I’m glad to be back here with a new Pi that will be dedicated to HA this time (already give it a “big” try but on a pi with a lot of other messy things ).
So I’m going to start from scratch and I have a concern since the beginning and never found a clear answer.
All the devices I use have already a “gateway” or an app or a cloud - let’s call it a “thing” - to be connected to. And I don’t understand if it’s “better” to connect the device to the “thing” and then to make it recognized by HA or to skip “thing” and directly connect it to HA?
For example, I have some Philips Hue bulbs. I prefer to use the Philips gateway I have and then add it to HA because I like (a lot) a hue app that synchronized colors with music. And I’m pretty sure it won’t work if directly connected to Ha.
I have some IKEA Tradfri bulbs and sensor. Here I don’t know why I shouldn’t directly link them to HA.
Then I have some cheap WiFi bulbs that connect to Tuya. Here I don’t know at all…
Is there any key to know what is the best approach?
I remember I had some issues last time because I use Alexa and HomeKit and I had some devices recognized multiple times in both.
As I’m starting again from scratch and on a dedicated pi, I would like to have some advice to not mess it up at the beginning .
Thanks in advance for any advice or guidance you could share with me
Tom
For each ‘thing’ look at what it means to connect to thier ‘gateway’ then HA. Some devices just flat require it and you wont be able to.
Some devices, like Hue may work better on their gateway (HA folks I haven’t dug into the Hue integration, but I’m making an assumption it’s local connect to a Hue bridge from HA) Hue for instance required their gateway to update firmware. The odds of never needing to do that is slim to none. etc. et c.
Some devices like Tuya work differently depending on how you connect them. Using the Tuya cloud - it’s easy sure, but you’re now hopping off your local network to some unknown cloud then back to HA for every communication with a device. So wouldn’t it make more sense to reduce those hops?
So while there is no blanket ‘is it best to’ for devices as a whole, (A lot of it because there’s no set ‘standard’ for WiFi based IoT devices…) I always look at each ‘thing’ and see ok what does this gateway bring to the party? Do I absolutely NEED it (Some do, Flume for instance wont work with a 3rd party gateeway) or gain some specific benefit from it (Hue device management, color sync bulbs as you’ve seen). Can HA even control it directly? (Your Ikea stuff is bog-standard Zigbee, Zigbee2Mqtt and any Zigbee stick should have you covered) etc. etc. Gather all that info and understand the communications of the device. Then…
Once you know this, do your absolute best to reduce the number of ‘hops’ between the device and HA itself. Doing home automation on multiple platforms for many years has taught me, no matter what - the fewer moving parts / hops the better performing and more reliable it will be - period.
The Matter specification promises to make this interop all easier, well - ok simpler - in the future, but no matter what, it will still come down to how does the device communication work, do I require the mfr ‘hub’ for any specific features, reduce hops, repeat.
(already give it a “big” try but on a pi with a lot of other messy things 
).
.