I’m lost 
Seriosly, the autolayout could use a little love from the deconz people, but as long as my network works, I’m satisfied.
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Mine looks similar (around 100 nodes) and finding a specific node is very difficult. Do you know if it is
possible to use a search function somehow?
I did switch from the Hue hub to the deconz, and I recommend it. You remove a Zigbee network (better for Conbee and better for your 2,4Ghz WiFi and Bluetooth) plus your deconz mesh is stronger: hue lights are all repeater
Cool - I’m definitely tempted - but my HA box did die for some reason while I was on holiday last month, which does make me think about ‘what would my wife do in that situation?’…
I put deCONZ on a separate pi3: slowly moving (almost*) everything to zigbee/deconz. Beside HA you have phoscon app working
*I keep buying this cheap meross/tuya plugs though
I have a quick question here:
Which platform offers the best device support? deCONZ looks good, but the list of supported devices is TINY in comparison to what’s out there. Doesn’t even support SmartThings sensors??
ZHA, on the other hand, seems like it has the ability to support any device that follows Zigbee standards, but also gives you an interface to tweak things if they’re not quite right. I’ve sort of discounted Zigbee2mqtt on complexity/reliability grounds, and the fact that is needs different hardware (I’ve got a Conbee II on order)
Any thoughts/comments appreciated
I agree with you that zigbee2mqtt is not without its considerations, but AFAIK it is the only zigbee solution that is open source - The github repo for device support has 162 contributors, and this means new device support is being added daily.
(although also bear in mind that even ZLL bulbs/switches need to be added explicitly in zigbee2mqtt - most other hubs such as hue support ZLL devices “out of the box”).
With conbee, zigate etc the device support is in the USB device firmware, and proprietary
Whatever way you decide to go, there are pros and cons.
ZHA in Home Assistant is the native solution and there is a lot of activity happening on it. That can mean things break sometimes.
ZHA supports the Conbee sticks, so if you want to try deConz and then try ZHA you can use the same hardware.
I have only had a quick read over, but I saw quite a push to the Xiaomi hub earlier on. Just remember this one likes to “phone home” to servers in China. Just something to think about.
If you have a lot of Philips Hue globes, it is best to stay with the Hue Bridge and integrate from there. The integration is with a local API (works even if the internet is down) and if HA does crash, you still can control your lights with the Hue App, even if the internet is down (as long as your on the same network). I have found from personal experience the Hue range of globes and sensors have some little quirks that can make them less reliable with other solutions.
I have found ZHA solution quite reliable with Xiaomi and TradFri devices, but deConz does seem more reliable and stable at this time.
ZigBee has only just become more standardised recently though, so often different manufacturers do not play as nicely together as what we would want. It is quite different to Z-Wave, which has to play nicely with all devices to be certified. It’s getting closer though.
The native ZHA solution is open source also afaik.
I am not sure what you mean by adding explicitily. All ZigBee devices need to be paired to the specific co-ordinator, same as Z-Wave pairs to a specific controller. ZHA, deConz and ZigBee2MQTT all support ZigBee Light Link and ZigBee Home Automation protocols.
ZHA supports ConBee adaptor now (may not have done a few months ago, I didnt check when that support was added). ZigBee device support is within the software afaik, same as Z-Wave, and not contained within the co-ordinator.
can we use both at the same time? Almost all my house lights are Zigbee7deConz/Conbee so I wish to try ZHA but minimizing interruptions of service
As far as I am aware, you would only be able to use one or the other solution. I believe the pairing process is not so much co-ordinator specific as being controller specific, with deConz or ZHA being the controller as such. I am happy to be corrected if I have this wrong though .
If you are happy with deConz and it has not given you any trouble, then it would be worth sticking to that at this time. ZHA has improved immensly over the past few months, however I personally still think deConz is a more stable solution at this time. YMMV.
A few months on, and I’ve just replaced deConz with ZHA a couple of days ago, and so far things seem to be working just fine.
DeConz had worked well for me in the past. This weekend, however, I had updated the SSD in my NUC, installed a new OS, and got HA going again, but, though everything was registered in deConz, HA didn’t seem to be seeing anything any more, and the deconz.device_refresh service didn’t seem to be available. I suspect it might down to changing port numbers and things hidden in the rather opaque .storage directory.
Anyway, I thought it was time to give ZHA a try, having heard about its ongoing improvements, even though this involved re-pairing all of my devices. It was time-consuming but painless, except for the more distant Xiaomi sensors, which needed to be brought closer to the Conbee stick until they were paired. (I gather there are timeout issues if they are the other side of a mesh router.)
Some of the things that had been attributes on a sensor in the deConz world now became sensors in their own right, so the names in some of my automations and Lovelace files needed a little tweaking.
Overall, though, all seems to be well so far, and I do like having fewer moving parts than in the deConz days.
Just in case anyone else is considering a similar step…
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I am using DeConz with a conbee II stick and 4 Xiaomi pocket door sensors.
I’m finding the sensors connect fine but do not form a mesh.
The report open/close fine , but after awhile may stop working.
What do I need to do to get them to form a mesh?
Ha Version 99.2
Hassio - latest
DeConz 3.6
Conbee II - Version 2.05.69 / Firmware 264A0700
Hi Michael -
I think I’m right in saying that only mains-powered Zigbee devices can act as repeaters/routers, so you need to have some of those - i.e. permanently powered devices that can be always-on and forward packets to other devices. I believe your door sensors are all battery powered?
They’ll work fine, but will need to connect directly to the Conbee, unless you also have some powered routing devices (lights, plugs etc) that can forward packets to them.
Quentin
ah, ok, thanks did not know that. Yes they are all battery powered.
I do have philips hue bulbs using a hue hub. Would they do the job if I added them to DeConz?
Yes, Hue bulbs make good routers.
But you would need to unpair them from your Hue hub and switch them to deconz, and, of course, make sure they are always powered on and not switched off at the wall too often
I still like the Hue app enough that I haven’t switched all my lights over to HA yet…