Echo 4/Plus/Studio Zigbee support, HA emulating Zigbee devices

Configuration Zigbee
1

Amazon Echos have built in Hue support and HA can function as an emulated Hue device. Has anyone tried using HA to emulate a Zigbee network that the Echo could then control? Echo has internal support for Door Lock, Light Bulbs, Outlet/PLug, Light Switch, Door/Window & Motion Sensor Zigbee clusters. So the idea is to plug a Zigbee stick into my HA box and make the Echo think the HA box is a bunch of Zigbee devices.

I’m not trying to get HA to control Zigbee devices, the goal is to use the Zigbee support in the Echo to control emulated Zigbee devices constructed by my HA system. This would let you use the Echo to control your HA devices without needing an Amazon cloud setup.

Zigbee clusters supported by Echo devices containing a Zigbee radio:
Base Device
Basic
OnOff
Level Control
Color Control
Identify
Power Config
Groups
Occupancy Sensing
Illuminance Measurement
Temperature Measurement
OTA
Time
Poll
Diagnostics
Thermostat
Window Covering
Green Power

2

Why ? , just use emulated hue with a virtual bulb in HA . This will give you a 99 triggers , to run anything in HA and don’t need need an Echo 4 , any echo or dot will do.

3

So you don’t think there is any value to using the Amazon support for the Zigbee model devices like thermostat?

I’ll give emulated Hue a try. I’m confused on this point of “100 different responses via the dimmer”. Can’t you just create a 100 virtual bulbs instead? Then each bulb has its own name.

4

The idea is you create 1 virtual bulb/dimmer in HA . Then get alexa to see this bulb via emulated hue or Nabu Casa . Then you can trigger the bulb to a brightness level via alexa routines. Then depending on the brighness set triger HA to do something.

Nabu Casa will import most HA entities into Alexa or if you dont want to pay a monthy fee you can set it up yourself Amazon Alexa Smart Home Skill - Home Assistant

If you just want Alexa to speak the value of your HA controlled thermastat or any other entity value , I created this automation using the above technique.

Alexa Speak entity attributes. A Speech Engine.

I cannot see the advantage of creating fake Zigbee devices in HA , which will require real hardware to link them together , when you can create the same effect in software.

Am I missing something ?

5

I am looking at the Project CHIP code. GitHub - project-chip/connectedhomeip: Project Connected Home over IP is a new Working Group within the Zigbee Alliance. This Working Group plans to develop and promote the adoption of a new connectivity standard to increase compatibility among smart home products, with security as a fundamental design tenet.
Project CHIP extends Zigbee Clusters over Wifi and Thread. Alexa, Google, and Apple are all supposed to be adding Project CHIP support in the fall.

So there are a couple of ways to work with this right now. One way is to implement Zigbee devices and use the existing Echo support. Another way would be to add support in HA as a CHIP controller. Long run HA would be a CHIP controller and access these devices via wifi/Ethernet but that isn’t ready to go yet.

Matter is the brand name for CHIP devices: https://buildwithmatter.com/
Scroll down to the bottom, over 200 companies participating in this.

I have already set up the Alexa Smart Home assistant and use it in my current system.

Project CHIP increases the number of supported cluster types.

constexpr ClusterId kAccountLoginClusterId                = 0x050E;
constexpr ClusterId kApplicationBasicClusterId            = 0x050D;
constexpr ClusterId kApplicationLauncherClusterId         = 0x050C;
constexpr ClusterId kAudioOutputClusterId                 = 0x050B;
constexpr ClusterId kBarrierControlClusterId              = 0x0103;
constexpr ClusterId kBasicClusterId                       = 0x0028;
constexpr ClusterId kBindingClusterId                     = 0xF000;
constexpr ClusterId kBridgedDeviceBasicClusterId          = 0x0039;
constexpr ClusterId kColorControlClusterId                = 0x0300;
constexpr ClusterId kContentLaunchClusterId               = 0x050A;
constexpr ClusterId kDescriptorClusterId                  = 0x001D;
constexpr ClusterId kDoorLockClusterId                    = 0x0101;
constexpr ClusterId kEthernetNetworkDiagnosticsClusterId  = 0x0037;
constexpr ClusterId kFixedLabelClusterId                  = 0x0040;
constexpr ClusterId kGeneralCommissioningClusterId        = 0x0030;
constexpr ClusterId kGeneralDiagnosticsClusterId          = 0x0033;
constexpr ClusterId kGroupKeyManagementClusterId          = 0xF004;
constexpr ClusterId kGroupsClusterId                      = 0x0004;
constexpr ClusterId kIdentifyClusterId                    = 0x0003;
constexpr ClusterId kKeypadInputClusterId                 = 0x0509;
constexpr ClusterId kLevelControlClusterId                = 0x0008;
constexpr ClusterId kLowPowerClusterId                    = 0x0508;
constexpr ClusterId kMediaInputClusterId                  = 0x0507;
constexpr ClusterId kMediaPlaybackClusterId               = 0x0506;
constexpr ClusterId kNetworkCommissioningClusterId        = 0x0031;
constexpr ClusterId kOnOffClusterId                       = 0x0006;
constexpr ClusterId kOperationalCredentialsClusterId      = 0x003E;
constexpr ClusterId kPumpConfigurationAndControlClusterId = 0x0200;
constexpr ClusterId kScenesClusterId                      = 0x0005;
constexpr ClusterId kSoftwareDiagnosticsClusterId         = 0x0034;
constexpr ClusterId kSwitchClusterId                      = 0x003B;
constexpr ClusterId kTvChannelClusterId                   = 0x0504;
constexpr ClusterId kTargetNavigatorClusterId             = 0x0505;
constexpr ClusterId kTemperatureMeasurementClusterId      = 0x0402;
constexpr ClusterId kTestClusterClusterId                 = 0x050F;
constexpr ClusterId kThermostatClusterId                  = 0x0201;
constexpr ClusterId kTrustedRootCertificatesClusterId     = 0x003F;
constexpr ClusterId kWakeOnLanClusterId                   = 0x0503;
constexpr ClusterId kWindowCoveringClusterId              = 0x0102;
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