As the subject says - I haven’t been able to find any decisive information on this, and was wondering if it is possible to use Xiaomi devices such as the cube, buttons and sensors without also purchasing the Xiaomi Gateway hub?
Thanks
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No, you need the gateway to use Xiaomi sensor, button, cube (zigbee).
If you want to use wifi products (vacuum, air purifier, plug etc), you don’t need it.
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Thanks @af950833. Theoretically then, if I had a zigbee adapter, would I be able to directly interface with them?
With Samsung Smartthings, you can do it without HA.
I am not sure other zigbee adapter can control Xiaomi’s zigbee product.
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As far as I’ve read, the Zigbee implementation of the communication between the gateway and the sensors, is somehow proprietary.
For that reason, I wouldn’t trust what you aim, as feasible. A couple of months ago, I remember reading about a guy trying to do it and although he had some positive results, he ended up quitting due to the amount of work involved and a not 100% working scenario.
The question is: Is it really worth the hassle, rather than buying a gateway that costs around 16€ while in promotion?
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For practicalities sake? No. Time is money and all that… But for science? Well now… 
If you happen to remember any details about the post, I would love to read it.
Google is your friend: look in Domoticz and SmartThings forums for more insights on this topic.
Ah bummer. I just heard about Home Assistant and came here wondering the exact same thing. I was hoping there was some kind of usb zigbee adapter that I could plug into my home server which would be running HA and have it act as the hub for Xiaomi sensors.
Is there another company that makes temperature/humidity sensors relatively cheap that do work that way?
If not, I might just get a Smartthings hub. I was hoping I wouldn’t need yet another device in the rats nest of a mess behind my entertainment center connected to my router though.
Hypothetically I wonder if I could use the smartthings device handler as a starting point and get them working with a generic zigbee dongle and HA.
I don’t know groovy or HA but am l33t @ python
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What about this Raspberry Pi addon module?
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Yeah @rsachoc, in theory I think either the usb stick or pi addon there should work.
Looking at that code for the Smartthings device handler I’m sure the interface for the Xiaomi sensors is not proprietary, it looks like they just send strings that are even human readable.
However the announcement thread for that code talks about the zigbee pairing process for the devices not being compliant with the zigbee standard and there is a funny/hacky way of pairing with them that I wonder if we would have trouble replicating.
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I went ahead and ordered a temperature sensor. I think I have a zigbee dongle around here somewhere, I figure it’s worth looking into. If I run into a dead end I’ll just get a ST hub.
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Maybe this will work when it is implemented: https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/10321
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It does work, the guy who created the ZiGate made it work and successfully reversed engineered the protocol used by Xiaomi.
It does worth it for the interoperability, the ZiGate can communicate with Ikea, Philips Hue, Xiaomi, Pluzzy, Orvibo, Osram, Trust, Heiman, … so it’s a lot of bridge to buy ^^
More info (sorry only in French for now):
http://www.zigate.fr/
The integration with the different platform is still a work in progress (also for HASS).
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I can confirm that with https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant/pull/10321 that I have temp/humdity, proximity and door/window sensors working. I’m using hassbian with deconz zigbee adaptor hat. Distance is very good.
The cube and button work as well however they’re not “seen” as a sensor so it’s harder to getting working.
The temp sensor doesn’t work as well as I would have liked. My graphs only change by a 3 degrees which i think might be interference with the on board electronics and battery heat.
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Just for sure, because it is not clear to me yet. If i buy a Xiaomi hub or Zigate, the sensors, devices will connect to the hub/Zigate directly?
So not enough 1 hub/zigate in the network? Di I need 1 for each floor because of the safty distance? I have two floors in my house. Plus garage, gargen etc?
I thought I need only 1 hub in the same network, but now I’m not sure 
Thanks!
Has anyone managed to figure out how to connect the Cube through the SmartThings integration?
Maybe it would be possible to integrate with the MQTT bridge?
I am using 3 cubes with zigbee2mqtt with no problems.