Totally doable with Home Assistant.
I can recommend the Philips hue bulbs and motion sensors, they are a bit pricey, but totally worth it in my opinion. I have my hue bulbs for more than 8 years now and not a single one of them had to be replaced. The hue motion sensors are the best, search here in the forums there are a lot of threads about motion sensor recommendations.
Brilliant - I shall be sure to check those out. Thank you.
Out of interest, may I just check what USB stick you are using to connect to the bulbs/motion sensors?
As I said above I use the ConBee II. The one that Tinkerer posted is also an excellent option.
Depending on how much you want to tinker, look up Rhasspy
I ended up with the HUSBZB Zigbee USB stick, and it’s been flawless for over 3 years now. I use straight ZHA (the native Zigbee integration built in to HA.) Again, zero complaints. I know there are reasons to go with Zigbee to MQTT and other options, but to me the fewer components I can get away with the better.
The one caveat I’ll add is that I don’t use dimmer or color-changing bulbs. I scan these forums for Zigbee issues and they always seem to relate to those types of devices. Of course I don’t read the threads which don’t apply to me, so I can’t comment on how bad the problems are or which bulbs tend to have the most.
I also try to avoid third-party cloud solutions, and I haven’t implemented any voice controls. I know I’m the outlier here but I’d rather peck at my phone to turn a light on or off than talk to a server at some large corporation.
I will say that the automations you’re talking about are exactly what HA does best. I have lights go on or off based on time and/or a certain number of minutes before or after sunset. You’ll have fun setting up your presence detection and dimming.
Here is my response to someone else’s post asking about what devices to get… well, actually they were not happy that the devices they bought didn’t work with HA… but the recommendations are the same.
I also haven’t implemented any voice control and probably never will. First my native language is not supported by any solution, second as you said I don’t want to talk to any large corp server and finally in my opinion a well designed smart home doesn’t need voice control, it should do the stuff automatically. For me voice control is just to show off to friends.
People seem found of their Nortek HUSBZB-1, and always seem to recommend it without knowing where the OP lives. Be advised : the Nortek HUSBZB-1 Z-wave part only works in North America.
It’s also an older generation of chipset for both Zigbee and Z-Wave. If you already own one, great. If you don’t, regardless of where you live, it’s no longer a good choice.
Hi everyone.
Apologies for the delayed response on this - got distracted by boring work stuff.
I am still yet to buy anything for my new set up and have a few further questions if that is ok.
Tinkerer earlier stated:
I’d personally suggest Google over Amazon, but it’s largely personal choice.
As for Zigbee, buy a CC2652 based stick (see here for some). The ConBee II is great with deCONZ, and more hit and miss with ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT. Some people have success, some have frustration until they replace it.
Are deConz, ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT further dubdivisions of Zigbee?
These are integrations; which combined with the Coordinator you choose, will receive the Zigbee communication. You will use ONE of these integrations to add devices to your network. Also; some devices work better with a certain Coordinator / Integration.
Have a look here, Database of Zigbee devices compatible with ZHA, Tasmota, Zigbee2MQTT, deCONZ, ZiGate and ioBroker
Welcome, and happy automating.
Thanks so much for this - there is certainly a lot more this than I originally thought.
So, just to be check my understanding:
Zigbee is an example of a co-ordinator (Z-Wave is another example).
deConz, ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT are all examples of integrations.
Some Zigbee devices only use certain integrations.
As mentioned above, certain Zigbee USB sticks work better with certain integrations but not with others.
Is that an accurate summary?
Zigbee and Z-Wave are communication protocols. The coordinator is your USB stick and will receive information from your Zigbee devices.
Correct.
Some devices may work with all integrations and others might be difficult to pair.
Have a look at which devices you want to purchase. Find a coordinator and integration that are confirmed working with your intended devices.
I’d have to agree here, I have an HUSBZB-1… it was my replacement for a Wink Hub way back in my early HA days… while it has served me well I recently moved my Zigbee stuff to a new Sonoff USB 3.0 Dongle (CC2652P) and Zigbee2MQTT and I am literally blown away by the speed difference… and while I haven’t really had any connectivity issues with my HUSBZB-1, I also have a pretty dense Zigbee mesh… clicking a switch in HA or even when telling Alexa to turn on a light the speed is easily double what it was. I don’t know enough about the chipsets to tell you why that is exactly or if that is mostly from Zigbee2MQTT but I will say you would be doing yourself a disservice to start with an HUSBZB-1 (good solid stick, but if you are just buying now, I wouldn’t go that route)… as for the Z-Wave part, Im considering either the Aeotec GEN7 or the Zooz one (I have a couple Zooz plugs and relays I am pretty happy with) I think but am trying to do a little more research as far as that goes… (anyone with any insight on the Z-wave sticks please fill me in)
Thanks very much for this - all starting to make sense, now.
I think I am going to go down the Zigbee2MQTT route and note that this seems to be getting good reviews:
Unfortunately, it is out of stock until the end of November.
Is it worth waiting until then or is there anything else worth considering?
Any adapter you can get based on the cc2652 chip should work well with zigbee2mqtt. Check out this list to see if any are available.
Thanks very much - I shall see what is available.
There seem to be a shortage of components, generally, at the moment - making things a bit difficult to source.
I note that none of the adapters (other than the Cronbee 2) are available directly from the UK.
Not a problem, but why is that?
Electrolama (zzh) is UK based
And the TI launchpads ship from the UK too.
Well spotted - thanks for that.
Am going to order one, now, as I am desperate to try and get something up and running.