Newbie question about garden watering valve compatibility

[Fortune7]

Hi,
I want to automate my garden watering and bought two valves and a gateway - see attached screenshot.

2023-06-17.png (305.4 KiB) Viewed 2115 times

It's advertised as 'Zigbee' which is what I wanted but operates on wifi (gateway) and RF433 (smart valves). I'd like to operate the valves through a Home Assistant automation - I have a HA Yellow.
So far I have spent DAYS (!) trying to get an acceptable setup in HA, via using the Tuya smart phone app and binding to the gateway and valves. This works for single on/off times watering sessions but the included schedule in the app doesn't work and besides, I'd prefer not to operate this via a cloud server. So I installed 'Local Tuya' on HA, and also the Tuya Developer portal to try to get the valve(s) local keys into HA but so far not successful. Debug logs show the valves functionality - not only on-off but amount of water passed, delay for wet days, schedules, etc., but the Local Tuya in HA seems only to want to 'see' switches, lights, curtains, etc.

So I'm here trying to see if there is 'another way' to communicate directly with the RF433 Valves via a HA integration. Ultimately, I only want to operate the on-off valve but if I can import the other entities it would be useful. I have looked to see if my particular valves are on the 'no support' list. I guess if I can't do an automation in HA for timed watering I'll have to go back to the 'phone (cloud) app.

Any help, please on how I should proceed?

Many thanks, Andy
(Oxford, UK)

[bidrohini]

It's difficult to give the right answer. Yeah, it comes with a standalone app. But the product description does not really elaborate what protocols it supports. I think you can contact the manufacturer through this website: https://www.mienji.com/

[Fortune7]

Thanks for the reply, but I don't see any info. relating to this product on the link provided. Can I assume that I need to find out the particular RF433 protocol used before I can make further progress with this? If so, is there a list of related protocols for RF433 I can use as examples for further research, please? There is some debug info. provided through the Tuya Developer portal; any idea if they would include the radio protocol? Thanks in advance!

Andy

[bidrohini]

You can contact them through the mail id and phone number given here: https://www.mienji.com/p/lianxiwomen.html

[Fortune7]

Thanks; I bought it from Amazon but the normal returns / refunds window is now closed (my mistake).

By now I should know better than to trust 'cheaper' Chinese goods and their marketing. This was clearly advertised as 'Zigbee' when it (equally clearly) isn't. There is some related-but-not-specific user help found online, but ultimately and after many days of trying, I need to abandon it and use a more expensive but better supported product (LinkTap). As far as contacting China direct, I think we all know how that will go!

Thanks for the offer of support - it's appreciated, but I need to move-on to a better-supported product. Lesson learned!

Cheers, Andy

[Stuntteam]

Reading the description it looks like you need the Tuya Wifi-RF device to link to the valves.

Obviously your issue is not at all related to RFLink.
Based on the very limited device support these Tuya Wifi<->RF bridges have, most likely the 433mhz valve signals will be seen by RFLink as generic ON/OFF devices.
If not we would need a RFLink debug log to see what we can do with it.

[Fortune7]

Thanks for the reply, with apologies for showing my frustration!

Yes, I posted here because I thought the issue IS about RFLink. Here's my thought process: Having discovered the valve(s) are RF433 and their gateway is WiFi, I'd hoped to (through whatever means) dispense with the gateway and operate the valves direct from my Home Assistant instance. If they'd been Zigbee as advertised, I could see a solution for this, maybe using Zigbee / MQTT. However, being RF433 I tried to find out how these devices could be controlled direct via a RF433 radio device, but my inexperience has prevented me from finding out what the particular RF433 protocol is for the device(s), despite spending some time researching online and using the Tuya Developer Gateway to debug. I'd hoped that using the considerable expertise here for RF433, armed with the protocol information I might get some help to move a bit further down the rabbit-hole. Unfortunately, I can't find the protocol info., and besides, most of the information for Tuya / Sonoff RF433 devices seems to relate to switches, lights, blinds and remote controls, etc., and nothing for garden watering valves. I did try using the device Local Keys to extract simple on-off information using the 'switch' configuration in Home Assistant (Local Tuya integration), but that didn't work for me.

So the frustration came out as I finally realised I'd spent far too much time trying to find a solution, rather than seeing sense and returning the setup to Amazon for a refund within their 30-day window, which I missed while tinkering!

Sorry again for the negativity; it's not directed here but to my poor selection of product.

Cheers, Andy

[Stuntteam]

Based on the advertisement you have bought 2 "water controllers" (they are operated via a 433mhz RF signal.) and 1 "Wifi to 433 Mhz RF gateway".
The gateway should be setup with one of the Tuya smartlife apps. Then you can open/close the controllers.
Although it is not the expected Zigbee protocol it is not that bad I guess.

Your idea to ditch the gateway and control the valves directly using RFLink should also be possible. In thaty case you can use Home Assistant or Domoticz to do the logic/watering programs etc..

First step is to get RFLink. Meaning you need an Arduino Mega board (~10 euros on aliexpress) and you need a transmitter/receiver module to connect to the Arduino board.
See here for details: https://www.rflink.nl/wires.php and here for how to capture signals: https://www.rflink.nl/develop.php
In order to capture the RF signals you would still need to have something transmitting the open/close commands, thus you probably need to setup the original gateway.

[Fortune7]

Many thanks - very helpful! I'll certainly look-into RFLink hardware and do a bit more tinkering.

Cheers, Andy