You should be able reading it without me highlighting it for you (other users can do this) The blue text in my posts are hyperlinks by the way - you can click on them and they might even lead you to further information
It’s really easy, actually only one-click if I’m on the product page and another ctrl+v
But actually you are on point - I don’t do it always - just when the description/reviews are not clear about if a esp is inside or not. Better safe then sorry
It actually (mainly) describes esp based wifi devices as for now (but hopefully soon get’s broader coverage of socs thank’s to libretuya )
What do you mean by “own”?
To reflash?
What would you reflash a device that is already made for a specific purpose and flashed for that purpose? The Zigbee protocol will have the standard for the values to publish, so the vendors just publish it. There is not much more to it.
If you want to make your own devices with Zigbee, then you would take a ESP32-C6 or similar.
I know and I know also that there are a few modules with option for external antenna. I actually have one, but an external antenna only really improve the receiver on the ESP and not the transmitter, because the radio output is just not that good with its low power design.
I agree. ESP-NOW is nice and I use it on my plant sensors, which is battery powered, but it is, as stated, not available through ESPHome yet.
Once it comes, then it becomes a competitor to Z-tech.
And for you list of pros.
ESP is more versatile, but Zigbee have all the common devices in great numbers. You can buy an ESP device with Zigbee and then get the same versatility with DIY.
Zigbee devices can also be cheap and ESP devices can be expensive, especially if you need to print tricky 3D stuff.
own-able only makes sense when comparing with closed protocols or if you want to alter the device. If you have a Zigbee device then you have a standard device that follows a standard. If you want something different, then get a ESP Zigbee board.
Central management is included in integrations with Zigbee also, but you have a point with updates with ESPHome, which though mainly is a point if you again want to alter the device.
Pairing of Zigbee would be just as native and you even have different ways to integrate it into HA, like ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT.
Longevity makes no sense for an user. No need to use a 12 year old chip if a newer and better one is available. Longevity only makes sense for manufacturers that want to avoid redesigning their devices due a chip version reaching End-Of-Sale. With ESP devices longevity is made unimportant by your point of updates. With Zigbee the vendors handle that part.
Zigbee have some extra points.
Longer battery life
Lighter protocol. When ESP-NOW becomes available then ESP devices will be on par.
Mesh network with cheap extensions through Zigbee routers
Cheap Coordinator devices to start a network up. WiFi might already be available, so a coordinator might not be needed then, but a bridge will be needed if ESP-NOW is wanted.
Option to use Zigbee Pro Devices also, which use an extra sub-1GHz band to avoid congestion in the 2.4GHz band.
Zigbee devices can often be set up to work autonomously, so a restart of HA will not affect the dimmer of the light if they are both based on Zigbee.
I just flashed two switches, KS602S, that have the Beken BK7231N chips in them. I purchased two from Amazon about 18 months ago and they had ESP chips. I bought two more earlier this year and discovered that they were not ESP switches any longer. I will post my process on the “Share your Projects” sub-forum shortly.
Kind of. It’s just if you buy hardware and you don’t have (any) control (“own”) over the software. The worst obviously is a cloud connected thing you can’t own as every day there is the possibility the vendor turns off the hardware you bought or renders it to a brick because they simply shut down there computers your hardware were depending on.
Obviously the Z-Stuff is not in this group as it allows full local control - still you can only do what the manufacture build into the device and you can’t extended functions as you don’t control (“own”) the soft part of your device
Standard/Default and you need to stick with it. But much more is possible!
A esp based wall switch (with a esp32) can be for example autonomously (without HA or WIFI) control a exhauster fan with hygrometer readings it get’s over bluetooth. No modification to the hardware needed, just add thermo/hygrostat in esphome (software only) and your device can do (much) more than the vendor/manufacture anticipated.
Indeed new eps’s are announced and some offer zigbee, thread and matter support beside wifi and bluetooth/BLE.
Still if one can’t program (like me) I’m gonna stick to esphome and the supported esp’s for now which does not yet support any of the latest models (which are often only announced but not released actually).
Also espressif mainly moves to RISC-V cores now which also is exciting because it’s a open standard instruction set
It is as various custom components exist (see the linked one for example) - but indeed it is not in “mainline” esphome.
It does. Espressif still improves the SDK’s the custom firmwares (like esphome or WLED) are using under the hood. The like 10 years(?) old esp82xx still get’s security fixes which can be deployed to hardware bought 10 years ago. On the other hand If you don’t care about longevity you might end up like people who bought z-wave stuff (100-300 series) which have discovered security vulnerabilities which probably will be never fixed
That’s often only sad theory. It looks like it heavily depends on the vendor and you just can hope that your product get’s fixed if a security vulnerability is discovered 1, 3, 5 or 10 years later
It’s like the same with (wifi)-routers were manufacture should keep them up2date and fix bugs and holes. In the end (maybe 1 or 2 years after release of a device) you often better flash/install openwrt on your device at it often mitigates (or fixes) bugs which are just not fixed in the vendors firmware
Indeed (but as I said I would never make use of WPAx WIFI for battery devices at all).
Z-Technolgy is very energy efficient and this is probably the most superior fact over the wifi based devices which are power hungry (and therefor not really fit for battery use)
I think technically that’s not necessary as esp’s can use WPAx WIFI and ESP-NOW at the same time. The only condition I think was that they use the same channel - otherwise the wifi interface in the esp needs to be reinitialized which causes a disconnect from WPAx WIFI.
Also if you want to use a bridge you are not forced to invest like $2 in a extra d1 mini for example but as you have already full control over your esphome devices you can just extend the functionality of them and let your plugs/wall-switches or whatever devices you have around anyways just do that task. You can do this because you can really own that stuff and extended them as you please
My hole esphome setup is based to be maximum autonomous and resilient. With esphome it’s a ease to even decide the second you fire something (like a button press) which “way” it goes. If HA is connected it can just send the press as an event to HA. If not it can for example toggle a local relay instead and/or send a rest-api/esp-now payload to another esp device to active a switch/light (so instead of using a light group in HA for example it can just turn on the lights by it self )
Thank’s @WallyR for your useful participation in this thread - other users might take you as good example and could also try to deliver some facts instead of unsubstantial ranting
I have some sonoff basic laying around so I flashed it with esp home. I must say to you @orange-assistant that this esphome is really really neat stuff. Except for flashing it for the first time.
ESP-Now and WiFi have to use the same channel if an ESP device is to use both communication protocols.
The issue here is that the ESP-Now can not use auto-selected channels, so you lock your WiFi to that exact channel, which makes mesh WiFi, well, a mess, because they have to use different channels to not jam each other and APs with auto-channel selecting for optimization is impossible to use.
ESP-Now is really good for long range, but WiFi on the same channel actually limits that usability a lot due to the noise WiFi makes, which is also why I have a ESP-Now gateway to MQTT on wired LAN.
You need the gateway to convert the media. No other device can read and route the ESP-Now data.
To me the idea of running WiFi and ESP-Now on the same device other than the gateway is kind of stupid. Espressif talks about it as a backup to WiFi, but if your WiFi dies, so does your gateway that route through WiFi. You can maybe make ESP devices talk to each other with ESP-Now when WiFi dies, but they have to be in range, since there are no routers in ESP-Now and the behavior have to be hard-coded directly into the firmware.
ESP-Now and WiFi on battery powered devices makes even less sense, since this just adds more drag on resources to listen and decode all that chatter.
ESP-Now only devices makes sense as an alternative to Z-tech.
The blue text in my posts are hyperlinks by the way - you can click on them and they might even lead you to further information 
(but hopefully soon get’s broader coverage of socs thank’s to libretuya 
)
