Z2M basic automations without HA dependence

Configuration Zigbee
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I’m in the process of transitioning from ZHA to Z2M. As I understand, one of the benefits of Z2M is that it enables some simple automations without dependence on HA.

My first “automation” is to trigger a zigbee Philips Hue light on and off from an Aqara door sensor. Both devices have been successfully added to Z2M but I’m unsure how to proceed to link the two. I tried “binding” but it seems that this combination can’t be bound. I also thought it should be possible for the light to subscribe to the sensor though MQTT pubsub but not sure if this is possible natively in Z2M.

The devices are found in HA MQTT, so worst case I could always automate in HA, but I’d prefer not to if it’s not necessary.

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Use Node-Red or Z2M extensions to create your automations.

Here’s an example using Z2M extensions:

automations:
  automation_pantry:
    trigger:
      platform: state
      entity: Pantry Door
      attribute: contact
      state:
        - false
        - true
    action:
      - entity: Pantry Light
        service: turn_on
      - entity: Pantry Light
        service: turn_off
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@tteck Thanks for the solution and example. Funny enough, the pantry light is the one I was automating. It seems that Z2M has less native logic features than I assumed.

I think I’ll go with your first suggestion to use NR instead of Z2M extensions.

Z2M extensions feels closest to native logic with the least dependencies, but it buries logic in Z2M’s configuration yaml which I’ll probably forget about when I need to fix something in a few months. It also has no auto-update nor update notification mechanism whereas NR has the pallette manager.

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FYI, Zigbee direct linking function is called “binding” and binding and unbinding is a Zigbee feature that most Zigbee implementations/applications support, including ZHA as well, but devices must support it:

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#binding-and-unbinding

https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/guide/usage/binding.html