I currently have the Zigbee Dongle-P, and I am considering getting the SkyConnect. (My friend is also starting his zigbee adventure and considering both of these)
I have about 80-85 devices right now, and still growing, and my network is rock solid. I think the SkyConnect is technically rated to less devices than the ZBDongle-P, wondering if anyone has had experience with larger networks on it and what they can say about it’s reliability.
I will comment that my mesh is extremely solid, I have lots of routing devices. 34 of my 80+ devices are routing devices.
Then why switch? One of my core tenets of home automation - barring patches, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it…’
Based on?
I could see getting it for MATTER support but if your network is solid - I definitely wouldn’t touch it.
This is by no means condemnation of the SkyConnect device, in fact it’d be fine for your buddy- I’m pretty sure. But - more a - huh? Do you just like causing more work for yourself?
Honestly, I didn’t really intend to switch. It started as a conversation with my friend who was interested in starting a zigbee network and asked for recommendations. By default I recommended the -P, but it won’t arrive for more than a month (probably longer, our postal service is on strike in our country, even when they’re off strike it’ll be a backlog). I found the Skyconnect available sooner, but I’m not super confident recommending it as I’ve never used it. That then turned into me just being curious about it, and I like support Home Assistant so if it’ll work well, maybe worth the switch, plus upgrading to have thread support is a bonus.
I may be talking out of my ass, or misremembering, since I can’t find a source, but I swear I remember reading the SkyConnect is good for “50-100 devices” where the -P is good for “100-200 devices”
Also yeah, I have a habit of making more work for myself, I like to fiddle and try new things, but I also know that if I try something that just ends up being worse, the wife approval factor will drop.