Project Overview
Planning a sensor network for a vineyard with multiple barrel buildings. Goal is to collect environmental data from Zigbee sensors in each building and push it to Airtable via API.
Current Setup / Constraints
- Raspberry Pi in the office running Home Assistant
- No Ethernet in barrel rooms, WiFi only
- Using Zigbee sensors managed via Zigbee2MQTT
- Data needs to end up in Airtable via API
- Multiple barrel buildings, each needing their own sensor coverage
The Core Problem
Zigbee2MQTT only supports one coordinator per instance. This creates a challenge when covering multiple buildings that are too far apart for a single Zigbee mesh.
Options I’ve Considered
Option A: Multiple Zigbee2MQTT Instances (Docker)
- One Sonoff Dongle Max per barrel building acting as coordinator
- Each coordinator runs its own Zigbee2MQTT Docker container on the Raspberry Pi
- Data sent back to Home Assistant over WiFi
- Works, but adds significant setup/management overhead per building
Option B: Single Coordinator + Mesh Routers
- One coordinator, with additional Sonoff Dongle Maxes in router mode extending the mesh
- Simpler to manage, but range between routers is a concern
- Likely won’t work reliably across separate buildings
My Actual Question
Is there a way to run multiple Zigbee networks (each with its own coordinator) but aggregate them into a single Zigbee2MQTT dashboard or unified Home Assistant view? I don’t mind having separate networks per building. I just need one central place to see all sensors and manage everything before pushing to Airtable.
Thanks for the help!