To reply or not to reply…
I am going to take the curmudgeons path here. I have five Z-wave switches and an Aeotek Z-Stick. (it was seven but two switches failed in the first year). I just yesterday migrated to the latest Z-Wave-JS integration and it does look like it will be a little easier to manage Z-Wave devices with the new integration.
My only experience with Zigbee is Ikea lights, which were a total frustration. The final straw was when they kept turning on in the bedroom at random hours of the night.
Further. I am notoriously cheap. I still pick up coins found in the parking lot. I won’t pay for a cloud subscription. Most of my lights are on Sonoff switches. Mostly the Mini at $9 each on Amazon. Many of my sensors are DIY on Wemos D1 Mini or ESP8266-01 boards.
I know this isn’t exactly what you asked for, but Home Assistant has, over the last few years, taken most of the rough points out of the process of setting up and controlling devices, plus I give the volunteer experts on these forums a grade of “A”. Yes, I am sometimes frustrated with a “RTFM” reply, but my problem is knowing what to search for. But an RTFM reply almost has a link to the page in the documentation, which is usually enough to get me toward solving my issue.
I use an Aeotec Gen 5 zwave and a HUSBZB-1 for zigbee. the latter gives me a spare zwave controller as a backup in case of failure or even as a test controller which came in handy for the switch to zwavejs so I could test things out before migrating my whole system over.
I think I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the gen 7 stick so you should look into that before buying one.
I’m also thinking about buying a Sonoff zigbee dongle for a backup zigbee controller too.
I did read about the Nortek Zigbee USB HUSBZB-1, however, as this used US frequencies and I’m in the EU, I thought perhaps not.
Regarding Aeotec Gen 7/Gen 5+ sticks, I did wonder about compatibility issues with the newer hardware, but then I thought that much of the time, issues are resolved through firmware updates so I guess these will be resolved as time goes by.
FWIW, the cost reasons I mentioned above may well be moot. I have a couple of Raspberry Pi’s knocking around that I don’t use. However, they are much older v2 types, so I will likely purchase a v4 or other piece of stand-alone compute if I go for individual USB sticks. However, I have a decent VM setup, so running HA as a VM using a remote hub to pair devices is probably a similar cost (probably cheaper), certainly in the short term.
In a cupboard, on the 3rd storey of a house, in the wrong side of the house to the garden, at the end of which will be the main project? This is where my VM server is currently set up. I wonder it I could repurpose an old laptop though…
Seconded. I just migrated from a Gen5 Aeotec Z-Wave stick to the Zooz ZST10-700. Every one of my 26 devices were picked up for inclusion without an issue. The Sonoff Zigbee stick also seems to work flawlessly after a quick firmware update, though at the moment I’ve only got 6 plugs (that act as routers), some contact sensors and a pair of Aqara 6-button remote.
Running Z-WaveJS-MQTT add-on (for its expanded UI) and ZHA.
Response on everything is as close to instant as one could possibly expect.
One caveat to be aware of depending on the platform you’ll use to run HA. Both sticks have the same USB Vendor and Product IDs - this was a challenge running a VM in Unraid as it simply won’t work with what it thinks are duplicate devices. The solve in Unraid is a USB Manager plugin. For other platforms/hosts there may be no issues.
Just an idea from the above. I do not have the answer, but question to the experts coming to this thread:
Is it possible to plug the z-wave & zigbee usb sticks onto a Pi 2, and run a Pi OS and the zwaveJS2mqtt / zigbee2mqtt dockers on that Pi 2 box, and setup HA to talk to the zwave2mqtt (on Pi 2) either via websocket or via mqtt?
Probably too much for a beginner like me, but if at all possible, that might help decouple locations of where the HA server is and where the z-wave / zigbee hub is, right?
TBH, this was my thinking of using the Hubitat hub. I could run HA as a VM on ESXi in the server in the cupboard, then have a hub placed where ever I like.
If it were possible to use a remote Pi v2 with USB sticks as more of a client or edge device, then that might be cool reuse of stuff, albeit they are not very powerful in today’s terms.
One other thing I have not mentioned that might throw a spanner in the works is that I would need to control some Philips Hues devices, and specifically their outdoor sensor. From what I understand, you cannot update firmware via HA to Philips Hue devices, you need to use the Hue app, and for a motion session, this means the use of a Philips Hue hub (which I currently don’t have).
The reason for wanting to use the Philips Hue Outdoor Sensor is that there seems to be a very limited offering on the market that have all the following:
Multifunctional (Z-wave or Zigbee) sensor, namely motion and light level (LUX)
Has a decent IP rating for mosture of a 4 or 5 (the Hue has a rating of IP54)
Is NOT white!
If these too can be worked around with a multi-stick USB setup, then that would be good news.
Indeed. I have a few wifi light bulbs, but the next thing will be some complete new lighting circuits. Rather than go for individual bulbs again, I would rather have dimmer modules on the entire circuit and a faceplate to control. The current wifi bulbs don’t work particularly well when controlled as a group (i.e. they do not operate simultaneously). I have never had reason to control them independently, so controlling the circuit seems a much more sensible option.
I looked at both Z-wave and Zigbee dimming modules, and TBH, they are much of a muchness - they are both similar priced even though Zigbee was proposed as the cheaper alternative. However, wi-fi modules appear much more sensible, such as the Sonoff D1.
Still, I want to continue to control the stuff I already have paired in SmartThings, so Z-Wave and Zigbee controllers are still going to be required.
You can use the hubitat and integrate it to Home Assistant using this custom component
Otherwise, since you are in the EU, there is no combined zwave/zigbee stick that will work there with your frequency. If you don’t go the hubitat route, you need separate zwave and zigbee USB sticks.
You also can re-purpose those PI’s and run the zwave and/or zigbee networks separately from Home Assistant on a different PI using https://zwave-js.github.io/zwavejs2mqtt/#/ and/or zigbee2mqtt https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/ which both can be run on their own in Docker. They then can connect to your Home Assistant instance on another machine that is anywhere on the same network. So, you basically make your own “hub” that way.
As far as hardware, any of the “recommended” adapters on the zigbee2mqtt page should be fine - Supported Adapters | Zigbee2MQTT . I personally use the electrolama zzh stick, which is based on the CC2652 chip. Don’t get the CC2531 chip as it isn’t powerful enough.
Thank you Tim - this confirms my idea from 2 days ago (see #11 above). If I for any reason have to move the zigbee (and/or zwave) usb dongle to somewhere far away from the HA server in the future, I would certainly explore this route.
Sonoff light switches? In the wall? No. Does anything from Sonoff have standard approvals in any country?
Zigbee sensors and plug-in modules are in general, much cheaper than Z-Wave alternatives, sometimes 1/10th the price. Zigbee in-wall switches are closer in price to Z-Wave, but not as plentiful.
Z-Wave stuff from reputable brands like Zooz and Inovelli are all much better constructed and have far more features than anything from any Zigbee vendor, including the top ones like Philips and Ikea.
WiFi modules from Shelly with standards approvals are the only ones I’d consider putting inside a wall.
Response times on all these devices are fast (need to use only local integrations with WiFi such as MQTT or ColoT). Only Zigbee and Z-Wave will provide mesh capabilities and if using a lot of devices will be much easier to manage. With a good mesh there’s no issue having Zigbee and/or Z-Wave in distant corner of the premises (think basement cupboard in a 5-story condo).
A fully fleshed-out home will use all three of these technologies. Using only one will severely short-change your experience.
Use separate radios for everything - don’t buy combo sticks, don’t buy someone else’s hub, including Hubitat (it’s not good).
This is where my VM server is currently set up. I wonder it I could repurpose an old laptop though…
I will try other avenues.