About three weeks ago I set up zigbee2mqqt and it has been working great. Then I had a spanner thrown in the works…I got given for free a Conbee USB stick
So I now have set up deCONZ to evaluate it and put 4 devices on it. I can’t now make my mind which one to stick with going forward.
z2mqqt Likes:
Zigbee map in HA add on
Link Quality in HA and voltage on battery
‘it just works’
deCONZ Likes:
Feels more polished
GUI
Range seems better
Both seem stable, what are you opinions? Stick with z2mqqt or migrate it over to deCONZ?
no idea yet but interested in seen what people think.
I have a Xiaomi Aqara hub so when you choose what you want to keep, feel free to mail me the unwanted one
I miss my Xiaomi hub a bit - I used it as a night light. I like the idea though of one zigbee hub for all devices that I can control, rather than the closed Hue/Xiaomi etc
I’ve been using deconz1,5 years or so now. It’s improved a lot and has been really stable since last summer. I have ~40 devices right now and will remove my zwave and move over to near 100% zigbee
I have just get a Conbee USB stick. And I have two Xiaomi Gateways with several sensor and switches. I want to get rid of the gateways and use the sensor with the Conbee.
I have my Home Assistant running through Hassio. And I am really lost about how to start configuring.
I have read about z2mqtt, deCONZ which has an hassio addon, and two components in HA: ziggbee and zha.
I see there is a lot of development with the zha component in the last releases.
In this thread you only talk about Zigbee2MQQT and deCONZ.
Why not the zha or zigbee components?
Sorry if I am too much lost.
HP Microserver Gen10 Running Proxmox - I run two Home Assistant instances, a Prod one and a Dev one. The Prod one is a LXC (Linux container) and the Dev one is using Docker. The HP Microserver runs 8 other separate LXC containers (Mqqt, Pihole, MySQL, Node Red, etc) as well as a Ubuntu Virtual machine that is running docker.
By migrating over to the Microserver, I freed up 7 or 8 Raspberry Pis so I have Zigbee2Mqqt running on one standalone Pi (running Rasbian Lite) and deCONZ on another (running Rasbian desktop).
I know the general consensus is to put deCONZ or Zigbee2Mqqt on the same Pi as HA, but I would recommend separating them if possible.
Anyway, I have now moved all by devices over to deCONZ to see how stable it will be and turned off the Z2mqqt box for now. I have 9 various Xiaomi sensors and have migrated 3 of my 25 Hue bulbs over. The only thing stopping me moving all of the hue over is my use of scenes in each room. It is going to be a pain to reconfigure those - or is there away to import them from the hue bridge to deCONZ? Also still on the Hue bridge are 4 motion sensors and a Hue Dimmer switch - I tried last night and couldn’t get it to work on deCONZ at all.
given deConz is a more “commercial” product and ZigBee2MQTT is an open source project, I would expect deConz to be more polished.
Range has nothing to do with deConz or ZigBee2MQTT. Range is hardware driven, not software and would be totally dependent on your ZigBee co-ordinator and the health status of your ZigBee Mesh.
As far as my opinion on either. Both work well, both have their good and bad points. ZigBee2MQTT is a little less stable, but has quite a fast development pace. DeConz tends to be more stable, but you trade that with a longer time before updates are made.
If I was going to install a new installation where I wanted it to just work with minimal fuss, it is a close call, but I would lean toward deConz for stability.
Personally, I am watching with interest the state of the native ZHA component. Home Assistant has two native ZigBee components, but ZHA is the one I would watch as far as your normal ZigBee automation products such as lights and sensors. I don’t think ZHA is quite at the level of deConz for stability yet, but it is neck and neck with ZigBee2MQTT.
Obiviously these are just my opinions based on my personal experiences and others may have totally different experiences.
I’d stick to the Hue bridge for hue globes and sensors if it was my setup.
One thing, scenes can not be imported. There was a tool I saw once that would export them as a set of colour values you would then have to create HA Scenes for, but I can’t for the life of me find it now.
I have found Hue have a few little quirks. Although they will join any ZigBee network and work as such, they do seem to have quirks to work around, especially with transitions and colour setting. I want to be rid of bridges and hubs myself, but I have held on to the Hue bridge because it is just more reliable way of using the Hue globes. Home Assistant can use the scenes from the Hue Bridge in automations and it is a local API, so no internet required.
Other devices like TradFri and Xiaomi I am more than happy to use directly with deConz or ZHA though
What’s your reasoning for recommending a separate device for the deConz or Zigbee2MQTT controller?
I am just curious
@brendan
I have now moved everything bar the main hue bulbs (24 of them) over to Deconz.
I have all my Xiaomi sensors and Hue sensors over as well as I have re-flashed two CC2531 from my old Zigbee2MQQT setup to run as routers in Deconz (the routers are represented as lights in Deconz). I also have though set up strategic hue bulbs (in two different spare bedrooms) on Deconz rather than on the Hue hub to use as routers to extend the Conbee mesh. Seems to work well. They are in non used rooms and I do not need scenes in them.
What i did with my back gate Xiaomi sensor was unpair and repair so it picked up one of the bulbs as the main connection rather than the Conbee coordinator as it is a lot nearer - I think it is documented on here that the Xiaomi do not ‘roam’ that well and tend to stubbornly try to stay connected to what they were paired to originally.
There are a few reasons I have put the Conbee on a separate device than HA. Firstly, when I reboot HA, I do not get weird startup errors if the USB hasn’t initialised before HA etc. Secondly, my HA is on a Proxmox HP micro server (in a LXC container) so whilst doable, USB passthrough can be a pain. Thirdly, my server is in a cabinet tucked away in a weird position in my house, so the conbee wouldn’t have a good signal - even on an extension cable. Lastly, I am treating the COnbee Pi as a hub and it is moveable if needed
I used Zigbee2MQTT for about a year and recently moved to the ConBee II & deCONZ.
I like the ConBee more and will be sticking with it. For reference, my Zigbee devices are 7 Xiaomi PIR sensors, 3 Xiaomi buttons, 3 Xiaomi door sensors, 2 Sylvania Under Cabinet lights, and 2 GE lamp dimmers.
Z2M worked just fine, however there were a few frustrations which led me to move.
The range of the CC2531 USB stick was bad. Really just abysmal. It could not reach devices in the next room, so I had 2 other CC2531s flashed as routers which worked and made the network 100% stable, but it was just annoying to need them.
As another user pointed out, you can use other coordinators for Z2M, and I even bought a CC2530 to be a better range coordinator, but never got around to setting it up before switching.
Dealing with the DIY coordinators and routers is a bit of a pain in the ass, and even something which should be simple like upgrading the coordinators FW had a special process which includes wrapping it in aluminum foil so it would be able to keep all previously paired devices.
Overall, ConBee is just a much much more polished product. Price isnt all that different either. The 3 CC3531s and a CC2530 I bought, plus the flashing hardware came to roughly $20-$30 and the ConBee II is only $38.
If I were making a recommendation to a friend just starting out, I would 100% recommend the ConBee.
I’m currently deciding between zigbee2MQTT and Conbee II
With Conbee, what recourse is available if you have an unsupported device? For example, I examined the compatibility list but could not find any devices made by LivingWise which are re-branded versions of Orvibo products
Is there a way for a user to add support for ‘unofficial’ devices or does one have to submit a request to Phoscon to include it in the next release (assuming they agree to do so)?
With zigbee2MQTT, there’s support for a few LivingWise/Orvibo devices (although they are absent from the list of supported devices and found in the Github repo). There’s also a means to add support for new devices (admittedly it requires a fair bit of experimentation and effort).
FWIW, if I proceed with zigbee2mqtt, my intention is to solder an SMA connector to it and install an antenna to improve its range.
The reason why I mention the LivingWise devices is because a local supplier is currently clearing them out with pricing below Xiaomi products (and shipping is 1-2 days, not 2+ weeks).
I think we all like to tinker (that is why we are here) and zigbee2mqtt is excellent. I just found deCONZ more polished, if more closed.
The supported sensors/lights are quite vast and the Conbee stick gives a lot better range. Even though the LivingWise sensors are cheaper at the moment, I would still tend to favour the Xiaomi as they are more widely used and work well in the general HA ecosystem. If something goes wrong, there are a lot more people around to help.
One thing I have learnt over the last 2 odd years of HA is to try to buy stuff for longevity, even if it costs a bit more to begin with. I have made a lot of expensive mistakes where I have gone down blind alleys
Very sound advice for any home automation stuff. Our homes are not like mobile phones. We don’t ditch them every 2 years for next big thing. Especially in countries like Australia (where I am) where DIY wiring is impossible to do legally and regulations are really strict, you want it to be a do one time properly type thing. It’s one thing to keep upgrading Home Assistant and playing with the software to make the brain of the home work, but sensors and switches, especially hard wired or in more difficult to reach places, you want to be long term and not have to be messed around with constantly.
Additionally, it is a home we are talking about. Ultimately you want to enjoy it as a home and not a science experiment. Well, I think that’s what most of us want
I like tech and to fiddle with some things. but ultimately if it doesnt have at least a 99% reliability for home automation, I would get frustrated with it and my partner would hate it if something didn’t work because a cheap or diy sensor that was experimental failed.
Nothing worse than being in a deep sleep and having your light come on at full brightness, or worse having Google Assistant yelling at you, because some dodgy sensor had a hissy fit.
