Hi everyone,
I realize that there are a looot of threads regarding this topic.
I just want to sum it up for myself and ask if there is anything I missed?
Ok, here we go:
Current situation: Philips Hue system consisting of 14 Remotes and ~30 devices in 9 rooms.
I am mainly switching to HA because I could not add more remotes to Hue due to memory constraints concerning actions. That is why I cannot just use the Hue integration. Also, I have some Govee lights that I want to add.
I already have HA set up on my Raspberry Pi 3 B+ that I had lying around and also added a Conbee II to it. My goal is to, as a first step, have the exact same functionality as I have now with the Hue Bridge.
My strategy would now be:
Get the blueprint for the Philips Hue Remotes I have from here
Get necessary knowledge how to enable “cycle through scenes” from here
Figure out if I need ControllerX to have smooth dimming
Finally, add all devices to the Conbee II integration, set up new scenes that mimick the old ones, and set up every button press of every remote to do what it is supposed to do
Any shortcuts I could take? Anything I missed?
thanks!
-taurui
My advice is to keep the devices in the Hue hub — you already made the expenditure, and it’s working, so simply hook that hub up directly to HASS.
You can also have a separate network of other non-Hue devices using your Conbee.
I have a full Zigbee home, and not a week goes by that a device doesn’t drop off the network. And for some of these stupid devices it’s almost impossible to get them back to normal operation. I regret this part of my home automation journey.
Ok, so right now I have a “test room” where the Zigbee (Philips Hue RWL021) Remote is connected to ZHA, but the Lights are still part of the Hue Bridge System.
So far I found a blueprint that allows me to switch the Lights on at a specific scene, and another scene if I do a long press.
But I could not find one that lets me replicate the original behavior:
“On” activates a scene, but when I press “on” again, it switches to the next scene in a specific order
Dim down to 10% when I keep pressing -, Dim to 100% when I keep pressing +.
Did anyone achieve that?
I would also be fine with the RWL22 behavior on my RWL21 remote:
“The top button” gives you the scene for that particular day time, and another press switches it off
“The bottom button” cycles through the available scenes
Did anyone achieve that?
Ok, kind of disappointed by the lack of replys here. Did I do anything wrong?
I think I will switch back to Hue-only with the hassle of having a 2nd Bridge
Also second sticking with Hue bridge if you already have one. The only part of using the hue system that still bugs me is the API rate limiting of 1 second per device
I’m actually quite happy with ZHA. But definitely not with the SkyConnect stick. It’s a long story, but the Conbee2 is just a lot more stable.
But what I totally miss is the direct binding of Scenes to remote controls.
I had previously configured deConz/Phoscon in such a way that all remotes switch directly and I am not dependent on a server. The status changes were of course still transmitted.
I always want my family to be able to switch the lights, even if the server is offline.
I agree 100% I have some HUE devices, and they are rock stable. I have some Zigbee devices (Ikea Tradfri) and they are no end of hassle. I am not looking at going with exclusively Hue for Zigbee mesh, everything else will be TCP/IP.
At the beginning I did not know what I would need so I got ZigBee up and running. Yes Ikea devices are about 1/3 the price of Phillips, but to not have the hassle (and the family yelling at me) the savings is not worth it.
Hue things on ZigBee are stable, but I have had my share of issues with nonHue devices, and when a routing device starts failing, that is the moment that all devices including Hue become unresponsive.
I usually re-pair a device without deleting it from HA first, and this makes the device work again. But sometimes I have to delete the device to successfully re-pair, and then it is a pain to restore the entity IDs (write them down before deleting!). No stats are lost when the delete happens, if you recreate the same entity IDs after re-pair.
The most frequent cause of sleepy (battery powered) devices becoming unresponsive is when a powered (router) device malfunctions or loses power. An extended power outage can mean that dozens of devices around your home simply won’t work for hours or days after power has come back online.
This alone has made me think perhaps I want Wi-Fi devices to replace most of my ZigBee devices. I can debug TCP/IP fine, but I am clueless debugging ZigBee shit.
I guess everyone’s mileage must vary. I have a variety of Zigbee devices (including IKEA) that run directly (no 3rd party hubs) via ZHA and the network is very stable and reliable. I have just under 60 devices now running via a sonoff Dongle-E coordinator.
If a routing device drops off the network, (say someone turns off a smart plug at the switch), then the devices affected just re-route. The only exception to this is Aqara devices, which are known to stick to their original routes. But as my mains powered (routing) devices never fall off the network anyway, its not an issue for me.
Can not say I had any huge problems with the Ikea stuff on ZHA. I can say I am finding ZHA to be extremely flaky after a restore. Will be testing my Ikea switches more as soon as I can get my bloody ZHA working again.
