Where to buy zigbee devices in 2023? Just starting my home automation journey

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Where to buy zigbee devices in 2023? Just starting my home automation journey

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#3018509 8-Jan-2023 09:11

I use a Broadlink RM Pro with Home Assistant to control my older Daikin heat pump. I'm using it as a dumb IR blaster, and you would be better off with a newer non-pro model I think, possibly from Ali Express. If no-one else has already done it for your make model of heat pump you have to record the codes you want to send which is a little tedious, but not difficult or too time consuming (integration, discussion). Near the end of the discussion is instructions how to do it, if you need help send me a message. If you want to use the Broadlink app it has a database of many heat pumps that works quite easily, but I prefer Home Assistant.

I have a hardware gateway for my roman blinds that I got from the place that sold the blinds to me. Their app / Home Assistant talk to the gateway, which talks to the blinds using RF. I use "Motion Blinds Gateway", which I think is this integration. I don't have the brands that it says to use, but it seems to work fine.

Button as an automation trigger... I haven't done that yet. I do have some Athom ESPHome smart plugs that integrated into Home Assistant with zero effort. If you look at "Wall Switches For ESPHome" on that page maybe they'll work, but it looks like they need to be wired in, which is different from what I think you want. I'd be interested if you find anything.

I have an Android tablet on the wall that runs my ducted heating system, Airtouch, and I've installed the Home Assistant app on. It's pretty easy to make a dashboard with buttons / sliders / etc to control what you want with that. When I say easy, Home Assistant has a bit of a learning curve, but I've only been using it for maybe six months and I can do most things I need to, sometimes with a bit of community help. The HA community is pretty good.

eonsim

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#3018515 8-Jan-2023 09:30

Not Zigbee (use wifi), but Shelly relays are pretty good and a number of there standard ones are certified for use in NZ (as in your electrician will install them). The electrician may be able to get them or you can buy them from there european website or aliexpress. They have wifi buttons (1, 2, 3 and long press) motion sensors and Wifi Temperature/humidity sensors you can program to run stuff in Home Assistant and excellent support the 2nd gen devices can also act as bluetooth gateways for HomeAssistant. Pretty easy to do simple automation like automated bathroom fan control (Shelly Temperature + Humidity sensor in the room with a relay wired into the fan by an electrician, HA set to turn fan on when humidity > 75% and turn off after xx time).

For Heatpump/IR control Sensibo works well but is more expensive than the Broadlink RM's, but doesn't require much setup.

Wiz lights work well with Homeassistant and have a local control mode, they're also half to a third of the price of Hue, but use wifi rather than zigbee.

ianganderton

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#3018518 8-Jan-2023 09:50

timmmay:

I use a Broadlink RM Pro with Home Assistant to control my older Daikin heat pump. I'm using it as a dumb IR blaster, and you would be better off with a newer non-pro model I think, possibly from Ali Express. If no-one else has already done it for your make model of heat pump you have to record the codes you want to send which is a little tedious, but not difficult or too time consuming (integration, discussion). Near the end of the discussion is instructions how to do it, if you need help send me a message. If you want to use the Broadlink app it has a database of many heat pumps that works quite easily, but I prefer Home Assistant.

I have a hardware gateway for my roman blinds that I got from the place that sold the blinds to me. Their app / Home Assistant talk to the gateway, which talks to the blinds using RF. I use "Motion Blinds Gateway", which I think is this integration. I don't have the brands that it says to use, but it seems to work fine.

Button as an automation trigger... I haven't done that yet. I do have some Athom ESPHome smart plugs that integrated into Home Assistant with zero effort. If you look at "Wall Switches For ESPHome" on that page maybe they'll work, but it looks like they need to be wired in, which is different from what I think you want. I'd be interested if you find anything.

I have an Android tablet on the wall that runs my ducted heating system, Airtouch, and I've installed the Home Assistant app on. It's pretty easy to make a dashboard with buttons / sliders / etc to control what you want with that. When I say easy, Home Assistant has a bit of a learning curve, but I've only been using it for maybe six months and I can do most things I need to, sometimes with a bit of community help. The HA community is pretty good.

Thanks

Just pressed the button on the Broadlink RM4 mini

$20 bucks - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000223680571.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.19b638dan7IMl6&mp=1

😎

ianganderton

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#3018522 8-Jan-2023 10:21

eonsim:
Not Zigbee (use wifi), but Shelly relays are pretty good and a number of there standard ones are certified for use in NZ (as in your electrician will install them). The electrician may be able to get them or you can buy them from there european website or aliexpress. They have wifi buttons (1, 2, 3 and long press) motion sensors and Wifi Temperature/humidity sensors you can program to run stuff in Home Assistant and excellent support the 2nd gen devices can also act as bluetooth gateways for HomeAssistant. Pretty easy to do simple automation like automated bathroom fan control (Shelly Temperature + Humidity sensor in the room with a relay wired into the fan by an electrician, HA set to turn fan on when humidity > 75% and turn off after xx time).

For Heatpump/IR control Sensibo works well but is more expensive than the Broadlink RM's, but doesn't require much setup.

Wiz lights work well with Homeassistant and have a local control mode, they're also half to a third of the price of Hue, but use wifi rather than zigbee.

Cool, lots to look into there.

Bathroom fan automation sounds like a great idea.

Will HA control wifi relays & bulbs if the internet is down? I downy want to find myself with nothing working

PANiCnz

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#3018524 8-Jan-2023 10:39

ianganderton:

Whats are Aqara products like in terms of function and reliability?

Aqara is just Xiaomi gear, nothing wrong with it.

eonsim

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#3018527 8-Jan-2023 10:45

ianganderton

Cool, lots to look into there.

Bathroom fan automation sounds like a great idea.

Will HA control wifi relays & bulbs if the internet is down? I downy want to find myself with nothing working

It will if the devices allow local control like the shelly's, Hue, Wiz (the wiz stuff I've tried at least) and various tasmota/esphome. If the smart home system is cloud based then no.

Tinkerisk

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#3018532 8-Jan-2023 11:06

ianganderton:

Has anyone looked into whether Matter will fit into NZ's radio frequency standards? I've read the pinned post regarding the Z-Wave issue

>>> Matter (protocol) uses thread (radio) with the same frequencies as zigbee (not Z-wave).

Will Matter offer any performance advantages over Zigbee? My understanding is that of the Thread systems Z-Wave has the greater distance reach but ZigBee uses less power so has the better battery life.

>>> thread is similar to zigbee but is capable to handle IPv6 addresses for each individual IoT device. For coverage, zigbee and thread rely on repeaters in bulbs and smart plugs, which are permanently powered.

I think I've decided to use Phillips Hue bulbs in key areas of the house where scenes will add significant value and it looks like the Hue hub is already compatible with Matter

>>> You can control the hue bulbs directly by the Yellow’s zigbee radio in Home Assistant without the need of the hue gateway (I do). The hue bulbs itself will not be matter compatible, only their gateway as a translator.

Looks like Ikea will be migrating from TRADFRI to DIRIGERA products that support Matter. I think I'm planning to use TRADFRI bulbs and plugs where utility lighting & power is needed like hall ways, laundry and garage. They are ZigBee so will work directly long term with my network

>>> the same as the hue bulbs, they can be controlled and updated directly in Home Assistant via the Yellow’s zigbee radio without any ikea gateway (I do as well).

BTW, I have some eve devices running matter in production mode since 12th of December after their first matter s/w upgrade. So it is already released. 😉

- NET: FTTH, OPNsense, 10G backbone, GWN APs, ipPBX
- SRV: 12 RU HA server cluster, 0.1 PB storage on premise
- IoT: thread, zigbee, tasmota, BidCoS, LoRa, WX suite, IR
- 3D: two 3D printers, 3D scanner, CNC router, laser cutter

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Tinkerisk

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#3018538 8-Jan-2023 11:18

ianganderton

Will HA control wifi relays & bulbs if the internet is down? I downy want to find myself with nothing working

Yes, if you use an own mqtt/node red/whatever service/server. You can have it as virtual machine on the same hardware as home assistant. In this case you are completely independent from the internet - except remote control via the internet of cause (and as I do as well again). You‘ll need i.e. tasmota on the wifi devices to do so.

I avoid wifi iot devices where possible so as not to clutter up my network with the slow wifi modes stuff. Unlike wifi, thread/zigbee networks become more stable and stay responsive as the number of devices increases.

ianganderton

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#3018556 8-Jan-2023 12:56

Interesting, thanks 🙏

Something I haven’t looked into and got my head around is what appears to be 2 different ways of managing zigbee devices in HA - Zigbee2MQTT & ZHA

Just been reading a bit about that after typing that sentence. I feel like I’m likely to go with HA’s direct ZigBee integration. The learning curve is plenty steep enough as it is. ZHA will likely be fine until it isn’t. If I reach that point I’ll look at solving the problem

richms

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#3018577 8-Jan-2023 14:15

Apparently thread will have a more reliable mesh than zigbee did which if you are into non-wifi networking will be a huge help.

The problem with zigbee is that things will mesh thru devices and not know of any other way to get back to the coordinator, which when the device its going thru is powered off or leaves, will cause the whole network to fall apart till it reorganizes itself. If you leave all your stuff powered all the time and never move lamps around the house etc, that may be fine for you, but if you power down entire rooms that are not in use then good luck with zigbee.

I only use zigbee for temperature sensors and buttons now, with several coordinators around the house. When I had one, and put smart plugs to act as repeaters it was unreliable as anything. With a dedicated gateway for the garage, one for the shed, one for upstairs at the front and one for downstairs at the back, and all the temperature sensors paired to the closest one its been totally reliable. Got rid of all the sockets and bulbs that could act as repeaters.

Richard rich.ms

Tinkerisk

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#3018631 8-Jan-2023 18:40

richms:

I only use zigbee for temperature sensors and buttons now, with several coordinators around the house. When I had one, and put smart plugs to act as repeaters it was unreliable as anything. With a dedicated gateway for the garage, one for the shed, one for upstairs at the front and one for downstairs at the back, and all the temperature sensors paired to the closest one its been totally reliable. Got rid of all the sockets and bulbs that could act as repeaters.

I don't want to doubt your experience, but I've never heard of it. Is it possible that a device with a physical zigbee layer still uses a slightly different proprietary protocol (to sell the brand’s own stuff) and messes up the whole shop? If „zigbee“ is on a product, that doesn't mean it will work smoothly with other "zigbee" devices.

This will be different with matter, because only matter-certified devices are allowed to use the "matter" label. I have no problems with a tradfri/hue/aqara/ledvance+/certainNoname-zigbee3.0 network controlled by a ConBee II radio (no specific gateway) - each device (not only the brand!) in the radio’s compatibility list. And to complicate things further, a zigbee device that runs perfectly under ZHA does not necessarily have to run under deCONZ or zigbee2MQTT.

When a repeater is removed in my installation, the zigbee device zoo reorganises itself and everything gets back to work. And it must be ensured that the ranges of the remaining devices are still sufficient due to the failed/removed device with repeater capability, otherwise it won't work.

JimmyH

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#3018637 8-Jan-2023 19:03

Personally, I'm pausing any further material investment in my smart home setup until Matter-enabled devices are widely available, and it's clear how the new standard is playing out. Otherwise I'm worried that it becomes the standard, and I either end up with a bunch of devices that are marooned and have to be abandoned, or I have a hacky mess trying to frankenstein incompatible devices into a new ecosystem.

There's nothing I urgently need, so I'm going to retreat to the sidelines and watch for a bit.

Tinkerisk

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#3018641 8-Jan-2023 19:11

JimmyH:

Personally, I'm pausing any further material investment in my smart home setup until Matter-enabled devices are widely available, and it's clear how the new standard is playing out. Otherwise I'm worried that it becomes the standard, and I either end up with a bunch of devices that are marooned and have to be abandoned, or I have a hacky mess trying to frankenstein incompatible devices into a new ecosystem.

There's nothing I urgently need, so I'm going to retreat to the sidelines and watch for a bit.

The good thing is that you can continue to run both coexistently (with a zigbee+thread radio). If a Zigbee lamp dies, you can replace it with a matter lamp and only have to adjust the configuration. The whole thing continues until all zigbee devices have died out over time in your own network. Since the matter standard is driven by >400 companies and all the big players are in it - you can have confidence in it (but you don't have to).

Handle9

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#3018644 8-Jan-2023 19:16

With all the automation stuff it’s possible to overthink it. Protocols and application layers are important but not really a big deal. There’s an integration pathway for most stuff.

The bigger question is what are you trying to achieve? Are you looking for a hobby or a long term set and forget appliance solution? Are you prepared to maintain the solution or do you want to do it once and then ignore it?

If you are looking for an appliance solution what you can do is more limited but also a bit easier. You’ll need to invest more money but less time.

Once you have decided what you want to achieve then you can work on the architecture. Open protocols make life easy. Zigbee, thread, Zwave etc all have positives and negatives but will all be around and supported for a very long time.

Proprietary wifi devices are more complex but many have the ability for MQTT support. It all comes back to your design philosophy and what you want to achieve.

ianganderton

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#3018671 8-Jan-2023 20:55

Handle9:
The bigger question is what are you trying to achieve? Are you looking for a hobby or a long term set and forget appliance solution? Are you prepared to maintain the solution or do you want to do it once and then ignore it?

Its a good question

I think I have a pretty clear idea of what I want to achieve, the specific problems I'm trying to solve and I think I'm getting a good idea of how I'll get there. I'd like to set up the fundamentals well so that once I've set things it will just work as an appliance solution. This is why I'm asking the questions about infrastructure now.

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