Sonoff NS Panel Pro
The Sonoff NS Panel Pro is a somewhat different product for review. From the name you would be lead to believe that this product is an upgrade the the Sonoff NS Panel. However this isn't true. The NS Panel pro is more of a change of direction for the product. The original NS Panel was advertised as a light switch with a control panel touch screen. The panel utilised physical buttons to control the relays in the switch for direct control of a circuit. The new NS Panel Pro focuses more on the control panel aspect and drops the physical buttons in favor of a larger touch panel.
In some ways this can increase the flexibility of the product as it only requires simple power and neutral wires in order to function. Meaning that this can be placed anywhere including on a desk. This can be done using the optional extra NS Panel Pro housing.
The NS Panel Pro is configured using the ewelink app as with all Sonoff products. The pairing process is a breeze as the device can be added to your device list by just scanning the QR code displayed on the screen then the NS Panel Pro boots up for the first time. Once the WiFi credentials are entered the usef is prompted to choose a region. This is somewhat confusing as this list is not well described and there is difficult to know if the device wants to know, City, county, country, continent or something else. For the UK I selected London here and that worked fine. The device then appears in your device list and it can be configured from within the device menu.
The panel has some interesting features available in it such as the inclusion of a Zigbee hub. This is great for people getting in to smart homes as it means that they do not need to purchase a Zigbee hub separately the the NS Panel Pro. However, if you purchase multiple NS Panel Pro's to use in different locations around your smart home, it doesn't make sense to have multiple Zigbee hubs. It would be better if the user could have the choice to use the zigbee hub as either a hub or a Zigbee gateway to extend and reach of your Zigbee network. The beauty of zigbee is that each device can act as a repeater, essentially extending your Zigbee network each time you add more devices to the mesh. Hopefully Sonoff can implement this in the future. The supported product list is below:
The NS Panel Pro has a good quality screen which is good as one of the features offered with this control panel is the ability to be able to stream video from cameras to the panel. I tested this using the Sonoff Cam Slim which was reviewed previously here
The control panel also gives the user flexibility to control scenes created within the ewelink app allowing control of multiple devices at a single tab. The panel can also display information about sonoff sensors such as temperature and humidity from the Sonoff temperature and humidity sensor. This feature was added as part of the 1.3.0 update in August along with compatibility for Yeelight devices and sonoff WiFi Plugs.
The NS Panel Pro also has the ability to control plugs and switches using most of the temperature sensors avalible form Sonoff. For instance i have set up a TH10 switch with a temperature probe attached so that i can monitor of a room and then turn on a fam heater if the room gets too cold. This is shown in the shot below. the display has a good, easy to read and understand thermostat screen and also has the ability to map temperature over time and display this information in a graph.
Since owning the NS Panel Pro it has received regular updates, extending it's functionality further. Sonoff have also published a list of expected fixtures to be released in for coming updates. I'd recommend reviewing this list yourself before purchasing this product to see if a feature you require is coming in the future and continuing to purchase the product once the feature you require is available, just in case that feature doesn't get released or is pushed back.
As this is a control panel, inbound integration, to control the panel, are not really relevant here, other than for getting readings from the internal sensors. However outbound instigations have been focused on by Sonoff with many third party invigorations already being available, as can be seen in the table above. The NS Panel Pro runs android with an specific android app containing the control interface for the NS Panel Pro. This means that integration into the likes of Homeassistant give very little functionality currently.
All in all the NSpanel Pro is a good addition to the Sonoff line up of products and is a good central control point for sonoff devices and compatible devices as well. Features such as being able to stream cameras to the device is a cool feature and it's good to see that sonoff have opened this to be able to stream and RTSP feed. It’s good to see Sonoff actively developing and expanding functionality if this device over time however it would have been nice to see many of the features in development available at the time of the products release. I see the NS Panel Pro as a step in the right direction by Sonoff to filling a space in the market for a flexible control panel for the DIY smart home and Hopefully in the future we will see the addition of a Web browser which will truly open up the possibilities of this device as it would allow access to custom home control centres such as Homeassistant and DASH.
The product should be looked at as a control panel for smart home tech rather than a light switch. If you are looking for a compilation device check out my review of the original Sonoff NS Panel
Thank you to Sonoff for sending the NS Panel Pro for review. If you would like to pick up a Sonoff NS Panel Pro you can do so using the link below that will take you to Sonoff’s itead website.
