Hehe, yeah, good point.
Add node-red to the equation and one can legitimately wonder what’s the point of HA at all, then.
1 Like
HA is the glue, NR doesnt have local control for lots of its itegrations
1 Like
On the other hand, use home assistant and wonder what’s the point of node red.
I am not a fan of NR. But possibly because I haven’t taken the time to understand it. I see the point, just not for me 
Exactly The power of drag&drop GUI, I guess 
I tried NR once because of the buzz, but I had an immediate deal-breaker (don’t remember what tbh).
Not a fan of pilling up external dependencies, anyway. It makes the setup shaky with multiple point of failures, imho.
1 Like
And people show off their automations via pictures, and to see what a node does you really need to load their json into a local copy of node red.
I can (sort of) read a yaml HA automation, I can’t for the life of me see what is happening in a whole lot of coloured blobs joined by spider webs.
</rant>
2 Likes
I kept all my lovelace and node red automations, going in the other direction from z2m to ZHA. I deleted each device in turn as I re-paired each device, making sure I used the same entity names after re-pairing.
I really liked zigbee2mqtt integration but after losing firmware twice in CC2531’s I was done with it. Even when working it would have hiccups at least once a week. Sonoff ZB Bridge so far no such problems.
4 months on & no glitches. Very impressed with the stability of Sonoff ZB Bridge and ZHA.
I have homeassistant, zigbee2mqtt, and zwavejs all running in separate dockers on the same machine.
Pros:
- Much easier to restart or upgrade just 1 thing without bring everything down
- zigbee2mqtt is very easy to troubleshoot and add devices with almost no knowledge (I just added support for my zigbee 4 gang Moes switch with no real clue what I was doing)
- zigbee2mqtt has better support for the devices I have
- I can play with my HA config and if I screw things up, I don’t need to repair anything
- feels faster for responses
Cons: - Less plug and play
- Only some devices support zigbee2mqtt
1 Like
I guess I’m the other way around. I’m not a fan of the built-in automation but that’s possibly because I just didn’t take the time to understand them.
What I think is more likely is that I’m a programmer by trade and node-red works like a programmer would expect. The YAML automation, on the other hand, seem like some obscure dialect of greek, both in terms of syntax and overall mindset.
I’m going to guess that which is “better” is pretty much a matter of taste unless you need the extreme flexibility that something like NR provides.
I think that is what it boils down to!
I’ve got a fairly large zigbee network (>120 devices and growing). I started with ZHA and had a ton of devices dropping off randomly. Ended up switching channels and switching to Zigbee2MQTT and everything ended up improving substantially. I’m not sure if ZHA would have gotten markedly better with a channel change, though the channel change with Zigbee2MQTT was much easier (hint hint, ZHA please make it easier to change channels). Anyways, settling on Z2M now and have been pretty happy.
Same thing here, since i switch to Z2M, i never had any disconnecting issue like i had with ZHA. I use conbee2
Both serve as limited abstractions of an underlying programming language (JavaScript for Node-Red and python for automations). Neither supports the full functionality of its underlying language (notwithstanding Node-Red’s function node) but that’s not their goal; they’re meant to insulate the user from traditional programming syntax (arguably, Node-Red does a more thorough job of abstraction).
Based on my experience, neither remind me of traditional programming but of a language pre-processor/derivative meant to simplify development (within a subset of the target language). Blockly comes to mind.
Anyway, this is a very subjective topic and opinions are sure to vary.
FWIW, in my case, the majority of my home’s automation logic is implemented by automations (I compose them directly in YAML; I don’t use the Automation Editor). A smaller portion is handled by Node-Red, principally for interacting with Alexa and to convert data from my legacy automation system (supports TCP but not MQTT) to MQTT so that it can communicate with Home Assistant.
Hello All
I read this thread and i understand the logic. However I’m very old and i need some guidance.
I am have been running HA Supervise for 2 years with zwavejs within docker on a debian laptop and all worked fine.
I have some shelly wifi devices
Someone gifted me an hp ml350 g6 with exsi 6.7 already installed. I got HAOS installed in a vm on this machine …fine. (it took me 2 weeks to achieve this)
I started to learn NR because i have time on my hands. (i replicated 1 simple automation … yuppie)
i will need to consider adding zigbee to this equation becuase the diameter of the pipes of my hot water radiators will only accept zigbee HRV 
An alternative would be to weld an adapter pipe to each radiator.
I feel that most of my new HVAC and solar components will only use an integration to zigbee
Therefore I need to consider zigbee.
I’m by no means an HA experienced user and i like to always use the KISS system
Thant said please guide me in selecting the correct solution for my zigbee development.
I would like to use a usb zigbee controller. I would be leaning towards a combee 2 or sonoff 3 unit
what addon should i use?
Thank you for your patience and help
I do not want any cloud interaction
Don’t buy a conbee2.
If you want simple, use zha.
in fact HA with its built in “blackboxed” integration is against KISS principle.
Using Z2M + mqtt + HA matches better software engineering principles.
To all pros for using Z2M I would add its independence from HA release cycle.
But why you advice to avoid Conbee2? 18months ago it was the best advised non-diy stick. I have one and never had problems with it.
Impressions from spending too much time on this forum and discord.
Not sure I have seen that, and 18 months is a long time in tech.
I agree with you about z2m vs zha, but @wbravin seems to want something simple to usr, and zha is built in and will just work.
Hello all
Thank you for your input. This will help.
Therefore I will be planing to use the sonoff usb along with the zha addon.
Since this will controll the hvac environment and the inverter for the solar pannels, I beleive this would be a simple and pragmatic solution.
Once again thank you all
I think ZHA will eventually move to being an addon, and decoupled from the core HA functionality, just like z2m is. I restart HA a lot, for many different reasons, and if if I were using ZHA, that would reset the zigbee mesh network and all the devices everytime. Not good.
Now, there no reason that ZHA can’t run more independently, and this would also allow you to run it on a remote RPI or other device more centrally located from a network coverage POV, which is rarely where core HA tends to run (e.g a server in the basement or colocated with a wiring panel). There is a reason why zwavejsqmqtt and zigbee2mqtt exist and are decoupled they way they are.
Esphome is going to support distributed BLE probes for the same reason, to get better coverage than where the core HA instance runs. Same principle.
z2m gives me that functionality now, and also enhanced functionality for many devices. ZHA will probably eventually catch up, but I think for more serious users, the choice is pretty clear now. We don’t have to wait for ZHA to mature to have a rock solid decoupled zigbee installation in HA.
1 Like
Switching to Z2M (from ZHA) means i need to start from scratch again, Right? 
Using ZHA and it works quite ok. Sometimes some data is missing from battery powered devices but all works fine
There is some backup/restore method which allows to migrate from one control app to another. Z2M supports it. Don’t know if ZHA does