Hello everyone. Im quite new to Home Assistant and Im loving it, mainly because I can centralize everything at one place and so far I was able to setup everything locally (within my network without the need of a “vendor cloud”)… Im crazy with privacy and exposing my home to the outside world.
But I got lost when trying to find a bulb that does not depend on nasty clouds, like Tuya or other brand app. I also read a lot about wifi vs zigbee and I dont mind to invest some money if the hardware meet the following requirements:
Setup should be done 100% local, preferably on the PC
Since its a local/offline setup, no need to create accounts in any sort of cloud service
In Zigbee case, I would like a generic hub that accepts devices from any vendor (dunno if this is possible)
I would like to have full control through HA (no other mobile apps), like color temp, rgb color, brightness,…
I live in Europe, so maybe some US devices might not be available here, but all suggestions are welcome.
I believe if you want zigbee then one of the usb sticks like conbee 2 or Home Assistant SkyConnect will mean you can use any zigbee stuff without a cloud account platform. (But all I really know about zigbee is the “Ooh The Zigbee” meme.)
The main concern if that Vendor bulbs like Hue or preferably other cheaper does pair with it and, if I can create a nice Card at my HA to control all bulb parameters (brightness, color, …)
Shelly bulbs seems pretty nice too. Ill check if Amazon Spain deliver it here so I can give it a try.
I have the sonoff dongle and it works great with Hue and other bulb brands. More than the hardware it’s the software that will impact the compatibility. If you use zigbee2mqtt with this dongle you won’t have any issue.
I was reading about Shelly bulbs and according to its datasheet, it will work.
But they have only 9W bulbs.
Is there any other similar brand with more powerful ones?
Zigbee2mqtt - which is an open source project that is not part of Home Assistant but integrates perfectly with Home Assistant. There are a multiple of Zigbee USB dongles that work with this and they are listed on their website. Very popular are Sonoff’s dongles because they are cheap and have external antenna. Zigbee2mqtt can either run on its own machine or it can be added to home assistant as an Addon (Addons are Docker containers managed by the HA supervisor). There is no cloud involvement with Zigbee2MQTT
ZHA - is the native built-in Home Assistant solution. It used to be behind Zigbee2mqtt with respect to device support but has caught up very rapidly the last 2 years. As I understand it has a wek spot that each time you restart HA you also restart the Zigbee network. I do not know if this is a real issue.
Deconz - A small German company called Dresden Elektronik makes a dongle and software to run it. The Deconz software is partially open source and partially closed source. It also supports a huge list of devices but not able to keep up with Zigbee2MQTT. Deconz can also run either as an Addon or as a standalone installation on a different machine. Dresden Elektronik does not provide any cloud service. Deconz is 100% local.
In general any Zigbee light bulb or dumb on/off smart plug works with any of the 3. ANY! The light part of the Zigbee universe is following same standards and thing usually just works. It is switches (button devices) and sensors that mostly require that they are directly listed and supported by the platform.
I personally use Deconz. It has been super stable for me as long as it is not run as an Addon (I had problems with that).
If I was to start from Scratch I would pick Zigbee2MQTT because of the very active community and huge list of supported devices.
A year from now - the whole picture will change because of Matter. But which way it will go - noone knows.
For sure - forget about Philips Hue hubs and IKEA hubs. You are on the right track with Home Assistant as your foundation as LOCAL is the key feature of Home Assistant.
Man, thanks a lot for this detailed explanation.
I did read about ZHA/Zigbee2Mqtt and i thought they were about the same, which is wrong.
So, for now Im going to pick the Sonoff Hub. Im between 2 models (suggestions are welcome):
Go with the USB dongle and an additional extension cord, especially when using any Zigbee dongle with Raspberries. The USB 3.0 port is injecting distortion into nearby Zigbee transceivers.
As I already mentioned: IKEA Tradfri is usually cheaper than anything else and fully standards compliant.
You can use the Zigbee with HA using the V2 api connection towards the bridge or via deconz.
Ikea , same , you can connect all towards deconz if you want…
The problem with Philips Hue and IKEA hubs is that all lights work and also dumb on/off switches. But the minute you want to add window, door, temperature, motion, water leak, etc sensors, then the support is very limited. Philips have their Friends Of Hue and IKEA also is picky.
The open source platforms are supporting all brands. And if something is not supported, you open a request and usually it gets added if you are willing to provide the needed info.
And a Sonoff dongle cost a fraction of a hub so there is no economic incentive to picking a closed source hub.
I have hue motion sensors in every room, also having 2 outdoor motion sensor. One is used in garage (they have more distance range).
Those motions sensors are used to monitor room temperature (hue motion have a temp sensor used by my heating and dhw system)
I also use the illuminance provided by those sensors to control light indoor + outdoor in complex automations. Also they can report me motion when I’m not present as second part of alarming system.
I don’t see the point where there is issue of adding other sensors from others vendors on top to complete what you want. I’m having 2 zigbee network in // : hue with 36 devices + deconz with 39 devices (ikea bulb, humidity , door , cover, energy etc ) , all are working very well. Both channels and wifi 2.4ghz channels are configured by myself to avoid as most as possible overlap bandwidth issue.
I see also advantage to keep the possibility to control light over HUE (just in case of HA is in troubles). The HUE integration is maintain by Marcel van der Veldt which is doing a famous work on it.
That’s one of the reason I keep the HUE bridge is // with deconz (which can fail as well without any fallback plan)
If you use deconz, you are also dependent of some codes…
Matter will may change the approach but let see …
So to go back to what @wlmirand is asking , we are a bit deviate but it’s important to not take directly some assumptions about cloud service.
Hue is not so expensive regarding the quality and durability over sonoff which I have also but less durable…
Remove your internet connection and see what is happening is a good exercise.
You have both Philips Hue hub AND Deconz. Why do you have Deconz if Philips hue is so great?
Dividing your Zigbee network in two means less coverage of your Zigbee mesh. The most common issue we see on the Deconz forum is people having problems with sensors not connecting and the reason often turns out to be that the users do not have enough routers (bulbs and other mains powered devices).
And a router will only route messages in its own network.
Natually you CAN run both a Zigbee2MQTT and a Philips Hue hub. But I cannot see this as a best practice and it requires careful planning and placement of the bulbs to get coverage of your house in every corner.
Your Philips Hue Zigbee network has Philips sensors. But what do you do when you want to buy Aqara door/window sensors for all doors and windows? Philips do not even have that. Or you want to add the new really cool FP1 millimeter radar sensor. I bet that will not work on Hue either (did not try). You put them on your Deconz network, right? Or how about some of the cool zigbee 6-button switches or an Aqara cube. Or a flood sensor. I bet they will not work on Philips Hue either.
The point of zigbee2mqtt (or Deconz or ZHA) is that you can create solid mesh of bulbs and plugs from multiple vendors and put cheap sensors everywhere.
And if you want a split network, you can split between ZHA and Zigbee2mqtt with two dongles. I am thinking about that so get started with Matter.
But to someone that is starting up fitting smart lights in an entire house, I find it a strange advice to buy both a Philips Hue hub and a USB dongle and having to learn to operate both and planning placement for radio coverage.
Phiips Hue is way much more easier to get a solid mesh (thanks to powered/plugged devices) than on a deconz which need some better knowledge of what you are doing.
You have also good starting package with lower price to start with but it will be more close to Hue products of course and need RJ45 port for the bridge which is good for connection but less for positioning).
What do you do if your deconz is stop working correctly after an update ?
No more light till someone fix it ? I don’t see this kind of failure since years with the Hue bridge while on deconz or z2mqtt can sometimes have troubles then light is not responding at all. I never get that with Hue since more than years.
My choice have the condition to limit the impact on the people not knowing HA.
woman acceptance factor and kids
So yes my advise to have reliable lights and if 2 networks is the way, why not
About FP1, I prefer the DFrobot DIY mmwave with ESPHome
