The Adaprox Zigbee Fingerbot may seem like a toy at first glance, but in a home, it can be of great use given all the possibilities this device offers and today we are going to discover its potential.
Why is Fingerbot Plus Zigbee Adaprox priced that way?
The Adaprox smart button incorporates Zigbee technology so it communicates and receives commands from a compatible Zigbee hub. It is attractively priced given all the possible uses you can have in your home.
Advantages and disadvantages of the Fingerbot Plus Zigbee
Advantages
- Zigbee technology: Before we only found smart buttons in Bluetooth or WIFI but Adaprox offers us a Zigbee Fingerbot, which is very interesting to be able to integrate it into our ecosystem of Tuya, Home Assistant, Jeedom or even Amazon Alexa.
- Multiple uses: This device can be to manage different aspects of your home such as some lights, the pool robot, a shutter, a garage door, the heating, a coffee machine and much more.
- Compatibilities: The Fingerbot adapts to both Tuya ecosystems such as Jeedom and Home Assistant with Zigbee2MQTT.
- Works with Alexa: Alexa has voice assistants with an integrated Zigbee hub (Echo Hub, Echo 4, Echo Show and Echo Studio) and this Fingerbot can be used with these voice assistants so you are going to have voice control of this device.
- Easy to install: Just stick it on top of a traditional button and that’s it, you have control of this button from your phone with the Fingerbot.
Disadvantages
- Limited functions with Alexa: With Alexa, you can only use the default button press and you won’t have any customisation options.
- Aesthetics: By installing this Fingerbot on top of a traditional button in your home, it will not be invisible unlike a smart module that you can install behind a switch.
Tutorial for using Adaprox Zigbee Fingerbot
What is this Zigbee button?
In a house, we have different devices that we control in the traditional way by pressing our die.
For example, we press a switch to turn the lights on or off, we press the button on the coffee machine to have a coffee, we press the button on the washing machine to start a cycle.
We can also press buttons to open or close a garage door and a final example would be to press buttons on a thermostat to raise or lower the temperature.
This Adaprox device has the great advantage of simulating your keystroke and can therefore be used in an infinite number of cases.
Everything you do with your finger in the traditional way, at home, could be replaced by the action you executeá this button.
Today we are going to see how this device works and how to use it.
To begin with, this device is unique as we used to find devices with similar functions but operating with Bluetooth or WIFI technologies.
And this device communicates on Zigbee, a technology known for its low power consumption, so this smart button is likely to last longer than WIFI or Bluetooth models.
But also, thanks to the mesh network function that is automatically formed if you have other Zigbee smart devices in your home, you can have longer communication ranges, i.e., if for example you have this button located far from the home automation hub, thanks to sockets, light bulbs, modules or any other Zigbee device connected to the current, you will be able to have sufficient range thanks to the signal repetition with your devices.
Simply put, using Zigbee technology for your smart devices in your home allows you to unify your installation by being able to control everything from a single application and, in addition, to create routines to make various devices interact with each other.
Speaking of home automation hubs, another great advantage of this device is that it works with different ecosystems.
You can use it with an Alexa voice assistant that integrates Zigbee technology such as the Echo 4, the Echo Studio or the third-generation Echo Show.
You can also use it with universal home automation hubs such as Jeedom and Home Assistant with Zigbee2Mqtt.
But you should know that, with Alexa, you will not have any customisation options, i.e. you will only be able to use the default button press and nothing else.
With Jeedom, Home Assistant and a Tuya home automation hub such as a home automation hub from Lidl, MOES or any other Tuya brand, we have customisation options.
You can activate or deactivate the manual control of the button, you can set a percentage of lowering and raising in one press and you can set a time of the press, which can be very practical in some contexts, for example, when you need to press a switch for 10 seconds to completely lower a blind.
It is worth noting that you can additionally purchase accessories for use with this button because, in some contexts, it could be very useful, for example, to execute the double action on a switch that controls your light allowing you to turn on and off the light without having to use 2 devices, with only one would be enough if you put the accessory that will allow you to raise and lower the switch.
Another interesting detail is that it has a built-in touch button that allows you to execute the button action manually without doing it from the application on your phone.
Finally, this button is powered by a CR2 battery which is included in the packaging.
And it is worth noting that this battery is easily removed without moving the device, which is very practical.
To include this device, you have to put your home automation hub in inclusion mode and at this moment, you have to press the button inside the device for 5 seconds.
Use cases with this Zigbee Fingerbot
A simple example would be turning the lights on or off in an area of your home. There are smart bulbs, but when using smart bulbs, if you turn off the lights from the switch, you can no longer turn on the smart bulbs from your phone or by voice as you have electrically cut off these bulbs from the switch. So you would have to flip the switch again to get control of these bulbs again, which may be impractical.
Then we have smart modules that do have the function of switching the lights on or off from your phone or by voice and you will still have control of the lights from your switch, which by the way, these smart modules are installed behind the switches in your house, and this could be inconvenient, either because you do not have enough space behind the switches or because you do not have the knowledge and electrical skills and you do not want to contact a professional.
The same could be said for smart switches, which have similar functions to smart modules, except that they come with built-in switches, which may make installation easier, but you will still need electrical knowledge and skills or contact a professional.
An alternative that you can all install without difficulty would be one or more smart buttons above your switches to turn the lights on and off, although of course, this is not the most aesthetically pleasing solution because it would looká the Zigbee button and take upá space on the switch.
Another example would be motorised blinds. Some models of blinds already incorporate wireless communications but you cannot use them with your home automation system, for example with Jeedom and Home Assistant, because they are from an exotic brand or from a manufacturer that has decided to close its ecosystem.
In this case, if there is no way to control these blinds with a home automation hub such as Jeedom and Home Assistant, as well as the switches to manage the lights, you can install one or two smart buttons above the switches that manage these blinds.
Another aspect that could be interesting would be to manage a garage door in the same way, i.e. by installing one or two Zigbee smart buttons above the buttons that open or close the garage door.
Regarding other aspects such as heating, it would also be possible to give it intelligence by simply adding one or two buttons on a traditional thermostat to be able to adjust the temperature from anywhere in the world.
In your garden, you can also use this Zigbee button to manage the activation or deactivation of the pool robot.
And to give a last use case, although of course, your imagination will be your limit, we can put an intelligent button on top of a button on the coffee maker to activate it at any time, for example, when we get up and pronounce a specific phrase to our voice assistant, which in addition to activating the coffee maker, plays relaxing music and anything else we want.
Instead of electrically modifying a household appliance, which can be risky and can also damage the device, thanks to this Zigbee button, you can give it intelligence without this kind of problem.
And of course, in your home, you also have the possibility to give intelligence to a TV, a washing machine and any other device with buttons.
So this device has a great utility in a smart home and communicating with Zigbee technology is in my opinion, a very good bet that you should value.
