of arduinos
I'll look into it!

I'm gonna do some research about MQTT aswell, because it means nothing to me

Ok that makes sense there is a communication type between the gateway and controller, and another one between the gateway and the nodes if I understand correctly.

I guess my Pi 3 would be the Gateway, but also run the Controller (Domoticz) and it could communicate with the controller and the nodes using WiFi !

Thanks for the help

Hi everyone,

I have a small domotic installation at home with Pi3 as controller and some Arduinos that receive commands by RF 433 or BLE. As I did the communication part myself, Domoticz doesn't know the exact state of my components since it can only send commands to them.

While I was searching a way to improve communication, I found MySensors and it sounds great so I want to give it a try !

I first have to choose between the communications hardware, in my case it would be RFM69 (433) or Wifi.

Looking at the price of a RFM69 board (5.7€ with shipping) and the fact that I would need an arduino to control it (a bad copy would be arround 5€ I guess), I'm wondering if it's not better to buy a Pi Zero W with built-in Wifi to create the node.

I'm not sure if it's easy to get the state of a relay or a sensor with a Pi as it is with an Arduino, so I'm asking for advice if someone has already done that :simple_smile:

I have an other question : while reading the docs for installing the Gateway, you have to set a gateway type (ex: ethernet - same as wifi I guess) and a transport protocol (rfm69).

I don't really understand this, if I choose an ethernet Gateway, shouldn't it communicate with nodes using WiFi ? Is it mandatory to have a Radio component for communication ?

Thanks for the advices

Pou.