Do you already have a Home Assistant server set up? If so, I'd suggest getting a USB Zigbee Dongle like this one.
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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I'd also recommend Tubeszb Zigbee controllers. They are fantastically reliable, and there is a large group of users on the Home Assistant community forum. I've been running mine for well over a year. I've had one issue that I caused, and he replaced it next day. Since then 0 issues with over 50 zigbee devices in a very congested wireless area.
Any reason for picking the Sonoff instead of the Conbee II? (genuinly curious)
Conbee2 is of a previous generation and cannot handle the number of zigbee devices that newer ones can. I had a Conbee2 and I vastly prefer the newer ones like the sonoff and the tubeszb controllers.
+1 for the tubeszb PoE Zigbee radio! Flawless so far (once I figured out what I was doing that is lol; but that’s on me)
I see. Currently the Conbee II I have fits my needs, but its good to know that there's an upgrade option when I need it.
Thanks!
Honestly, just brand recognition for me. I have other Sonoff products that seem to work well. Never tried the Conbee II before.
Got it. I actually hadn't heard of Sonoff until after I had bought a Conbee II.
Thanks for the info, though
No problem!
I use this one https://www.mylocalbytes.com/products/sonoff-zbdongle-zigbee-usb-3-0-dongle-plus works well and they provide great support.
I've got the same one and it's rock solid. Plugged into a Raspberry Pi running Home Assistant, Zigbee2MQTT and Node-RED. It's the best setup I've ever had. Node-RED also makes it so convenient to assign actions to remotes.
I got one yesterday, first bulbs arrived today and got them working together in less than 5 minutes
I went with an Ethernet-based Zigbee radio. You hook it up to an Ethernet port with Power-over-Ethernet (“PoE”) and it receive Zigbee and sends it over the network.
Why did I do this? Because I have several servers at home, and they are all clustered together (Proxmox). I am able to live-migrate my HA VM from one server to the other with only a few milliseconds of downtime.
If I were using a USB stick, this wouldn’t be possible because once you pass through a hardware device you’re locked in to that host.
Now, my setup is for a LOT more than just HomeAssistant, but considering it’s also doing local DNS, routing, and hosting a NAS, being able to have a highly available setup (even if it isn’t perfectly highly-available) means neither my security updates nor my hobbyist tinkering needs to upset the rest of the family.
I put off getting into Zigbee/ZWave for many years because I either did not know about this option, or it was not yet available.
I have a hue hub (since that is where it all began for me) and I still use it despite the additional Zigbee network. The Hue hub offers some stuff you can’t do with HomeAssistant, and it lets myself and others still use other apps and features like Entertainment Zones (sync with a TV). It integrates well enough with HomeAssistant that it’s not really a hinderance with my use case. It does work local-only, but it does also have cloud features like Remote Access, remote routines (Turing on lights when you arrive etc, which I just do with HomeAssistant now) and software updates. But, your lights will continue to work without an internet connection, yes.
I also started with/am still using a hue hub. It integrates nicely with homeassistant, but I already know that if I want to expand my smarthome into other signee devices, I will have to spend more $$ on a second zigbee antenna, and I will have to move my hue lights over to that if I want the network to mesh together.
I don’t regret anything about it though. The hue hub has been rock solid and super responsive for me, and every review I’ve seen seems to conclude that hue lights are pretty much the best if you want color accuracy, smooth transitioning/dimming, and responsiveness. I will probably lean more on smart switches in the future, but starting with smart bulbs is good for now while we wait to see the Matter/thread devices roll out.
You're not really locked in if you use Docker to pass the device, but I do understand what you're saying.
Migrating from one system to another with Docker would require moving the device and the config data and database over. It wouldn't be difficult, maybe 5 minutes of work, but I can see how someone who wants to run a setup like yours would prefer an easier method.
It depends a little how much you want to do yourself.
If you already have a hass instance running, you could get a zigbee dongle, and a couple of sensors (SNZB02 temperature sensor, for example) to get started with things.
On the Hue hub, it mainly talks to Hue gear. The encryption on the newer Hue equipment hasn't (to my knowledge) been broken yet, so you need to use a Hue hub. The hub has integration with hass, so you can effectively control Hue via Hass.
You can block Hue from the internet in a few ways, depending on networking ability (easiest is just manually setting the IP, and giving it a bad gateway, though this isn't 100% guaranteed to work).