I am stuck on which ZigBee implementation is best for my home automation setup. There are several options, ZigBee, ZHA, ZigBee2MQTT, and Deconz, all of which have a very different hardware requirements. I can’t simply purchase a module and try each out until I find a component that works best for my home.
Ideally, I want Local Push for state updates. Not so much for the light bulbs my Hue hub currently manages, but for possible light switches and scene controllers and the like where I want to emulate instant on/off. I know most have there designated supported hardware, so I would likely need an option that allows me to add supported devices on the fly. I am lead to believe that only ZigBee2MQTT and Deconz support this functionality. Additionally, the 900Mhz spectrum is out of the question. Unfortunately it causes more problems in general as my internet is provided on that same band. I know this eliminates very popular alternatives such as Z-wave.
Has anyone implemented something like this with one of the options (or any other alternative option) to achieve this?
I guess it was bad terminology on my part. By “on the fly”, I mean add compatibility if required. I am looking at a Orvibo Scene Controller that isn’t listed on any compatibility chart instead of switches with relays. I have seen this article on how to do it with ZigBee2MQTT.
Restarts of HASS seem to be a part of life, and it doesn’t bother me very much at the moment.
Can I presume that it would be your recommendation to use deCONZ as the best way to integrate ZigBee into HASS?
As a side note, I don’t know how the Wi-Fi alliance made a real standard, but I am glad they did. I could only imagine what conversations we would all be having if it were like ZigBee.
Well I am biased, since I wrote the deCONZ component.
I’ve been using deCONZ since the end of last year, when I started working on the component. And since April as my production Zigbee (previously Hue bridge) and it has been working really well. Though deCONZ is not without its faults, but the company has been quite responsive with handling issues, which is good.
Yeah Zigbee is indeed a bit weird, but it got better with v3 at least.
Thank you for your input. I was leaning toward deCONZ at first because, I can get the components from Amazon (Canada) without waiting for shipment from China and it seemed like where things were being actively developed at the moment.
Just got my ConBee in today, and it works great. Even has a much easier way to ‘Hue Thief’ than the python program.
This is only week 2 with HA, and I am just starting off fresh. Naming conventions are important and I really neglected that in my first attempt. Now I can move onto trying out third party ZigBee devices. Woo!
Hey Eric. Have you had the chance to setup your Orvibo Scene Controller yet with deconz or zha?
It has recently been added to the zigbee2mqtt supported device list. Since I don’t find anything online, I think I might jump and try to add support for it following the initial contributions guideline. I don’t know what I’m getting myself into though!
Honestly, it seems easier to add support for zigbee2mqtt than it is for zha.
I personally let go of deconz for zha as I find it more reliable for my Aqara sensors. Still using conbee stick).
OK so I thinker a bit around the zigbee contributions guidelines and honestly, I’m quite overwhelmed with the procedure.
I plugged the ConBee II device on my computer (instead of the usual Raspberry PI where the Home-Assistant is installed) in order to sniff the zigbee information coming from the Orvibo 7-Scene Controller. By the way, it is the same product as Livingwise LVS-SC7, only rebranded.
Some information were revealed with the deCONZ app for Windows regarding the device, but nothing that I can use not know what to do with. I then tried to install the recommended firmware on the ConBee II device in order to get Zshark working but later found out on the official dresden-elektronik github that Version II stick is not yet supported and shall be sometime in 2020.
So, as of now, I want to contribute and get this device officially supported but I not figuring out what to do next, even with the logs.
Do someone in this community has any experience with adding zigbee devices compatibility for ZHA, not zigbee2mqtt?
Hey Robban. I haven’t check this one yet. I’ve been told to look the initial contribution guidelines and that’s where I got lost.
Thanks for your suggestion. I’ll follow the guide and will keep everyone posted on this thread in case others would like to know about this specific device compatibility.
As a follow-up question, do all supported devices listed in the deconz-rest-plugin are also available through ZHA or is it deCONZ exclusive? In other words, I uninstalled the deCONZ add-on and would like to work exclusively with the built-in ZHA support.
