Learning Home Automation. My experience and some quesitons

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Hey everyone,

TLDR: First part is a short explanation, second part is my current experience, third part is questions for my new set-up. Feel free to leave any feedback negative or positive i want to learn. Sorry for the long wall of text.
Will add all eddits at the end chances are it’s new questions :smiley:

Quick Intro:

I’ve kept reading this place and some other guides and it really helped me. However i never did find a guide for my own understanding for some things.

I am moving to a new house, where i will need to do a new set-up and i want to have ti clean this time.

I dabbled in HA in my apartment right now, but I’ve kept adding and removing stuff it’s a complete mess right now.

I will mention what i have and what i get along with well, and what i have trouble understanding. Feel free to tell me if I’m doing anything wrong, dumb or can be improved. (feel free to explain it like you would to a 5 yo :smiley: )

$$ should not be excessive but i don’t want to cheap out on important stuff.

Current Apartment with 1 Bedroom. 53 sqm:

I have a HA OS set up in a NUC PC. I tried docker version, i didn’t like it. Prefer HA OS on a dedicated machine.

I set up MQTT i don’t understand it all too well but I’m playing with it to understand it better. (would appreciate any explanation here)

Zigbee I’m using both a Sonoff gateway and a Sonoff dongle with antenna plugged in the NUC. (Here i need lots of explanations, i tried Zigbee 2 MQTT i never did success to set it up, i saw everyone is recommending it, not sure why / what i did wrong, ill keep trying - I don’t really understand Zigbee set up that much)

For Door lock i tried U200 Aqara via Matter, i hate it, it loses connectivity one every 5 min. I then bought a Tedee, i love it, super responsive never once lost connection.

For Lights/Windows/Blinds i have Aqara sensors, light switches and the roller pullers (forgot the name and I’m tired) via Zigbee, i love them, sometimes some lose connection randomly, but they have 90% uptime i would say. its not a huge bother like the front door.

Samsung have great integrations, any appliance i have works well integrates well.

LG integrates well but not very user friendly, my TV has 0 functions if i don’t use custom YAML i found online. (might be a country limitation here which is dumb, Alexa doesn’t work on my TV because I’m in Romania)

New House 2 floors. Both 120 sqm:

All my cables from all floors will be inside one room where i plan to have a rack to put in HA on a rack second had server i have, NAS storage, DVR, UPS, Switch, etc.

Now the questions.

How do i get Zigbee to the second floor? Is my current Sonoff dongle a good idea for a gateway? (I’m worried because its a bit flimsy since it’s USB plugged horizontally) , should i add some repeaters or routers? - feel free to provide any recommendations

any good recommendations for electromagnetic locks for the door / intercom suggestions? I could always use Tedee here as well but i would prefer integrated in the door. - the house builder offers a “smart home” option, but it’s 9k EUR and they include smart lights and intercom system which i find hilariously expensive.

What about security? Should i opt to put all my IOT on a separate VLAN i create from the router? Would that help?

What about physical security? Any external camera recommendations/DVR ? I have both Ethernet ports and power supply to each part of the house exterior. (3 corners - house is wall to wall with another)

I’m sure i missed a lot of things. i will edit if i remember.

EDIT1: What about lighting? At the apartment im at now, there was not null ( EU ) at the lights so i installed these Aqara Zigbee devices.
At the house i have Null ready and i really like the style of the switches, i would not want to change them. Are the Relays safe/as good as the integrated thing?

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There are a number of articles about Zigbee in the Community Cookbook Index.

The Basics:

Zigbee relies on a mesh network of devices to allow it to use low power signals.

All devices in a Zigbee mesh fall into one of three roles:

  • Coordinator:
    • There can be only one Coordinator for a given mesh.
  • Router:
    • Routers are the backbone of the mesh and relay messages between the coordinator and end devices.
    • Routing requires power so routers are mains-powered devices; they can be standalone devices but many smart bulbs or smart switches act as routers. Standalone routers are usually able to route messages for significantly more devices than those that also have another job.
    • For a reliable mesh, you should plan for an absolute minimum of one router in each room and one in each hallway. Most situations will require more than that.
  • End Device:
    • Most stand-alone, battery-powered sensors are end devices that do not route messages from other nodes in the mesh.

Unless you changed their firmware, both your “gateway” and “dongle” are probably programmed to be coordinators. You cannot have more than one coordinator in any given Zigbee mesh.

Probably, but Sonoff sells multiple Zigbee devices that are described as “dongles”, so you will need to clarify which device you have. I’ve been using the Sonoff ZBDongle-E as my coordinator for a little over a year and it works fine. The coordinator is located in the basement and I have reliable connections to devices on the ground floor, 2nd floor, and in the attic.

Also, it is usually advisable to use a USB extension cord to avoid radio frequency interference created by the server, this is especially true if your server has USB3 ports.

Probably… routers are crucial for a reliable Zigbee mesh.

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Wait until you have been in a new house for a year. We don’t call it a rabbit hole for no reason.

That is my preference. No Docker, no VM, no containers, and best of all no learning curve and one less thing to go wrong.

The best way to learn MQTT is to play with it. (Down the rabbit hole we go). Get a Wemos D1 Mini, about $5 on Amazon, and a cheap Arduino Sensor kit. (And a breadboard and jumper wires) Go wild. Learn to connect various sensors to the Wemos, write ESPHome YAML code to it. Experiment. Fill your Home Assistant with sensors you will never again use. But you will learn. Seriously, MQTT is no big deal. When you get a device that used MQTT, just ask here.

The Sonoff Gateway and Sonoff Dongle are both coordinators. You can only have one. The dongle is recommended because it wil integrate with MQTT2Zigbee or Zigbee Home Assistant integrations. And most of us use one also.

There is no Zigbee Repeater. Repeaters are marketing-speak for routers. Just buy a bunch of Zigbee plug-in switches and they will act as routers. As long as they are 2- to 3-meters from each other you should be fine. Definitely put your Zigbee dongle on a USB2 port and on a 1M USB extension.

Only if you are paranoid. Seriously if someone hacks into your IOT LAN, what makes you think they can’t get into the rest of your network?

I have nine WiFi cameras here- mostly to let me see what the dog is barking at or if there’s a package on the porch.

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Depending on the circumstances, it can be the wrong decision.

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First, thanks for the reponse it helps. i will defo check out those guides.

I have :

  1. Sonoff ZB Bridge-P, Pro, Zigbee 3.0, Wi-Fi
  2. Universal Gateway, SONOFF ZigBee 3.0, USB Dongle-E Plus

Initially o only abought the 1. However HA was not detecting any sort of devices, only managed to add them to the sonoff app.
Then i bought 2. and ZHA started detecting all the devices.
(I’m farily certains i messed up here somehow)

On the dongle it sais it supports 32 devices maximum. ( 2. )

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Good point. Meanwhile i also figured out quoting :smiley:

what about this:

Loratap Zigbee 3.0 Signal Repeater

On this topic im very unclear. There are aproximately one bilion articles (hyperbole but not sure if actually) either ZigBee2MQTT is better or ZHA is better. At this point i might just choose ZHA because its easier and faster from personal testing. The more failing points you have the more likely something is to fail. For MQTT you need additional broker addon etc. ZHA works out of the box.

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That’s a smart plug without an outlet. Just get a smart plug, you might actually find a use for it.

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Interesting.

However from what i understand i can plug this to any sort of device i have with a port and it will help the network without the need for extra “clutter” . I’m trying to make it as clean as possible and this option might be the best as it’s hidden away in other devices.

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As far as I know, the Bridge-P Pro (#1) does not work directly with Home Assistant unless you flash it with the Tasmota custom firmware. I don’t have any direct experience with that version, but I did have the previous version of the bridge (which also required the Tasmota firmware). I found the bridge to be unreliable. My understanding is that the bridges use a single radio to cover both Zigbee and WiFi so it’s not uncommon for them to miss messages.

You will probably be better served using the “Dongle-E” (#2)… as I posted earlier, it’s what I use.

It supports 32 direct connections… not 32 total devices. For example, if you have 5 sensors that are connected to a router which then passes their messages through 3 more routers before it gets to the coordinator; that counts as 1 direct connection.

I don’t have any direct experience with the linked USB routers. Just keep in mind that the same RF interference concerns that were mentioned for the coordinator dongle also apply to the little router dongles. If you are plugging them into basic USB power adapters they might be ok, but I would avoid plugging them into random “other devices” if those devices are using USB for data transmission without an extension cord.

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There are no Zigbee repeaters because in the Zigbee world, they are called “routers”, not “repeaters”.

Also, whatever you do, don’t buy those USB routers you linked to. I don’t know if the situation has improved with firmware updates lately, but those were known to “blackhole” messages in the past. Essentially, they were doing the opposite of what they were supposed to do and dropping messages instead of forwarding them.

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Good to know. thank you

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As I said, “Zigbee Repeater” is a marketing term. Marketers are easily confused.

And the one you linked to is crap. It works (I have one) but the range it adds is remarkably short. 2M is a stretch. My THIRDREALITY ZigBee Smart Plugs easily have a 3M range.

Look up “Baby Duck Syndrome”
I’ve used both. Z2M may support more devices, but I use ZHA now. I think it is a bit easier to use, but that’s just me.

Then use these outlets

z
z803×771 54.4 KB

The specs don’t say, but powered Zigbee devices are almost always also routers. Put 2 or 3 of these in every room and you will have a strong Zigbee network, and no one will see the horrible clutter.

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that outlet, while pretty cool, is Z-WAVE, not ZIGBEE.

Z-wave is a different technology, and would need its own coordinator/dongle/integration.

@Drakecrystal
ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT are 2 different methods for using the zigbee protocol.

I started with ZHA, which was simple and worked, and you add devices directly to home assistant via the ZHA integration.

dongle > integration ZHA > HA > devices

I did move to zigbee2mqtt, which is more complicated, because it sort of abstracts away the zigbee portion and the devices get added via MQTT in home assistant, but are paired with Z2M addon.

The Z2M addon is a bit more complicated, but also lets you do more complicated things at a lower level than within HA itself.

dongle > addon Z2M > addon MQTT broker > integration MQTT > HA > devices

As others have stated, you normally only use 1 zigbee coordinator, and only 1 ZHA or Z2M (not both). The dongle/coordinator can only do one or the other.

You can have multiple dongles, one for ZHA, and another for Z2M, but that certainly makes things even more complicated, as then you will have 2 separate networks competing against each other.

If you have IKEA available, I recommend the “INSPELNING smart plug” which you can pair directly to ZHA/Z2m without having any ikea hub. Ikea also has a variety of zigbee bulbs and other devices.

Generally, most (but not all) zigbee that are plugged in (not battery powered) will perform as routers, thus increasing the reliability/size of the mesh network.

I’m no expert, just elaborating my understanding.

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Oops. The Zigbee version of the Moes receptacle is only available in EU.

Here’s a US version. Usually found in the big-box stores at big prices. ($45).:

zoutlet
zoutlet554×575 44.6 KB

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better cause im in the EU :smiley:

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Thank you everyone so far this has been a very good learning experience. <3

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One final question, if i get a Dongle as a coordinator, does it need to be plugged into the HA server itself? Or can i plug it anywhere in the house?
I’m asking because plugging it into HA directly might represent a small issue. I will have a full server rack there, with router close by as well. I guess it’s not a good idea to keep the coordinator there. Thanks everyone

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USB Type coordinators need to be direct connected, but an extension cable is encouraged.
There are also Good Ethernet based devices and a bit lower performance less desirable WIFI ones, both can be anywhere within the mesh.

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Yeah i dont want Wifi ones. I want to try and build an offline house. I’m still having difficultues to find a good relay for lighting that has a dimmer. Most zigbee ones dont have it and the ones that do are wifi. :frowning: