Hi everyone,
I am reading up on that topic for a few weeks now and the only conclusion I have so far is: There is nothing that works perfect and you need to check for each device if it works with your setup.
So I am asking about your experience so far, what you use, if you plan to change your setup (for what reason?) or what you would do different. Or do you use multiple gateways / protocols at the same time?
I run HA in Docker for a few things, but I have nothing connected yet via one of the protocols mentioned above. Yesterday I came across SkyConnect and thought I found the holy grail of dongles. Zigbee? Check. Zigbee2MQTT? Check. Matter? Check. But then looking at the details… Zigbee2MQTT is experimental and in a few review (although none was younger than 9 months) people report that it works unreliable. Matter support also is not there yet it seems. And to add insult to insury it seems that it officially does not work with a Dockerized HA setup.
So whenever I think I found “my” solution, there is something that does not seem to work, is unreliable or not compatible with all devices. I even ran across reports that said if a device Support Zigbee or MQTT it might still not work with your particular setup because… well… not everything that has a specific protocol stamped on the package seem to work in the same way.
So I feel like running in circles. I wanted to start with a few simple things like Temperature / Humidity sensors and Door sensors like for example the ones from Aqara. But if I throw money at someone my highest priority is reliability. So I want to go a route that (at this moment) is the most stable, reliable and future proof in your opinion.
So I am very curious about your setups and the experience you made with it :-)
I use zigbee2mqtt on a separate pi4 from home assistant specifically for it more central in my house with the sonoff zigbee 3 dongle with great success. The same pi actually has a zwave2mqtt instance on it with the conbee dongle, just make sure to use a powered USB hub on the pi for the radios, I always had flaky issues if the pi was powering it directly.
You can use a remote adapter with ZHA as well. See my guide.
Oh man, that’s a really slick idea, thanks for sharing! Have you tried it with zwave as well? Do you notice any delay in zigbee commands to the mesh at all?
I don’t run any zwave, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. I don’t notice any delays. Tbh things feel snappier and more reliable, but I was previously using like a 50 foot usb cable lol. I don’t think it would function any differently, in terms of stability, than zigbee2mqtt because Z2M actually uses ser2net as well to accomplish this.
Oh I didn’t know that, that’s cool, I’ll give it a whirl! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you! Regarding the Sonoff Zigbee 3 Dongle: I see it has an external Antenna. Did you need a USB extension cord too or is this interference problem other dongles seem to have with USB ports mitigated by the external Antenna?
So I couldn’t think of a short way to describe it without
so I just did that, the Pi is the one on the right side near the top with the red velcro and the radios are velcroed to the door on the left. I have cheaper extensions for both radios but that was more to keep it above the power strip because I was slightly concerned and make opening the door easier.
If your adapter isn’t like buried in a metal cabinet and you have one or two zigbee router devices (like a switch or a bulb) close by it will be fine I bet, give it a whirl. Those extensions are just cheap USB 2.0 cablematters extensions from Amazon.
I also apologize for the cable management hire, that location is in transition to different gear 😀
ETA: The other radio is the z-wave radio and I was wrong above, it’s the zooz radio, guess I forgot I upgraded it hah