Replace EQ-3 Max Cube with nano CUL 868 - Please help...

[LauW]

Hi there,

Okay so i´ve tried figuring this stuff out for days and no i give up :-)
What i have now is a fine setup of EQ-3 Max! products connected via a Cube.
I integrated this into HomeAssistant, but the "relay" is buggy and i´ve often had issues with the Cube, even without using Home Assistant.
So i researched and found out i can flash the Cube, but since that´s a one-way i would rather buy an alternative.
That´s where i found this usb stick:
https://www.smart-home-komponente.de/nano-cul/nano-cul-868-extern/#cc-m-product-8485019276

So now i have my Home Assistant server and this usb thing.... what now?
I´ve read that i need HomeGear or FHEM installed that uses the usb thing and Home Assistant then connects to HG or FHEM.
But i cannot, for the love, figure out how and where...

My Home Assistant is running from a Virtual Machine on my Lenovo ThinkCentre M93p with VMware Esxi installed.
I tried connecting the usb and use passthrough to the VM running HA.
That worked somewhat... when i tried some command (cannot remember it now) i got a permission denied.
I think the best is connecting the usb to a Raspberry Pi, i have a unused RPI3 that i thought using for it.

If that was the plan with RPI3, what OS should i put on it and do i install FHEM, HomeGear or something else?
I don´t mind at all following some guides... but i cannot find any for what im trying to do.
When i find any, they allready have FHEM installed or clearly knows a lot more about this stuff then me :-)

I do know my way around coding and such, but im just a bit lost here and need someone to guide and help me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance!

And damn sorry if this post is in the wrong place... :-/

Regards.
René.

[Beta-User]

Hi there,

first: Welcome to the FHEM forum!

The CUL you found should work, but I'd rather recommend to go for a STM32 based alternative: In the FHEM-Wiki you may find it as MapleCUN. As this provides network integration itself, it can also be handed over to a virtualized server. The backside: it's by far more complex to configure inside FHEM than a "normal CUL".

For FHEM itself, there's plenty of options how to install, including also  a docker container. As a start, I'd recommend using RaspiOS lite (no GUI) and install the "easy way" as mentionned on the left side on https://debian.fhem.de/.

Then immediately do an update (this is then done from within FHEM, apt is then no longer used for updates!).

For first orientation in FHEM see https://wiki.fhem.de/wiki/Quick-Start/en.

To connect FHEM to other systems, there's quite a few options also. The most generic one imo is using MQTT - unfortunately, there are a lot of instructions available, but not for the most "modern" way: MQTT2_CLIENT (or MQTT2_SERVER) and MQTT_GENERIC_BRIDGE.

Hope this helps for a start, please do not hesitate to ask further questions.

Kind regards,

Beta-User