I am currently thinking about introducing some more Smart Home capabilities to my home (e.g. Thermostat, Window Sensor, …).
If I buy something in that range, would you guys go with Zigbee or Z-Wave products? As I understand, my Hue lamps are already Zigbee. Would it be possible to buy a zigbee attachment for my Pi, and use my pi as the base for all Zigbee devices?
What protocol is most likely to get the most and best devices in the future? Is there any trend in some direction already?
Would be pretty cool to get rid of all the different bases and control everything via Home Assistant And ideas?
You don’t have to limit yourself to only one type of a device, using a zigbee, zwave or 433 mhz stick isn’t that expensive… Research first the best option for you for a few type of devices and see what radios you need. I went for zwave because it seems to be more standardized than zigbee and there are plenty of devices.
I recently found a good heat control alternative on 433 and I went with that because
it fit my budget
it can be expanded in time (start with a few rooms and see how it works)
allows for a central thermostat per room to set temperature and can control multiple radiators in that room…
So the best way is to make a list of your wishes and your physical requirements (size, placement, power consumption) and then you can narrow the search field and ask again here. I personally have a couple of devices I like (extensive testing in many cases) but I would not recommend them blindly to anyone without knowing if they fit their use case…
I use a combination of wifi, zwave, and zigbee devices. If I had to say which has been my favorite, all-time works best, it would be the zwave which I use a Aeotec Z-Stick Gen5 to control. I agree with @quasar66 though… do some research on the types of devices you want to see if one (or more) better suit your needs. I started with X-10 many years ago and then moved to zwave as many of my initial devices were cheaper to replace this way. As I moved into ceiling lighting, zigbee bulbs were far cheaper than z-wave so I added that component as well. YMMV
And ideas?