List your hardware essentials starter pack

[darrenismyname]

Hey folks,
Imagine you are at the initial stage of buying hardware for your smart home deployment.

What few key devices, brands, and protocols would you use to build out the first stage of your smart home?

Hoping experience will help those about to start with the most common smart home integrations and want to build out and future proof.

(That scenario broadly describes where I am at with HA - but I wanted to make this topic open and more useful to more people than just myself after specific things).

What I think I need for my starting out stage 1 starter pack:
I have
HA hardware (mine is a NAS with new HA in docker)
SMLIGHT SLZB-06b.
Some existing smart tech (Zigbee lock, Philips Hue bulbs, power points from Ikea TRETAKT and Arlec Grid Connect, other minor BT and WiFi based).

Are there common devices where Matter and Thread should be considered more favourably over Zigbee etc for say matters of performance or stability?

Is it best to begin with a combined Zigbee Coordinator - Thread Border Router device?
(Possibly like the SMLIGHT SLZB-07 for example.)

Is there a widely-recommended plan for distributing Zigbee and Thread routers among a house?
Here I imagine both the distances between devices and materials they pass through, but also importantly how often Zigbee Routers and Thread Routers are needed (and Full Thread Devices for redundancy?).

In terms of planning that network, can you tell if a device serves as a Zigbee or Thread router if it is not labelled as such?

(For instance, Ikea’s TRETAKT wall socket power point serves as a Zigbee router according to one reviewer, but its not listed by Ikea. Same question for other products like those on AliExpress.

Imagine shopping for a motion sensor.
Is this a good general approach to considering options:

• Stability of the device’s HA integration
• The functions the device exposes for HA to control
• The network - Zigbee / Thread etc
• If it also serves as a Zigbee / Thread router
• The usual build quality and non-smart product considerations

Hope that makes sense. I’m sure I’ve made mistakes but this is best effort into forming a quick step up for people in my shoes evaluating current tech options.

Cheers!
d

[WallyR (Wally)]

@darrenismyname

What few key devices, brands, and protocols would you use to build out the first stage of your smart home?

The way into the Smart Home rabbit hole is different from user to user, so it is hard to really generalize that.
Some come due to need for lighting control, some for heating, some for power management and some for security/surveillance.
There is also the fact that many users already have some Smart Home devices when they start their HA tour, which will form their journey.
And on top of that there is the users location in the world. India, China, Europe and US will have a different mains powered devices available due to their electrical standards, so one approach in one location might not be possible in another.

@darrenismyname

Are there common devices where Matter and Thread should be considered more favourably over Zigbee etc for say matters of performance or stability?

Since Matter and Thread (and Z-wave) are both mesh networks, then the more devices the more stable a network. This means that splitting up your devices into multiple networks will probably make all your networks less reliant.
Matter is still young and device selection might be somewhat limited, but more firms are joining in, like Ikea.
Zigbee is old and that is also seen on the selection of devices available.

@darrenismyname

Is it best to begin with a combined Zigbee Coordinator - Thread Border Router device?
(Possibly like the SMLIGHT SLZB-07 for example.)

It would say no. They are not expensive and you can then use different channels for each protocol, but if you can stick with one protocol in the beginning, due to the reason stated above.

@darrenismyname

Is there a widely-recommended plan for distributing Zigbee and Thread routers among a house?

The Community Guide Section have cookbooks for HA and I think also Zigbee (Or maybe it is included in the HA one).
Read it before you start your setup.

@darrenismyname

In terms of planning that network, can you tell if a device serves as a Zigbee or Thread router if it is not labelled as such?

With Matter all mains powered devices are routers.
With Zigbee mains powered devices are generally routers, but there are a few that fall out on this feature. Some Zigbee devices are also buggy as routers and should be avoided. I think the Zigbee cookbook have a link to a Zigbee device list with feature overview (Or Zigbee2MQTT have it on their website I think).
Zigbee devices with router functionality are often not listed in the feature list, because the generally expectation is that a mains powered device should be a router.

@darrenismyname

Imagine shopping for a motion sensor.

With any device you need to think about the primary features first.
With a motion sensor that can be how it sense, IE. PIR or mmWave, and how often it can send updates.
Some PIR sensors have a long cool down time, so they might not update as often as you wish.
mmWave sensors update quite often, but might be a bit slower on the first detection.
mmWave sensors are having a higher resolution, so sitting still in a chair will not be detected by a PIR sensor, but a mmWave can often detect the chest moving from the breathing.
Some PIR sensors can handle zones in the detection area.

Once you have decided on those features, then start to look what is available in regards to other features.
Sometimes you need a device with a certain feature and that might mean building up a whole new network based on another protocol.

[darrenismyname]

This is an absolutely wonderful response, thank you so much!

[slh]

WallyR is spot on with the very different starting positions for many users. E.g. I started with self-contained tasmota based devices (smartplugs, light bulbs), before venturing into zigbee (because you find more and cheaper devices there, as well as devices that can reasonably run on batteries). For starters, you can even find much cheaper zigbee coordinators (e.g. zb-gw03 (tasmota/ ethernet) and zb-gw04 (USB)), while better ones like the smlight ones are certainly preferable (and later upgrading painful), these are quite okay (for zigbee, not really for thread) already. Then start with a selection of cheap zigbee devices from aliexpress, buttons, light bulbs (I still prefer tasmota for those), temperature sensors, PIR sensors, whatever direction you want to go. Have some spares to play with, so cheaper (at least for the non-important things) helps keeping ‘more’ in stock (and not having to wait 2 weeks for new toys to arrive).

You just need to take stock where you’re coming from (what smart’ish devices you already have), what wireless standards you are already using (try to focus on ‘fewer’), what things you are looking to automate - and to give yourself some leeway, both for failure and stuff to tinker with, to keep it ‘fun’ and not a burden.

Be aware that ‘smart’ and automation shouldn’t be done just for the sake of it, often enough the best UI is still a stupid button on the wall (keep failure cases, fallback functionality and bootstrapping after power (or similar) failures in mind). …and be aware that your smart toys will not meet the decades of operations you’re used to in construction.