Best Zwave and Zigbee devices

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1

Hi, Looking for a bit of help please ?

I’ve been using HA for a while now, alongside a Smartthings V2 hub and generally over the last 6-8 months Smartthings as become dire, to the point of wanting to smash the hub with the largest hammer I can find.

So looking to migrate fully to HA but running on a PI4 so the lack of Zwave and Zigbee prevents me from doing that at present.

I’ve spend some time researching the devices that other HA users favour but to be honest I am totally confused as none seem easy to set up and manage. I’m in the UK so have limited available of devices such as Aeotec Stick gen 5 , Nortek, Popp ZB stick .

Can anyone point me in the direction of the best choices please and any easy instal guides. Ideally Id like to install the USB hardware and not have to worry about constantly making changes.

All help is appreciated , thank you

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I’ve been using the nortek for several years without issue.

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Thank you , was that easy to install ?

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Using this for Zigbee. I’m in the US, but Zigbee is Zigbee.
Zigbee Ethernet Coordinator

Very happy so far because I have this on a separate floor of the house than my HA PC.
I came from SmartThings as well. Much better on this side!

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Same here with a Nortek that’s been working for years… was easy to install yes.

The thing is, I’ve been reading lately that Nortek is no longer producing the sticks, and that the zigbee chip on them is getting older (but a firmware upgrade can fix that… which is not so easy to do unless you’re very ok with command line). That said, they do work, and can make both radios affordable. From reading about I gather the most popular choice these days is a conbee or zoos for zigbee, and an aotec 5 for zwave.

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Hey that’s a nice coordinator there Nameless! I really like the big antenna, it stands alone, and has an ethernet interface… only thing it’s missing is poe lol.

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What country are you in ? The nortek only works in North America.

1 Like
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He said UK

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There is a PoE version on that site! Look through the store and don’t let the wait-list worry you. Mine was built in maybe 3 days

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So the Nortek is bad advice.

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If you’re starting fresh today, then avoid any Z-Wave stick with a 500 series (or older) chipset. You want to buy a stick that has full support for the latest generation - that means a 700 series stick. The Aeotec Z-Stick 7 is currently the best on the market.

For Zigbee, anything CC2652 based is a great choice for either ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT. For ZHA then a current generation EZSP chip is also going to be a good choice. That does rule out the Nortek. You should also avoid any WiFi based coordinator.

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Thank you all for the replies. Think it looks like the Aeotec Stick 7 for zwave and for Zigbee… CC2652 /EZSP chip based but I need to find one so, does anyone have any suggestions as to what Zigbee device maybe available in the UK?

Thank you

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There’s a list on that github page Tinkerer linked. There are a lot of options out there, but chip shortages are going to limit what’s available for everyone. Are popsticks available there? Those are elelabs sticks rebranded by a eu company.

Also if you’re able to flash esp firmware and willing to deal with a wifi backend, the sonoff zigbee bridge may be more readily available.

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The zzh ships from UK. The lidl zigbee gateway can easily be hacked.

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In the UK there’s Electrolama - though you have to email them due to VAT regulation changes.

There’s also Tube if you want something network connected, and a wide range of other sources here, on AliExpress, and even now commercially.