It's not often that we get excited by what could be considered a "dumb" device, but the Eutonomy euFIX Fibaro Module DIN rail Adapters are probably the smartest dumb device you'll ever lay your eyes on!
First of all, what does a "DIN rail Adapter" do? Well. the DIN mounting system has been around for years and if you're familiar with how a reasonably modern electrical Consumer Unit works you'll no doubt already have seen a DIN mountable device in action.
Put simply, a DIN rail is a metal rail of a standard sizing and is widely used for mounting circuit breakers and control devices inside equipment racks. It allows for easily building a modular system of interconnecting devices.
But DIN rail isn't just for Consumer Units and equipment racks, you can get DIN rail enclosures in all sorts of shapes and sizes, including ones designed for external use.
So what does this mean in the world of the Smart Home? Well, up until now there were very limited options for using DIN rail mounting in your Home Automation systems.
Sure, Qubino have a few modules specifically designed for DIN rail mounting, but they are expensive and have limited functionality. We've also written a short guide about using Camden Boss enclosures before, but these don't really fit very well with the newer Fibaro modules.
Enter Eutonomy euFIX - the first, custom designed, DIN Adapters made specifically for Fibaro modules! What makes these so special is that they are built to exceptionally high standards and they allow the modules to be securely mounted to the adapter, with all connections properly broken out onto screw terminals externally. There's no manual internal wiring or hot-glue needed with these!
They are also fully CE certified and we've gone over them in fine detail and haven't been able to find a single fault. Each adapter is designed specifically for a particular Fibaro module with the PCB being appropriately rated to suit. Since a picture speaks a thousand words, we'll let our photos do the talking .....
We really can't stress enough how good these are in the flesh, but hopefully the photos above will give you a good idea! They're available to suit 6 Fibaro modules currently and there are versions with push-buttons (as shown above) and without push-buttons.
The push-buttons are wired in parallel to the inputs on the module which makes it really easy to test them locally (perhaps before the switch cables are connected). Not to mention making it super simple to Include and Exclude the modules on the Z-Wave side of things. We think that for the extra few pounds it's well worth having the push-buttons, even if you don't think you'll need them.
So what does all this cost you? Well quality doesn't come cheap, that's for sure, but at just £22 (without push-buttons) and £28 (with push-buttons) we don't think that these will break the bank either, especially when the pricing is considered as part of an overall install. Some of the other solutions we mentioned previously were getting on for that sort of price too and frankly they are pretty poor in comparison!
At Vesternet we practice what we preach and we've got a number of projects on the go currently where we'll definitely be using the euFIX DIN Adapters. For example we recently installed a Fibaro Single Switch 2 to control a low voltage AC garden irrigation valve and a euFIX DIN Adapter would finish this job off perfectly. The low voltage AC PSU that we're using is even DIN mountable itself, so this would look much more professional when mounted in a nice IP rated DIN enclosure side-by-side with the Fibaro module in the corresponding euFIX DIN Adapter.
That about wraps up this post, the Eutonomy euFIX Adapters are in stock and ready to ship so check them out today!
See you soon,
Martyn
