Hello,
Ihave in plan to make smart my lights in the home. I don’t know what would be the best solution to use for the wall switches.
I see a lot of options, wi-fi wall swich, zigbee, ble or even RF
The ideea, is that i want to use my current wall swiches position, and to have the option to use smart function and clasical push in the same time
I saw Sonoff TX and M5, they looks fine and i think would work, but as they are wi-fi i am afraid not to load the home wifi network too much
I also use an sonoff rf reciver for some sensors, this would be an option also
I started with ZigBee and a few matter devices but weren’t satisfied with the performance and specially reliability at all.
Then I tried esphome base WiFi products including shelly to retrofit switches and also smart wall switches from athom. I was amazed as they all perform awesome and unlike ZigBee never have a lag (when using “detach” mode) beside being 100% reliable.
Today I have around 60 esphome devices (around 15 switches) and exact 0 ZigBee/matter devices are left. No problems what so ever with WiFi as the native api from esphome hardly puts any serious network load on the system (only the esp32 cams produce a little traffic as they stream a video).
Think about it this way: 1 second of 4k video streaming you do on your phone/computer produces probably more traffic then a ordinary esphome devices in a whole year!
Personally I have about a 40/40 mix of Zigbee and Z-Wave and both are extremely fast and reliable, with an edge to Zigbee for being a bit faster than Z-Wave. I have some ESPHome devices scattered in there as well as other various protocols and wifi devices for the other 20%.
Personally I prefer Zigbee over all of them. Wifi is fine but I’m always having to fuss with making sure they get to the right network and are properly blocked from the outside world, whereas I never have to worry about that with Zigbee or Z-Wave.
The nice thing about having a mix of protocols is that when you need to get a device for a particular need you aren’t constrained by only the devices for the one protocol you have, I can pick the best device for the job regardless of protocol used.
I don’t think there are clear pros and cons for each. So much depends on your unique situation. I use a mix of both Zigbee and WiFi. I haven’t strayed into Z-Wave but it sounds similar to Zigbee.
For me, one pro of Zigbee is they’re plug-and-play. No messing with IP address assignments. Plug them in and they build their own mesh network. You don’t need to extend your WiFi network everywhere, just add a smart plug or something which acts as a repeater somewhere between the new device and the existing mesh. Battery powered edge devices are pretty low power so the batteries last a long time. All Zigbee is “natively” local; no cloud dependency. No firmware updates to change functionality (unless you want to.)
I’ve pretty much decided that I’m limiting any new WiFi devices to ESPHome devices I program myself. Too many times the HA community has been burned by vendors changing their APIs, going to a subscription model, going out of business or pushing firmware updates which break local control. I don’t mind doing a bit of extra work coding and setting up static IP addresses to get some unique functionality which isn’t available with off-the-shelf Zigbee devices.
For me that promise was why I dived into but the reality was very different. When buying a random ZigBee device it’s normally hit and miss and not plug and play. Some powered devices just don’t act repeater for the “mesh” and others need custom quirks and hours of research to even get basic functions.
Again pure marketing speech from my mileage. It might work if you start directly with 1 ZigBee devices every 5m² of your house but If you start with only one device per room you will find yourself buying more and more plugs (you don’t even need) just to get a somewhat acceptable mesh.
Both wasn’t necessary in my case and I don’t know anyone one who doesn’t have already WiFi at home.
And low range etc.
I would really have to read the summary from Hedda before I invested so much time in ZigBee just to find out it didn’t was up to the task in my case.
This is what I did. And I got rid of all my ZigBee stuff which was so time intense to get it even half working.
Esphome is the opposite, it’s predictable, reprocuable and just works (it did what ZigBee claimed).
Isn’t esphome a no-code solution or am I already a programmer? xD
Also it’s already 2023 and we got DHCP, no need for static IPs!
I think everyone has their own preference on protocols, and of course their own good and bad experiences. For me, Zigbee has been rock solid, but I’ll echo your sentiment that I had to add some plugs in the beginning to build a reliable mesh in the house .
Personally I don’t think any protocol is terrible so long as you implement it correctly. For me, going all ESPHome isn’t on my radar because I’m still figuring out how to make my hit-and-miss ESPHome network more hit and less miss (I have a few devices that join and leave the network constantly to where I have to create automations to toggle something five times to ensure it got the message). I reserve ESPHome for my geek-outs to create stuff that just doesn’t exist otherwise.
I’ve been pretty happy with a nice mix of all of the protocols. Sometimes Z-Wave is a pain, sometimes WiFi, sometimes Zigbee (although, again, for me Zigbee has been 99% rock solid).
This all might depend on what you wanna do. Esphome based devices are surly great. I didn’t buy any, just build some by my own. I believe that you will be very satisfied with switches based on esphome firmware. But there is a few flaws. Esphome based switches are more expensive than zigbee one. At least that is what I saw from ie. athom switches.
Second drawback are sensors and all sort of battery powered devices. I believe zigbee is much more suitable for battery powered devices at least from battery management point of view. If you don’t have strong zigbee mesh you will probably facing problem with those devices.
I suppose I should have added that my needs for Zigbee devices are pretty simple. On/off switches and plugs, power, temperature, humidity monitoring, that sort of thing.
I have heard that more complex functionality can be hit or miss with Zigbee. I don’t want or need color-changing bulbs, for example.
My Zigbee network has been rock solid. True plug-and-play. I’ve never had to mess with quirks or firmware updates, and every mains powered smart plug I’ve used acts as a repeater. If I want to put a device somewhere far from the rest of them, I just stick a smart plug half-way in between.
I should also say that I live in a somewhat rural area. I have Zigbee devices in a couple of outbuildings. No need to build out my WiFi network to these remote locations. Obviously if your entire living space already has good WiFi coverage, this wouldn’t be a consideration.
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