General advice for buying smart devices

Hardware
1

After a lot of initial research, and help form this forum, I have finally decided to run Home Assistant on my RPi3, using one of these:

I am going to be using Zigbee2MQTT, for maximum compatibility, and note that I now have access to a huge range of devices, now:

I am a bit overwhelmed and do not know where to start.

As a general rule, are there any particular brands to look for or avoid?

What I am a bit worried about is buying anything that could potentially cause a fire - any advice to ensure that I get only safe devices?

2

Ikea and Ledvance devices have public firmware files. All other brands - for what I know - seem to require you to use their gateway/controller for upgrading - which with Zigbee means you would need to pair each device twice every time you want to do an OTA upgrade.

1 Like
3

Thanks very much for that.

Are Ikea bulbs worth considering?

I need a basic white dimmable bulb (low energy, as it is going to be on all night).

I was looking at Hue, but they are very expensive for my intended use.

4

Definitely, as long as you use them with a general Zigbee implementation (Zigbee2MQTT, ZHA, deCONZ). The IKEA gateway integration is not so good.