Zigbee vs BLE temperature sensors for Home Assistant

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Zigbee vs BLE temperature sensors for Home Assistant - which is most reliable?

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#2957358 21-Aug-2022 17:30

I've got a couple of SNZB-02 due to be delivered soon, looks like they're sitting with customs. If you're in Auckland you're willing to grab one for a try.

I've been running WSDCGQ01LM's for a few years now without issue, but it looks like you cant buy them anymore so decided to give the SNZB-02 a try. I think the SNZB-02 has a larger battery. WSDCGQ11LM's still look readily available.

eonsim

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#2957362 21-Aug-2022 17:44

Have you considered the Shelly Plus Humidity and Temperature sensor? It uses wifi rather than Zigbee or BLE and they claim >1 year battery life off 4xAA batteries (should be able to use rechargeable). They have an E-ink display for the readings and can be powered off a 5v supply if needed.

All the shelly stuff works very nicely with HA.

timmmay

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#2957401 21-Aug-2022 21:09

I'm in Wellington, thanks PanicNZ.

Eonsim, I think the Shelly stuff looks like good quality, but kind ugly. The T&S plus looks nice, and a year is pretty good. They're not available yet. WiFi is pretty easy, I have R.Pi and WiFi centrally, but I can easily add another WiFi access point.

I'm wondering if BLE is worth doing, as I'd like the little screen. Most of the house is within 10m of the R.Pi, and I could add a repeater / ESP thingy in the office at the other end of the house if I wanted to.

It's a shame my Yolink sensors has a screen but they don't integrate with HA, because their range is fantastic (hundreds of meters), quality is good. Their HA integration has to go via the cloud, and I'd have to buy a new YoLink hub.

fe31nz

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#2957422 21-Aug-2022 23:48

I have three of the BLE ones and the furthest one is about 9 metres away through three walls (1955 house). I have not had any connection problems. BLE (Bluetooth 4.0 and above) is designed specifically for low power devices to be able to connect over decent distances.

For extending your Bluetooth range, it is easy to put a Bluetooth USB dongle in any Linux box and do a remote USB network connection to it - networked USB is a builtin feature of the kernel. Finding the documentation on how to do it will take longer than getting it working. So if you have say an RPi that is at the other end of the house, you can just use it to provide Bluetooth back the the HA box that way, with HA seeing the dongle as a local BLE device.

mattenz

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#2957490 22-Aug-2022 07:58

I've got a few WDS500A sensors, which are cheap, and run on AAA. They're okay.

timmmay

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#2957491 22-Aug-2022 07:59

Great. Xiaomi BLE it is, thanks all. I've ordered a supported bluetooth USB adapter from Amazon because it's only $13 and range is apparently much improved over R.Pi. I'll also get some of the Xiaomi Bluetooth sensors from Aliexpress, the newer ones with e-paper, which HA supports. I'll report back when it's all set up :)

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eonsim

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#2957505 22-Aug-2022 09:02

The Xiaomi BLE sensors work well, the original round version (LYWSDCGQ) that took AA were the nicer ones and the more modern ones switched to coin batteries. I've got 6 spread around the property and use ESP32's running the BLE>Wifi repeater function from ESPhome to pass the signal to HA, works well, though max range on that model appears to be 7 or so meters and a couple of walls.

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#2957506 22-Aug-2022 09:04

Round ones won't stand up by themselves! AA would be good for battery life, but the button cells are ok, I have plenty and they're cheap.

eluSiveNZ

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#2957507 22-Aug-2022 09:05

timmmay:

Great. Xiaomi BLE it is, thanks all. I've ordered a supported bluetooth USB adapter from Amazon because it's only $13 and range is apparently much improved over R.Pi. I'll also get some of the Xiaomi Bluetooth sensors from Aliexpress, the newer ones with e-paper, which HA supports. I'll report back when it's all set up :)

Good call.

If you still have zigbee then I'd still recommend the Xiaomi/Aqara sensors for motion/door/light etc

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#2957509 22-Aug-2022 09:11

I don't have Zigbee or needs for anything else right now, but I can always add later :)

eonsim

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#2957639 22-Aug-2022 10:28

timmmay:

Round ones won't stand up by themselves! AA would be good for battery life, but the button cells are ok, I have plenty and they're cheap.

The original ones came with a magnetic back plate that you could attach to the wall which worked rather well.

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#2957648 22-Aug-2022 10:40

I use wireless sensor tag's (BLE) with the Ethernet gateway works really well with home assistant.

timmmay

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#2957711 22-Aug-2022 11:22

rphenix:

I use wireless sensor tag's (BLE) with the Ethernet gateway works really well with home assistant.

Interesting. That looks a lot like my Yolink / Yosmart products, though it looks to have much better integration. If I'd seen that before I ordered the BLE stuff I might have gone for it, but I've done BLE now so I'll stick with that.

PANiCnz

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#2957725 22-Aug-2022 11:58

Why not just buy one of each and try them all? The sensors are all pretty cheap and Home Assistant stitches them together nicely. Chance are for the rooms where you want a display the BLE gear is the better option, but for rooms where you just want the data the Zigbee sensors are probably ideal.

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#2957738 22-Aug-2022 12:43

PANiCnz:

Why not just buy one of each and try them all? The sensors are all pretty cheap and Home Assistant stitches them together nicely. Chance are for the rooms where you want a display the BLE gear is the better option, but for rooms where you just want the data the Zigbee sensors are probably ideal.

Could do, but I think I'll just get BLE for now and see how it works. If it's not doing what I want then I can get Zigbee. It's all fairly cheap, but I also like simplicity.

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