Home Assistant + Zigbee2MQTT (Aqara so far)

Configuration Zigbee
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Hey all,

Still learning Home Assistant (loving it), but I’m pretty new to Zigbee.

I’d been an adamant HomeKit user for years — wanted everything Thread, tried my hardest to make automations work purely via HomeKit, and swore it was better than HA… yeah, I know :joy:. Moved over to Home Assistant last year and I’m never going back.

This year I’ve gone:

  • Aqara devices → Aqara hubs exposed via Matter to Home Assistant
  • Now full Zigbee2MQTT (still all Aqara devices, and honestly I can’t fault them)

But now that I’m on Zigbee2MQTT, I’m no longer “stuck” being Aqara-only — I can finally start exploring other Zigbee brands.

One thing I use a lot with Aqara in HA is the Aqara Advanced/Lighting add-on fit helps my own scripts for stuff like breathing / fading patterns.

I’m looking at branching out to Innr or THIRDREALITY, but I can’t find anything concrete on whether their Zigbee bulbs support “effects” like:

  • breathe / pulse
  • blink
  • color loop
  • smooth fades (not just instant changes)

So… a couple questions for anyone using these brands:

  1. If you’re using Innr bulbs on Zigbee2MQTT — do you get actual effects (breathe/blink/etc), or is it basically just transitions?
  2. If you’re using THIRDREALITY bulbs — do the effects work reliably (especially breathe / colorloop), and which model(s)?
  3. If they don’t support effects natively, are you just faking it in HA with loops + transition, and does that look decent?

Bonus points if you can share a screenshot of the “Exposes” section in Z2M or a working example automation.

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If you check the devices at the zigbee2mqtt website you will see what each device supports. I don’t use Innr devices, but I picked a random Innr one and as shown here it supports “effect” (breathe and so on). You can use that perhaps?

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I purchased a 4 pack of: THIRDREALITY Zigbee Smart Color Bulb ZL1
Currently I am only using 2 of them (With Zigbee2MQTT)

That bulb reliably STARTS the color loop.
However after it enters the color loop the only way to stop it is to cut power to the bulb. I haven’t had any luck with the other effects.

Of all my bulbs, TR has the worst color reproduction (clicking Yellow in HA shows up greeny/yellow).

That said for lights in hallways / closets etc they are a cheap bulb USD $8 and for basic on / off / setting one color, I haven’t had a problem with it.

To put that in context Phillips hue are around USD $50 per bulb and absolutely everything on those works.

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Didn’t even know this existed! Thank you for this!

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Ah, okay, yeah, currently using some Aqara T2 bulbs. I have a couple of bulbs to replace, that can be cheap ones. I’ll give them a go and see how they perform. Thank you.