I was about to order a SLZB-06, but they were out of Stock. That one looks exactly what I want. I never really looked into NodeRed, but normalizing everything before using it makes sense. The SLZB-06 makes the Zigbee Network connections independent from any Servers and making everything going through MQTT makes you independent from any Software that has to communicate with the Devices. Sounds like a lot of flexibility and independence.
Matter and whether external connections are needed or not will be interesting to follow. My HA instance is internal only too, since it does nothing that needs me to access it over the internet. And Owntracks delivers to a separate MQTT instance that will have no internal devices. So my HA is shut off from the internet and I will pay attention to everything Smart Home I will buy, that it does not require an Internet connection too.
Thanks :-)
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?
May I ask what Gateway / Dongle you use? Oh and that weather station sounds interesting, if you happen to have a Manufacturer / Model for me I would like to read up on that too :-)
I am leaning towards MQTT too because of other solutions that already integrate into that. It looks like a great way to throw different Data into a single pool to make them accessible in the same way, no matter if it is a switch, temp sensor, Camera, GPS Data etc.
I am leaning more towards something that might be complex to set up, but has broader support and is future proof. And the latter one seems something that is not really clear for any of the current protocols. Maybe in 10 years things will have settled and everyone uses the same protocol, but who knows what it will be :-) I am leaning towards Zigbee2MQTT for now since my impression is that you are very flexible to do with MQTT. I already use MQTT for Frigate and Owntracks and if other devices put their stuff into MQTT I will I have a pretty open pool for all the data / actions, even if I switch from HA to something else in the future. I feel MQTT is here to stay for a while, but well… that could all be wrong, Haha!
Thanks for your input! MQTT is not an issue, I have Mosquitto running on both my installs (one with HA + Frigate on a remote location, the other one HA for me which is also used by Owntracks), so MQTT is not a problem. I will even set up a second one and connect them together to have 2 Brokers for the setup where I need Internet access (Owntracks) to MQTT and I do not want to share this MQTT instance with the devices for my home.
My impression about Matter was too that it is not “done” yet and device support is poor. On the other hand you read at every corner that it will be the future. This is why the SkyConnect Adapter looked very interesting to me at first, but since most of the features I would use now (Z2M probably, Docker compatibility) do not seem to work yet, or at least not reliably.
To be honest, I might have mixed something up reading up on all those standards. After researching a topic, my browser usually ends up having a hundred Tabs “just in case I need that information again” and honestly… in all that information I can not find it specifically. My consensus reading all that information was: “Make sure for each device you buy that it works with your specific gateway, even if it says it works with protocol X”.
Thank you very much, that was very helpful! I am leaning towards Zigbee2MQTT and it seems to be a good choice.
ZHA is out of question now, since how often I have to restart HA for updates, I am sure it would be annoying to me. My Mosquitto Instance however does not receive updates as frequent, so Z2M might be the better choice for me.
Could you tell me what kind of Bridge / Device / Dongle you use? I often read Conbee II**, but this is not on the recommended list for Z2M. On the other hand I am thinking about getting a Network only Gateway (there are some on the recommended list too), so I do not rely on a USB connection that needs to be mapped to a Docker Container. Having pure Network connections and independent devices sounds like a more stable solution. Also I assume having a Networked Gateway instead of a USB connected one would be independent of restarts from my Containers or even the host.
**Edit: It IS on the Recommended list, I just got confused because it is not listed on the USB section, but under Other :-)
Thank you! I suppose you use a USB Dongle or is ist some kind of stand-alone Gateway that sits in your LAN?
We use Reolink wired with PoE and recently switched from ZoneMinder + ZMNinja to Frigate + Home assistant and are very happy so far.
That is cool, thank you very much!