I wouldn’t encourage anyone to continue buying any further Ikuu products - they seem very uninterested in building a community beyond their own product range. Very narrow minded and I cannot see that strategy working long term.
This is where Homey’s “an app for everything” philosophy falls short.
Most Zigbee integrations don’t require a lot of effort (if any) from brands to get their devices working with them, also because for all intents and purposes, Zigbee is a standard, so a Zigbee controller should be able to work with devices that adhere to that standard.
Instead, Homey requires specific apps for anything but the most simple Zigbee device types, and I can understand that brands aren’t interested in putting in any effort to make that happen.
The issue is more that Tuya has built a bunch of custom datapoints that are not documented and require knowledge of the devices specific implementation to enable. The devices are not just Zigbee standard devices and because of these un-documented datapoints, it isn’t easy to know what things you must enable or set/read to manipulate the device.
I was looking at your Hubitat implementation for the fan device, and that seems to be using regular Zigbee clusters?
But yes, some brands resort to using undocumented/proprietary clusters (usually for features that aren’t supported by Zigbee directly). However, those clusters are typically the same across the whole range of devices, so one implementation of those clusters could enable support for dozens, if not hundreds, of different devices.
It isn’t clusters but datapoints.
In Zigbee, a “datapoint” is an abstraction used to represent a specific control or status feature of a device, typically encapsulating a single piece of information such as on/off state, brightness level, or temperature reading. These datapoints are commonly seen in implementations like Tuya’s Zigbee devices. Rather than using the standard Zigbee clusters and attributes defined by the Zigbee protocol, which is the conventional way to organize device functions and states, some vendors opt for datapoints to simplify device communication and integration across their own ecosystems.
The reason some vendors prefer datapoints over Zigbee clusters is that it allows them to create a more uniform, vendor-specific communication protocol across their devices, regardless of the underlying Zigbee standard. This approach offers:
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Simplified Integration: By using datapoints, vendors can streamline how devices communicate within their ecosystem, making it easier to manage a wide range of device types with a consistent control scheme.
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Cross-Platform Compatibility: Vendors like Tuya use datapoints across different protocols (such as Zigbee, Wi-Fi, etc.), allowing the same control logic to apply across platforms, reducing development complexity.
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Vendor Control: Datapoints offer vendors more control over device features and compatibility, enabling more flexibility in terms of the features they can add or modify without being strictly tied to the Zigbee specification.
Devices using vendor-specific datapoints rather than standard Zigbee clusters and attributes are not 100% purely Zigbee-compatible. While they still operate within the Zigbee protocol at a fundamental level, the reliance on proprietary datapoints means that you cannot interoperate with them unless you have details from the vendor on how those datapoints are implemented.
Which is the problem with Ikuu products.
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Zigbee doesn’t have datapoints, the hierarchy is Node > Endpoints > Clusters > Attributes.
The term “datapoint” is Tuya-specific.
Vendor-specific clusters are allowed in Zigbee, and AFAIK nothing prohibits a vendor from not using ZCL clusters/attributes.
So are you saying that a Zigbee “quirk” implementation that can handle Tuya-clusters cannot be used for Ikuu devices? Because that’s what I’m trying to say: the Tuya custom clusters are (relatively) well-documented, so if Homey would support them in a generic way a whole load of Tuya-based devices could be generically supported (and yes, I understand that this is a gross simplification of how it actually works).
Hi Gslender, I am in Australia and would like to participate in the adding of additional Mercator Ikuu Zigbee devices into your app. I am not a coder but am highly invested in Smart home integration. I currently want to get support for the Ikuu range of downlights. I currently have 3 models and would be rapt if you could add them to your app. If you can, I will test the crap out of them as i have big plans for the brand if I can get them working. Please let me know where you want the interrogation data uploaded to. Thanks.
Post the device details and fingerprint information on the GitHub repository as an issue.
I would recommend against investing in Ikuu though - they have formally stated they won’t help any efforts to support 3rd party integrations like Homey
Hi @gslender , did you actually get the ikuu outdoor double power points to behave and work? I’m considering purchasing one for my needs; I did note your comments regarding a dismal lack of support from Mercator - that’s pathetic really, why wouldn’t they want to help people out, i.e., to get more sales, etc.??? Seems very short-sighted - anyhow, I haven’t been able to find anything zwave or zigbee which would work in outdoor conditions, so this unit is the best option I’ve got.
Any feedback most appreciated, thanks. Cheers, Gray.
Ok well not a lot of feedback happening on here, but I’ll provide my own answers regarding the Mercator ikuu ZigBee outdoor double power switch, as I just bought this (finally, with fingers very much crossed) and installed today.
I’m happy to say it works very well on my Homey Pro. Although note:
- I didn’t install the Mercator app.
- I tried several times to add the switch as a device via the Mercator brand, but this failed every time.
- I finally got it to add quite happily and first time when I simply selected it as a ZigBee device, instead of the Mercator brand / version.
Dunno if this will help anyone, but there you go. And no, I don’t have / didn’t buy the Mercator ZigBee hub the web pages and documentation says that you need (so you don’t.)
If you create a new issue and provide the information outlined as per this issue (in your issue for the powerpoint) I can add support for the switches and potentially some of the power monitoring.
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Done. Thanks for any assistance, and your quality work to date. Cheers, Gray.
