Hi, i want to buy a zigbee and z-wave usb stick (conbee3 and aeotec 7). What is the best way to run them because my HA is on my Proxmox and the server stays in the basement? Any suggestions?
Assuming you are running HA in a VM on Proxmox, you would plug them in and pass the USB devices through to the VM. Within Proxmox go to the VM, then “Hardware > Add > USB Device”. Select “Use USB Vendor/Device ID” and you should see the USB devices in the list. Then restart the VM for it to take effect.
What is the difference/advantage of using either format:
/dev/ttyACM0
/dev/serial/by-id/usb-9876_1234-if00
The second option is tied to the device inserted - if you move it to a different USB port it will still work. Use that.
I run my Home Assistant server bare-metal on an Intel NUC i3 in my basement. My Z-wave and Zigbee dongles are on 2M USB extensions and attached to the ceiling of the basement. I have no issues with Z-Wave, and my Zigbee network is pretty robust with routers (Reality Switches) every three or four meters all over the house.
Isn’t there a different option? I don’t want to plug them in the basement in the usb port of my server. Something over Ethernet?
I haven’t tried using a USB Extender over Ethernet. (Because my dongles in the basement work just fine.).
You can search for zigstar, it’s a LAN Dongle platform. But it’s better to use Cable instead of wifi.
What you mean with „routers (Reality Switches)“?
Is there a way to use this in a room with raspberry pi? I installed the zwave stick and hat sometimes bad connection with the keypad.
Or is there repeater for the signal that I could buy?
Router is a confusing name, but I wasn’t in charge of naming them.
Most mains-powered Zigbee devices can act as a router. (Battery-powered Zigbee devices can’t because the battery wouldn’t last for long).
So the Third Reality switches scattered all over my house are mostly just used as routers. Nothing is plugged into them to be switched. I also have a few wall-mount light switches that because they are mains-powered, are also routers.
Because the Zigbee network is constantly remappng itself, “routers” makes sense.
The key to a strong Zigbee network is to keep the distance between nodes short.