[HN Gopher] Zigbee and Z-Wave are the best part of my smart home
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Zigbee and Z-Wave are the best part of my smart home
        
       Author : mfiguiere
       Score  : 132 points
       Date   : 2024-02-12 13:58 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
        
       | cqqxo4zV46cp wrote:
       | Amen to this. So many 'smart home' battles end up being WiFi
       | battles. Zigbee is itself not perfect, but I'd much prefer to
       | deal with Zigbee problems instead of propitiatory-protocol-and-
       | app-probably-using-a-cloud-service-over-WiFi problems any day of
       | the week.
        
         | wkat4242 wrote:
         | If you have a lot of it it's an ever ongoing war with empty
         | batteries and lost pairing though. Every week I have to fix
         | some switch, temperature or door sensor...
        
         | alright2565 wrote:
         | It's the opposite for me. I have so many problems with Zigbee
         | devices dropping off the mesh for no reason and batteries dying
         | in 1/10th the advertised time.
         | 
         | Meanwhile my ESPHome devices have never had any issue
         | whatsoever.
        
           | blagie wrote:
           | ESPHome is fine, but it's not representative of what people
           | mean by "wifi devices."
           | 
           | Most wifi devices require a proprietary app, sweep up your
           | data to some fly-by-night operation, stop working during an
           | internet outage, don't interoperate between vendors, "call
           | home," and yet never receive security updates.
           | 
           | Technically, it's 802.11, but by design, ESPHome is closer to
           | Zigbee with a different underlying interface (802.11 rather
           | than 802.15) than it is to most wifi devices. It's 100% open,
           | simple, documented, reliable, etc.
           | 
           | I'd be fine with wifi devices if they were ESPHome
           | underneath. Heck, I'd probably set up a separate network for
           | HomeAssistant and IoT.
           | 
           | To that point, one major upside of 802.15 over 802.11 is
           | battery life. I don't have any battery-powered 802.11
           | devices. It is possible to power zigbee devices from mains,
           | and on my to do list at some point is to move a few of them
           | from batteries to external power.
        
       | jwr wrote:
       | Incidentally, I am building my own lighting controllers, largely
       | because everything that is out there on the market sucks. Most
       | importantly, I didn't want any "online accounts" for managing my
       | devices, I didn't want to "agree to our privacy policy, your
       | privacy is important" and then share all of my data with a
       | company, and I didn't want anything that is Wi-Fi based.
       | 
       | I decided to go with Bluetooth Mesh and so far I'm really happy
       | with how it is designed and how it works. It hasn't seen much
       | adoption in the consumer space, being mostly used in industrial
       | settings -- indeed, its apparent complexity may seem baffling at
       | first. But if you start with a good implementation (Zephyr OS on
       | Nordic devices), it works very well.
        
         | iforgotpassword wrote:
         | I went with zigbee simply because there seems to be a ton of
         | devices available, and while many vendors try to build devices
         | that don't adhere to default messages so you'd have to use
         | their gateways that talk to the cloud, zigbee is simple enough
         | to reverse engineer the communication and add support in all
         | the open source ha solutions.
        
       | zehaeva wrote:
       | I'm very privacy forward with respect to my home networks. I run
       | a home zigbee network which does everything I want it to in the
       | home. Yes I can't turn the lights on and off from the other side
       | of the world, but neither can anyone else.
        
         | srmarm wrote:
         | There are still even ways to expose the zigbee stuff, I can
         | turn my zigbee lights on from the other side of the world and
         | even access it via Google Home but it's on _my_ terms and under
         | _my_ control. The actual switch itself is relatively dumb
         | (which is a positive in this case!)
         | 
         | (not to say you're doing it wrong btw, just to let others know
         | that zigbee can still be linked onwards to the internet from
         | the gateway)
        
         | marcus0x62 wrote:
         | Home Assistant (or, really, any local HA controller) plus a VPN
         | will allow you to control them from anywhere you have Internet
         | connectivity without exposing anything to a cloud-based
         | service.
        
           | Medox wrote:
           | Or a combination of HA + Telegram (bots) that will trigger
           | and respond to a /<command>, even with buttons.
           | 
           | Maybe less secure than a VPN connection (e.g. if somebody
           | gets control over the channel or bots instead of you/other
           | trusted members) and of course more finicky until the bot
           | works as desired, but always a nice party trick.
           | 
           | Or a combination of VPN for home-critical automations and
           | telegram bots for the simple/shared ones.
        
         | HumblyTossed wrote:
         | Between timers and motions sensors, I'm pretty much fully
         | covered. There just isn't a reason for me to turn something on
         | or off when I'm away.
        
       | santialbo wrote:
       | I'm running Zigbee2Mqtt on my Homeassistant and so far it's been
       | a very pleasant experience buying devices from different brands
       | without having to use each vendors app. The compatibility list is
       | gigantic https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/
        
         | rekoil wrote:
         | I've seen a lot of references to Zigbee2MQTT. If I'm going to
         | be using it through Home Assistant anyway, why should one
         | choose Zigbee2MQTT over say ZHA?
        
           | function_seven wrote:
           | I used to run ZHA on my Home Assistant setup, and switched to
           | Z2M a couple years ago.
           | 
           | At the time it had a longer list of supported devices, and
           | the UI for configuring them was better. It felt kind of
           | "dirty" to layer in yet another protocol (MQTT) between the
           | Zigbee side and the HA side, but it's worked great.
           | 
           | It could very well be that ZHA today is the same or even
           | better than Z2M, but at the time I made the switchover, there
           | was some device that I couldn't use with ZHA that Z2M
           | supported.
        
             | rekoil wrote:
             | I haven't really run across any devices that haven't
             | _worked_ in ZHA.
             | 
             | I did recently buy the latest generation of Philips Hue
             | Festavia string lights and Home Assistant (via ZHA) had no
             | clue how to set any of the scenes on it. I was able to use
             | the official app to set scenes via Bluetooth though, while
             | still being able to use ZHA to control power and
             | brightness.
             | 
             | I believe the product was released very near the Christmas
             | period though, so I'm sure it'll have full support in ZHA
             | by next year, might just bring em out early and do it
             | myself if nobody else has done it by then.
        
               | stavros wrote:
               | Same here, but with Z2M. Even some random, no-name, $20
               | thermostat works perfectly with Z2M, I can even set the
               | week's schedules easily.
        
           | wkat4242 wrote:
           | I prefer DeCONZ instead. It's got a really nice UI both the
           | web interface for the pairing and a great live network view
           | over VNC.
           | 
           | ZHA is much more bare bones. I didn't try the mqtt one but
           | I'm not so interested in something that uses mqtt in the
           | middle. Another thing that can break..
        
             | rusk wrote:
             | I was on deconz, but eventually migrated to Z2M due to
             | compatibility issues with some devices. It's a far better
             | experience to be honest. Haven't looked back!
        
           | iforgotpassword wrote:
           | I can second the sibling comment. I naively started out with
           | ZHA for less moving parts in December. Switched to mosquitto
           | and z2m a week ago because of one completely and one
           | partially unsupported device. It's more involved and if
           | something doesn't work you have to check two (three)
           | different places now, but it seems worth it.
        
           | santialbo wrote:
           | Another silly reason is that unlike ZHA, Z2M doesn't restart
           | everytime you restart HA.
        
             | rekoil wrote:
             | That's actually a lot more of an upside than it should
             | be...
        
           | zer00eyz wrote:
           | I like home assistant. There's tons of reasons to use it. You
           | get a lot of good enough moving parts out of the box.
           | 
           | MQTT is something you should set up ASAP. There are plenty of
           | reasons to set it up: ESPresnse is a big one (can't say
           | enough about this offering) AWTRIX is another, even if you
           | aren't going to integrate zigbee.
           | 
           | MQTT becomes a cheap and easy way to add data to, and
           | interact with home assistant. And, any device that
           | communicates over MQTT can be controlled by you (custom code,
           | dead easy) outside HA.
        
           | AHTERIX5000 wrote:
           | I used ZHA until I encountered devices ZHA didn't support or
           | the support was broken yet they worked with Zigbee2MQTT.
           | 
           | That said Zigbee2MQTT isn't without its problems, it's still
           | hobby-grade and not hard to crash with cheap and badly
           | behaving devices.
        
           | pavon wrote:
           | Another minor reason is that AFAIK ZHA has to run on the same
           | machine as Home Assistant, while Z2M can run on a different
           | machine, and is less resource intensive than all of HA. So
           | you can plug the zigbee coordinator usb dongle into a
           | centrally located OpenWRT router and run Z2M on it, while
           | your Home Assistant machine can be located anywhere that is
           | convenient.
        
       | marcus0x62 wrote:
       | I've run around 20 Zigbee and an equal number of Zwave devices
       | for several years. Zigbee is great. Zwave is terrible: despite
       | operating at a better frequency for a home environment (lots of
       | walls,) in my experience is has worse propagation, higher
       | latency, and an unreliable mesh topology that randomly breaks and
       | has to be manually repaired.
        
         | bliteben wrote:
         | What zwave devices have you been using? I have only used zwave
         | (leviton, ge) and have only had to restart a switch 2-3 times.
         | My biggest gripe with zwave was when home assistant switched
         | the supported plugin.
        
           | marcus0x62 wrote:
           | * GE/Jasco switches (the bulk of my devices, around 10
           | total.)
           | 
           | * GE/Jasco outdoor outlet controls
           | 
           | * Schlage motorized door locks
           | 
           | * Linear garage door controller
           | 
           | * Aeotec outlet control
           | 
           | * Aeotec repeater
           | 
           | * Aeotec temperature and humidity sensor
        
         | robalfonso wrote:
         | I've found that some people have great zigbee experiences and
         | terrible z-wave and just as many are the opposite. I chalk it
         | up to individual environments etc. Go with what works best from
         | you.
        
         | planb wrote:
         | Anecdote from the other side: my zwave devices just work for 8
         | years now, while there are times some zigbee devices just don't
         | respond. I suspect the zwave network is more stable because all
         | routers are powered all the time, while I have lots of zigbee
         | bulbs that are behind a real switch so they leave the network
         | if I turn the lights off. There seems like to be no way in
         | zigbee from preventing those devices to be used as routers.
        
           | iforgotpassword wrote:
           | I've read zigbee really doesn't like routers that aren't
           | available 24/7 so I'm planning on avoiding this.
        
           | yanellena wrote:
           | Yeah Zigbee routers need to be on all the time, if you turn
           | them off, other devices will start to form connections with
           | other mesh nodes and will fail unexpected when you flip the
           | switch back on.
        
         | somehnguy wrote:
         | Interesting, maybe your ZWave dongle is not the greatest? I
         | also run a mix of ZWave & Zigbee with their own appropriate
         | dongles plugged into my Home Assistant server and they've both
         | been great. No issues with devices dropping or needing to
         | manually repair anything.
         | 
         | For both I use a 6ft USB extension cable to mount the dongles
         | up on the wall behind my server instead of hanging out of the
         | USB port.
        
           | jauntywundrkind wrote:
           | There's also many generations of zwave specs. Everything is
           | backwards compatible but perhaps perhaps perhaps the presence
           | of older devices might slow down or degraded what newer
           | devices might otherwise be speaking.
        
           | marcus0x62 wrote:
           | It has been consistent across the following hubs/zwave
           | adapters:
           | 
           | Micasa Verde
           | 
           | Smart Things
           | 
           | Hubitat
           | 
           | Home Assistant with the Zooz Zwave radio.
        
       | malermeister wrote:
       | Zigbee and Z-Wave are the best, I agree. Inherently local-only,
       | so no cloud that sends your data god knows where and can be
       | turned off without any notice. A standard system, so you can buy
       | stuff from any manufacturer and be sure it works with your hub.
       | 
       | It's what smart home should be.
        
         | alistairSH wrote:
         | The only "catch" is if you want to use a voice assistant/smart
         | speaker, which is either built into the hub, or requires a
         | integration.
        
           | r2_pilot wrote:
           | I rolled my own several years ago with Voice Attack and
           | python
        
             | malermeister wrote:
             | rhasspy is a popular open source solution - I've used it
             | before, but I'm not sure if it's still in development
        
       | wlesieutre wrote:
       | What happens if your gateway dies and has to be replaced?
       | 
       | From what I've read, this _theoretically_ can be done, but in
       | practice you end up unlinking and migrating every device one by
       | one.
       | 
       | But it's been a few years since I looked into it, maybe someone
       | has made improvements? Otherwise, this is a huge advantage of
       | wifi-based smarthome devices.
        
         | LeafItAlone wrote:
         | I just replaced my Ikea hub (changed from Tradfri to Dirigera).
         | It was annoying to do, but not hard. Took about ~90 seconds for
         | each device. I did them individually, but I could have done
         | them in parallel to speed it up.
         | 
         | Not something I want to do once a month, but once every two
         | years is "reasonable" (compared to non-smart home items).
        
         | Klathmon wrote:
         | So for zigbee this is very possible and I've recently done it
         | multiple times without any issues whatsoever.
         | 
         | I used to use a ConbeeII as my zigbee coordinator, but my
         | server rack is located at an awful position in the house for
         | coverage, so I picked up a TubeZB PoE EFR32 based coordinator
         | [1] which has been incredible! I use home assistant, and it was
         | trivial to backup the network, unplug the ConbeeII, put in the
         | IP address of the new coordinator, and import the backup there
         | and everything just continued to work.
         | 
         | Then I had that die, it was actually the PoE portion which
         | died, so I did the reverse and transferred everything back to
         | my ConbeeII while I diagnosed and fixed it, then when it was
         | fixed transferred everything back to the TubeZB coordinator.
         | 
         | It actually took longer to get the IP address assigned on the
         | TubeZB coordinator than it did to transfer my network each
         | time, it was incredibly simple.
         | 
         | I'm not sure for z-wave though. I do use it, but I've never had
         | a z-wave gateway die on me, or had any reason to replace it
         | where I wasn't also moving or something.
         | 
         | [1] https://tubeszb.com/product/efr32-mgm21-poe-coordinator/
        
           | wlesieutre wrote:
           | Good to know! One of the more specific things I was wondering
           | is that when you relinked everything if HA would forget
           | what's what or if it would hook the devices back up to all
           | their automations afterward.
           | 
           | I have some Hue bulbs which are Zigbee, but I've been
           | considering getting out of Hue's ecosystem for controlling
           | them.
        
             | Klathmon wrote:
             | The names seemed to reset for some of my zigbee devices
             | (interestingly not all of them, just some of them, it's
             | likely something else going on and unrelated but I don't
             | know for sure), but they still work in their original
             | automations and in my UI everywhere that I have them.
        
         | mannyv wrote:
         | I believe the re-pair process is a side effect of how security
         | was implemented. I also heard it was technically possible to
         | migrate without pairing, but i think right now it's between
         | hubs from the same manufacturer. It's been years since i
         | checked.
        
         | alistairSH wrote:
         | Zwave devices definitely seem to be "sticky" - you have to
         | unpair/pair each device. At least that's been my experience
         | using Zwave with a Smartthings hub.
        
       | ab_goat wrote:
       | I've been using Z-wave devices since 2017 for the following:
       | 
       | 1. Dimmer lighting 2. Door sensors 3. Relays to customize radiant
       | flooring better than thermostats 4. Seasonal lighting (outdoor
       | string lights/Christmas tree) 5. Thermostat
       | 
       | Overall it's been a good experience, however I think the
       | SmartThings app is a pain in the butt and should be a much better
       | experience.
        
       | edude03 wrote:
       | (I've been running home automation stuff for ~10 years now but) I
       | am little surprised the author thought wifi/bluetooth would be
       | better than technology made specifically for (home?) automation.
       | To me meshing is a natural fit for interconnecting devices all
       | around the house vs the hub and spoke model that wifi has.
       | 
       | Furthermore, I (read) and kind of disagree that thread/matter is
       | a mess, but I'm coming from the point of view of an engineer who
       | is keenly interested in home automation tech; for the typical
       | consumer that's probably a fair take.
        
         | agloe_dreams wrote:
         | Thread and matter are a mess from both technical and consumer
         | angles. Yes, they are both good technologies...but the players
         | in the hub space have made an utter mess of it if you have
         | multiple hubs or, like most Americans, use an iPhone but have
         | Nest or Echo devices. Then you have the lack of adoption of
         | thread in general. And finally, Matter support being always 6
         | months away for everything or just straight up not working. It
         | is mind blowing to me that it was easier for me to set up my
         | Wiz bulbs to work in Homekit via HA than to get them to
         | actually frickin work over Matter...seeing as the Matter logo
         | was on the box when I bought them.
         | 
         | Honestly, I'm kinda shocked that no hub company has shipped a
         | Cheap Zwave/Zigbee integrated HA hub. Sure you have HA Green
         | and Yellow and all that, but you could get that price way down
         | with a simple partnership and purpose built hardware that is
         | elegant.
        
           | Xelynega wrote:
           | I think an integrated hub would be a bit extra tbh.
           | 
           | Amazon sells a coordinator usb for $20, so pair that with
           | anything that can rub home assistant(raspi, ha green/yellow,
           | old laptop, etc.) and you have a ZigBee hub that's plug and
           | play for ZHA and Z2M.
        
           | edude03 wrote:
           | Yeah, not having a way to share keys between thread networks
           | I think is the biggest technical challenge for the user/user
           | experience. Home Assistant for example is able to import keys
           | from an iOS device using its app and join a HomeKit thread
           | network, but I don't know if that approach is scalable.
           | 
           | > Cheap Zwave/Zigbee integrated HA hub
           | 
           | The ikea Dirigera and smartthings hub have great HA support
           | from what I understand, I'm not sure what'd it take to get
           | the HA logo slapped on the box and have them officially
           | supported though
        
         | Xelynega wrote:
         | I haven't looked too much into thread/matter, but my
         | understanding of them has been basically this:
         | https://xkcd.com/927/
         | 
         | I shudder at the idea of ipv6 addresses for my lightbulbs.
        
           | edude03 wrote:
           | From what I understand the benefit of ip addressing for IoT
           | things is that apps on your phone (for example) can
           | communicate with them directly, ignoring the underlying
           | transport (and therefore, no need to have a thread radio in
           | your phone for the manufacturer specific app to work)
           | 
           | I've always found that the most reliable combination is the
           | Manufacturers app + hub + IoT devices (for example all Aqara
           | or all Nest or all Hue) and interop hasn't worked great
           | because there are special features that only work with the
           | app made for the device (which again, only works with that
           | manufacturers hub) so thread should fix that by making the
           | hub just a dumb Zigbee to IPv6 adapter.
        
             | tremon wrote:
             | _the most reliable combination is the Manufacturers app +
             | hub + IoT devices_
             | 
             | This means that the standard has failed to be an actual
             | Standard, and thread/matter really is a big mess.
        
       | bombcar wrote:
       | The main thing I've learned from this smarthome stuff is make
       | sure your light switches also work when damn near everything but
       | the power itself is off.
       | 
       | Really annoying not being able to turn the lights on or off
       | because something (doesn't matter what) is not cooperating on a
       | software level.
        
         | Avamander wrote:
         | Yea, the behaviour I want is always just to enhance not
         | replace.
         | 
         | This is why I dislike smart bulbs with dumb switches and
         | similar bad combos. Smart home appliances shouldn't hide any
         | features behind an app either. But every manufacturer has
         | perverse incentives to push their apps.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | Things have regressed - the older Hue stuff could have
           | switches that had no batteries (pressing the button generated
           | enough electricity to send the signal) and they could
           | communicate directly with the gateway _or even the bulbs_.
           | 
           | Now everything is wifi or bluetooth and it sucks.
           | 
           | Five years ago I would have designed a new house entirely
           | around these things; now it would be so old-fashioned it
           | wouldn't look out of place in the 1950s.
        
             | xrd wrote:
             | Yes, it is insane how these things work. We bought a 60s
             | house which presumably had bad wiring. The sellers elected
             | to use "smart bulbs" and "smart switches" for everything to
             | probably save money on the rewiring cost.
             | 
             | The thing you never realize, is that for each extra
             | communication protocol and endpoint you add, you need to
             | then troubleshoot across all the permutations.
             | 
             | So, if you are only using a wire to connect to another
             | wire, there is only one path that can fail, the wire
             | between them. Electricians are good at troubleshooting
             | that.
             | 
             | If you add a wifi access point, and a smart bulb router (or
             | whatever the fuck it is) and then you add a wifi extender,
             | when things fail, which path did it take when it failed, or
             | when it worked? The permutations you need to troubleshoot
             | are suddenly an N^4 problem. Get your graph theory
             | textbooks out and study up on the traveling salesman
             | problem.
             | 
             | That's why we have had electricians come by who cannot
             | figure out why when we push the wifi light dimmer button in
             | one bedroom, that the other bedroom lights turn off. It
             | just started happening a few months back. It's absolutely
             | maddening.
             | 
             | All these smart devices are awful. As a related aside, our
             | Amazon Ring devices no longer allow you to connect to their
             | wifi with the Amazon Ring app, and we have a bunch of
             | cameras that are dead once the power goes off. Used to be
             | you could just join their temp wifi connection, register
             | the device on the home wifi, and go. They turned that off.
             | Now, they all say you need to get the QR code, but we
             | cannot find that on the devices, so they are bricked. I'm
             | sure this is because probably someone found an open wifi
             | Ring camera, added it using their phone when they walked
             | by, and spied on the family. But, I don't really care, I
             | just know cameras are sitting there unusable by me, until
             | some hacker walks by and figures out how to register them.
             | I won't be spending anymore money on Amazon cameras, but
             | I'm sure Amazon would be happy to have me just buy new
             | ones.
        
         | WirelessGigabit wrote:
         | I have one place like this. There is no connection from the
         | switch to the lightbulb. If the network is down, no lights.
         | 
         | I have some TP-link press-switches (so no on-off, just press to
         | invert state), and they work amazing.
         | 
         | They work when the network is down. And you can read the state.
         | Even if you turn off the network, flip the state, and turn it
         | back on, it works correctly.
        
           | doubled112 wrote:
           | > I have some TP-link press-switches (so no on-off, just
           | press to invert state), and they work amazing.
           | 
           | I just bought a 2 plug smart plug and this was a major
           | selling feature.
           | 
           | What happens if I'm standing there and I don't have a device
           | on me? I just press the button like I would anyway.
        
         | devnulll wrote:
         | The key engineering point here is about failure modes. If the
         | failure mode is a brick, then the engineering and design team
         | behind that switch has failed.
         | 
         | The failure mode for a smart switch needs to be a "classic"
         | switch. This applies equally to garage door openers, showers,
         | door locks, and the rest of the smart devices.
         | 
         | Note: I'll give a bit of a pass to smart window blinds as a
         | selling point is lack of strings and cables and the therefore
         | look cleaner.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | It's like the failure mode of elevators vs escalators - the
           | elevator fails and it's useless, the escalator fails and it's
           | just a flight of stairs.
        
             | AlexandrB wrote:
             | Not necessarily so. (Warning, video of a bunch of people
             | getting injured): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qE2Lv-t9BHk
        
         | bradhanson wrote:
         | Check out the Shelly products. They use local control of a
         | relay using standard switching hardware, so if your network is
         | broken the lights still work as normal. Technically the switch
         | isn't actually switching the power so there's _some_ element of
         | electronics between you and mains power, but it's close enough
         | for me.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | I've started using these switches:
           | https://assets.lutron.com/a/documents/369987_eng.pdf as they
           | work fine with the network off.
           | 
           | Amusingly enough the failed Best Buy product line still work
           | great with Apple HomeKit (and manually) - even though they
           | discontinued the cloud service and refunded all purchases as
           | gift cards.
        
         | eddieroger wrote:
         | I went with Lutron Caseta switches (though they're not the only
         | ones that do this) for that reason. When all else fails, they
         | are just dimmers and remotes that talk to said dimmer. When I
         | want them to be more than that, they work with HomeKit and Home
         | Assistant just great. But Lutron is a switch company first and
         | foremost, and that shows in these switches. They surpass the
         | Partner Acceptance Factor.
         | 
         | I'd add to your advice and say "do as much as you can to keep
         | the experience vanilla," which in this case means standard
         | fixtures and bulbs, just replacing the switches. For the price
         | of half of one Hue bulb, my whole fixture is smart now, and I
         | can still use whatever bulb I want.
        
           | ydant wrote:
           | Have you found LED bulbs that dim nicely with the Caseta?
           | 
           | It's been a few years since I've tried, but in the past I
           | went through so many bulbs that whine when dimming that I
           | gave up and put in smart bulbs where I can conceivably hear
           | the bulb. Which means I've got switches that don't work
           | properly if the hub is down.
           | 
           | I love the Caseta otherwise. We use it for recessed cans and
           | the whine is just not quite noticeable. But, e.g. over my bed
           | it's very noticeable. Maybe newer models of Caseta solved
           | something and the bulbs aren't the solution?
        
             | bombcar wrote:
             | Dimming is _always_ the problem. I 'm so fed up with bulbs
             | in general that I may next time just wire multiple bulb-
             | holders instead of one in each area.
             | 
             | The dimmable room that is working "best" is the one where
             | everything is Hue and controlled "together" but it has
             | issues when the Internet is down. The push-button switch
             | they no longer make works decently well even then
             | (sometimes): https://meethue.co/products/philips-hue-tap/
        
         | WorldMaker wrote:
         | Related to this, I still think think the original version of
         | the Hue Tap switch was clever and I'm still surprised didn't
         | have more clones and didn't entirely survive the internal
         | revision wars/external protocol wars: the original didn't use a
         | disposable "button" battery and instead used mechanical energy
         | of pushing the button to power sending the Zigbee signal. It
         | takes more force than a regular light switch to hit it with
         | enough physical power, but it's also kind of satisfying in the
         | way a mechanical keyboard button can be or a big chonky "snooze
         | button" that you kind of want to smack with some force anyway.
         | 
         | I've heard it said that sort of mechanical powered switch with
         | Thread/Matter is much harder, except with these old existing
         | ones in bridges with old Zigbee compatibility, and more's the
         | pity. It still seems such a good idea to me, one less battery
         | to waste/go bad at exactly the wrong time.
        
           | bombcar wrote:
           | It was a phenomenally amazing idea, and I'm really sad it was
           | discontinued. When I realized how it did the magic, it almost
           | singly-handedly sold me on Hue (their stupid upcoming app
           | account requirement unsold me, let me tell you).
        
             | WorldMaker wrote:
             | Yeah, I'm not thrilled about that account "requirement
             | change" either. To be fair, for various different reasons
             | over the years, I've used third party apps a lot more than
             | the main Hue apps, so this may just be a push to switch
             | back to third party apps again and/or finally upgrade from
             | a Hue-only bridge to something like Apple Home Hub, which
             | I'd been considering lately anyway because Apple HomeKey
             | sounds like something useful to me (I'm less likely to
             | forget my watch than my keys these days).
        
       | otterley wrote:
       | I would very much like to adopt Zigbee at home since it has the
       | privacy and reliability features I want. The problem is the
       | market: there just aren't enough equipment options out there, and
       | the few that are available are nontrivial to acquire (and who
       | knows how long the vendors will survive). Sure, I can get some
       | light switches, but not at my local home supply. And light
       | switches are just one type of controller. I've got shades, door
       | locks, thermostats, and more. The choices are so few. Sure, maybe
       | an example exists, but if I don't like the ergonomics or style,
       | well, too bad. It's like shopping in the former Soviet Union.
        
       | joshstrange wrote:
       | This is the advice I give everyone who is interested in smart
       | home stuff: Pick Zigbee or Z-Wave and only buy that type of
       | product, WiFi is trash.
       | 
       | I'm not super keen on Thread/Matter seeing how one of its goal
       | seems to be allowing your devices access to the internet which is
       | the exact opposite of what I want. I want my devices to be dumb,
       | only able to talk to the hub, and then the hub can optionally run
       | some code to connect outside the network if and when I decide.
       | 
       | The best part about my Z-Wave setup is every manufacturer can go
       | out of business and I won't even notice. That's a stark
       | difference to something WiFi based which almost always requires a
       | cloud component. I understand why people start with WiFi devices,
       | they don't need a hub, but having a local hub is the best way to
       | do anything "smart home" by far. Personally I use Home Assistant
       | but before that I used SmartThings and liked it well enough.
        
         | bryanlarsen wrote:
         | Thread is based on Zigbee. It functions fine without the
         | internet.
        
           | abollaert wrote:
           | I thought both Thread and Zigbee run on top of IEEE802.15.4,
           | but Thread is based on 6LoWPAN / IPv6 where Zigbee uses its
           | own network layer. But Thread idd functions fine without the
           | internet (although you probably could connect devices to the
           | internet if you'd want to).
        
             | ianburrell wrote:
             | Also important is that Zigbee is both the transport
             | protocol and multiple home automational protocols. Zigbee
             | compatibility is pretty good with the same protocol but not
             | across different protocols.
             | 
             | Thread is a transport protocol for Matter home automation
             | protocol. Matter is complex because it tries to do
             | everything in one protocol.
        
           | vineyardmike wrote:
           | Thread is based on Zigbee in the sense that the thread
           | designers read papers about the Zigbee spec. Also matter is
           | partially based on Zigbee with its use of Zigbee clusters
           | (deep in the stack, away from end users).
           | 
           | Zigbee and thread are different protocols and incompatible.
           | You cannot mix them and that's what most people are about.
        
         | ashman5 wrote:
         | I use both and both work well. There a pos/negs to both, Zigbee
         | tends to be cheaper, but there is a complete lack of dimmer
         | plugs.
        
           | somehnguy wrote:
           | I use both as well and see no reason to pick only one or the
           | other. The USB stick hubs are very cheap and Home Assistant
           | does all the heavy lifting seamlessly. Having both gives me
           | pretty much unlimited flexibility.
           | 
           | For devices I usually pick whatever standard has the device I
           | want at a more reasonable price or is on sale. So far I've
           | yet to run into a scenario where I wish I had chosen the
           | other standard for a specific device.
           | 
           | I also have a ton of devices on WiFi via Esphome on both
           | esp8266 & esp32. Fantastic project, years of them running
           | completely trouble free.
        
           | happymellon wrote:
           | I have dimmer switches, and I only have Zigbee.
           | 
           | Candeo are pretty reliable.
        
         | bradgessler wrote:
         | There's really good WiFi smart home hardware out there, like
         | anything Leviton ships I'd recommend. There's also a lot of
         | crap out there too.
         | 
         | I think the ideal smart home device can connect to the internet
         | to check for updates either when I manually want to update it
         | or setup an auto update schedule. An account should NOT be
         | required, which sadly lots of smart home hardware requires.
        
         | ssl-3 wrote:
         | But reality seems to be more nuanced than that:
         | 
         | Matter devices can be "dumb". They're intended to be able to
         | work without Internet. Matter uses IP, and Thread provides
         | IPV6, but that doesn't mean that either thing needs to be able
         | to talk to the WAN.
         | 
         | Wifi devices can also be "dumb". For example: I have ESPHome
         | devices that Just Work and that don't have any outside
         | connectivity.
         | 
         | I don't advise anyone who asks me about smart home stuff. I'll
         | tell them some about what I'm doing in my own home, and answer
         | any questions they have accurately, but their eyes glaze over
         | when they hear phrases like Zigbee or MQTT, and they've
         | completely stopped listening by the time something like Home
         | Assistant comes 'round.
         | 
         | I don't know that Matter and/or Thread will make anything
         | better or more secure by default. The Matter 1.0 spec is only a
         | year and a half old and it isn't clear at all how
         | implementation is going to wind up being shaped in the real
         | world.
         | 
         | But they _can_ improve things and I hope that they will.
        
         | windows2020 wrote:
         | There are some fantastic products (LIFX, Twinkly) that are WiFi
         | and don't require the cloud. Zigbee falls apart when
         | controlling a large number of devices in real-time.
        
         | billfor wrote:
         | I've used Tasmota with Wi-Fi and mqtt and it works great.
        
         | Lendal wrote:
         | I use Hubitat but everything is Z-wave except for one Alexa-
         | only bulb, which was a gift so I can't get rid of it.
         | 
         | What I've learned is that smart wall switches of all types are
         | still too failure-prone for me. Now I'm converting back to
         | standard wall switches with Z-wave relays wired in behind them.
         | I don't like the extra lag they have, but I do like that
         | standard wall switches last forever compared to smart wall
         | switches.
         | 
         | If anyone knows how to reduce the lag, I'm all ears. The switch
         | operates the relay which sends its signal to the hub, which
         | then sends a signal back for the light to turn on. This process
         | introduces a noticeable time delay between the switch closing
         | and the light coming on.
        
         | CharlesW wrote:
         | > _I 'm not super keen on Thread/Matter seeing how one of its
         | goal seems to be allowing your devices access to the internet
         | which is the exact opposite of what I want._
         | 
         | Happily, that's not a goal and definitely not a requirement.
         | Thread/Matter work great without internet access unless you use
         | them via a platform which does (e.g. Alexa).
        
           | vineyardmike wrote:
           | Most commercial platforms, which people will realistically
           | use, are border routers. IP routers with internet access.
           | 
           | Beyond that, the protocol allows for logs to be uploaded to
           | your ecosystem of choice, and allows for OTA installation of
           | software updates.
           | 
           | Internet access is not a requirement for protocol, but
           | neither is any other part of the modern "networked software"
           | stack. Good luck with your internet-disabled SMTP server.
        
         | aeturnum wrote:
         | I think your attitude is almost exactly right but I will add:
         | you can pick both. The two ecosystems don't really step on each
         | others' toes and as long as you find a hub(s) to feed a single
         | view there are basically no downsides.
        
           | vanviegen wrote:
           | I can think of two downsides:
           | 
           | - Harder to get coverage. Both zigbee and zwave use mains
           | powered devices (like light bulbs) as signal relays for other
           | devices. If you're using both, you need to ensure proper
           | coverage for both networks.
           | 
           | - No protocol native groups and scenes. At least zigbee
           | allows you to set any number of bulbs to a certain scene
           | using a single fast broadcast command. When using something
           | like Home Assistant to unify both networks, recalling a scene
           | will cause each individual bulb to be sent a separate
           | command, which can be sloooow when you have many bulbs in one
           | room.
        
         | rootusrootus wrote:
         | In my experience it's more nuanced. Some of my most unreliable
         | devices are Zigbee (but they're also Aqara, and that may well
         | be the real problem there). My Z-Wave devices have been pretty
         | solid once configured, but they were also some of the most
         | finicky to get paired up and on the network. My WiFi switches
         | have been rock steady, not a single problem.
        
           | stavros wrote:
           | I got a Sonoff Zigbee USB dongle to use with Zigbee2MQTT and
           | it's been bulletproof. It even managed to upgrade my finicky
           | IKEA Zigbee devices to rock-solid firmware versions.
        
             | 35mm wrote:
             | I can also vouch for the Sonoff
        
         | JshWright wrote:
         | If you're using 2.4GHz WiFi, then consider Z-Wave. It's a
         | little pricier, but doesn't use the same chunk of RF spectrum
         | (so won't cause interference).
        
         | 35mm wrote:
         | Also wifi devices always seem to want a special app or account
         | registration first, whereas with Zigbee you just allow new
         | devices and then turn on your new device.
        
         | zamalek wrote:
         | > Pick Zigbee or Z-Wave
         | 
         | Picking both is fine. Zigbee is significantly cheaper, but you
         | have to make sure that the device is interoperable (Ecobee is a
         | good example of a manufacturer to avoid - Zigbee
         | interoperability _is optional_ ). If not, that's where Z-Wave
         | steps in. Having an "off-brand" Zigbee adapter is a good
         | bullshit force field. I use the Aoetec USB for Z-Wave and the
         | Sonoff USB for Zigbee. Both are incredibly interoperability
         | conscious, so I have no problem supporting them (I also have a
         | lot of Zooz devices, who are equally awesome).
         | 
         | All the WiFi devices went to Goodwill.
        
         | SI_Rob wrote:
         | Shelly's WiFi devices are all fairly cloud-optional - you can
         | completely disconnect the internet and they will all work with
         | Home Assistant just fine. Still, I'm not as excited about them
         | as I used to be (mainly due to realizing there's a ton of cool-
         | looking I/O flexibility they have that ends up being redundant
         | once you settle on a control plane for wifi - MQTT in my case),
         | and because their exposure of features and properties is
         | somewhat inconsistent across device families.
         | 
         | But as a way to unburden your (usually one and only) Zigbee
         | channel from certain types of chatty messaging, such as high-
         | accuracy presence sending or complex lighting curve adjustments
         | that can't be done ergonomically (or at all) via Zigbee, they
         | are invaluable. Wifi (jailed in a VLAN, if you like) also
         | provides a layer of failure protection should your Zigbee
         | coordinator die unexpectedly.
        
         | magicalhippo wrote:
         | That was my approach as well when I invested some years ago in
         | various dimmers, heater controllers and such.
         | 
         | One positive with Z-wave is that fallback is built into the
         | protocol. So the switches can talk directly to the appropriate
         | dimmer if the controller is down, for example.
        
       | CharlesW wrote:
       | For people who haven't started their smart home project, my
       | advice is to focus on Thread and Matter. Regardless of growing
       | pains, Thread and Matter work today, have momentum, and are
       | clearly the future.
       | 
       | (Note: The negative article the author linked to under "Matter
       | and Thread are a big mess" to support his position was written by
       | the same person.)
       | 
       | Z-Wave was a pre-IP proprietary standard that was forced towards
       | standardization (Z-Wave Alliance remains a gatekeeper), but its
       | future is unclear at best. Thread and Matter are the spiritual
       | descendants of Zigbee, all of which are based on IEEE 802.15.4.
       | 
       | Also, I've seen posts praising the old protocols because they
       | allow local control, but those concerns are unrelated. Alexa
       | supports Thread and Matter but does _not_ support local control,
       | while HA and HomeKit support Thread and Matter and _do_ support
       | local control.
        
         | dm_me_dogs wrote:
         | HomeKit-over-Thread and Matter-over-Thread has been pretty okay
         | in my experience, using HomePods and an Apple TV 4K as the
         | border routers. I'm using Home Assistant, and the HomePods
         | control everything nicely. Setup is a little weird (you have to
         | set up your devices in HomeKit first, remove and then add again
         | in Home Assistant without resetting) but they work great. My
         | only complaint is that HomePod Software and tvOS updates tend
         | to bork the devices until I reboot HA, but that takes 10 ish
         | seconds so not a big deal.
        
         | santialbo wrote:
         | I tried that and gave up. Get ready to spend a lot of moeny,
         | sensors and devices are still very expensive compared to the ZB
         | counterparts. Most Matter devices go with Wifi rather than
         | Thread which makes your wifi network implode if you plan on
         | installing a large number of them. For that reason I decided to
         | go with what's cheap and works today, which is Zigbee.
        
           | CharlesW wrote:
           | > _I tried that and gave up. Get ready to spend a lot of
           | moeny, sensors and devices are still very expensive compared
           | to the ZB counterparts._
           | 
           | When you compare apples-to-apples, there's no price penalty
           | -- for example, a Leviton Decora smart dimmer is $56 for
           | Zigbee or $50 for Matter. Kasa's Matter dimmer switch is $27,
           | and I see $3 Matter devices on AliExpress. Matter and Thread
           | don't currently match Zigbee in terms of device diversity,
           | but that's just a matter of time.
           | 
           | > _Most Matter devices go with Wifi rather than Thread which
           | makes your wifi network implode if you plan on installing a
           | large number of them._
           | 
           | Even hundreds of Matter devices using Wi-Fi would
           | collectively use an insignificant portion of your Wi-Fi
           | network's throughput.
        
             | santialbo wrote:
             | Try having more that 40-50 devices connected to your home
             | router and you will see devices disconnecting randomly
             | because your router can't keep up with them.
        
               | CharlesW wrote:
               | I have more than that on my ordinary consumer router and
               | have never seen a problem. Worst case, it'd be
               | straightforward to dedicate a Wi-Fi router to your smart
               | devices in the same way that you have a hub (and possibly
               | repeaters) for your Zigbee devices.
        
         | ex3ndr wrote:
         | That is a super bad advice: most of the matter stuff simply
         | unstable, very few devices. Apple's support is also subpar and
         | unstable.
        
           | CharlesW wrote:
           | Yeah, I can't relate to that at all. My Matter devices are
           | more reliable than what they replaced (mostly switches and
           | dimmers so far), and HomeKit support has "just worked".
           | Matter's a 16-month-old baby, though, so YMMV.
        
         | ars wrote:
         | This is very bad advice. You should do the opposite of that.
         | Buy Z-Wave devices and use them. They just work.
         | 
         | Later, your Hub will add Tread/Matter support and you can do
         | that too, but right now it's not worth the trouble.
        
       | hiddencost wrote:
       | I've been using zigbee for industrial applications.
       | 
       | The security angle is particularly appreciated by a factory that
       | wants to control their vents from one button without running tons
       | of copper wiring. They're not going to put that on their network.
        
         | apapapa wrote:
         | If their only worry is using less copper, I am worried.
        
       | sdflhasjd wrote:
       | When I started I had a good mix of all 3 (WiFi, Zigbee & Z-wave).
       | 5 years layer, everything's slowly been absorbed into Zigbee.
       | WiFi isn't a mesh network, so there's extremities with poor
       | reliability. Z-wave just seemed to suffer from poor device
       | availability, and everything turned out to be more expensive with
       | no real benefit.
       | 
       | Also, one other thing to mention with WiFi and Bluetooth is how
       | it's basically a massive red flag, a stamp of "hey, this device
       | needs our shit app to use."
       | 
       | It's just a shame there's no Zigbee ESP32 equivalent for all my
       | hobby bits.
        
         | shellfishgene wrote:
         | There is [1], but it's not open source and 'advanced'
         | functions, like battery operation, cost money. Also this [2]
         | project is promising, but in the early stages I think. Also I
         | guess newer ESP32 support zigbee in principle, there is some
         | discussion of adding this to ESPHome.
         | 
         | [1] https://ptvo.info/zigbee-configurable-firmware-features/
         | [2] https://github.com/ffenix113/zigbee_home
        
       | sitzkrieg wrote:
       | becoming more and more impressed at the number of devices being
       | crammed into each home clogging up the already decimated ism
       | bands
        
       | mlichvar wrote:
       | My current understanding of the wireless technologies wrt to home
       | automation:
       | 
       | - wifi is most reliable, secure, easiest to debug, but usable
       | only for mains-powered devices due to higher energy consumption
       | 
       | - bluetooth LE has lowest energy consumption, best for unreliable
       | broadcasting of data (e.g. temperature sensors), but has shorter
       | range
       | 
       | - zigbee is best for battery-powered devices where reliable
       | communication is needed and is initiated by the device (e.g.
       | switch, window/door sensor)
       | 
       | - zwave is best for battery-powered devices which need to quickly
       | receive data (e.g. door lock or directly controller radiator
       | valves), but security seems problematic according to some reports
        
         | santialbo wrote:
         | Add to wifi that if you plan on having a lot of devices your
         | router might commit seppuku.
         | 
         | Zigbee can hold hundreds of devices (as long a you have zb
         | routers in your mesh)
        
         | burnerthrow008 wrote:
         | Regardless of theory, my experience has been that WiFi
         | communications are significantly less reliable than Zigbee or
         | BLE, and typically have worse latency to boot.
         | 
         | Unless you have a bunch of WiFi APs around your house,
         | practical range with Zigbee is also better than WiFi because
         | powered Zigbee nodes (like lightbulbs and switched outlets) act
         | as mesh routers.
         | 
         | One additional benefit of Zigbee and Wave is the possibility of
         | creating battery-less devices, like the Philips Hue Tap switch,
         | which uses a hammer and piezoelectric generator for power.
        
       | anonuser1234 wrote:
       | I actually went down the zigbee rabbit hole with my house last
       | week. I tried the best selling zigbee motion sensors on amazon,
       | however, they only worked within line of sight of the zigbee
       | antenna. I then tried the Phillips hue motion sensors. They
       | worked flawlessly throughout my home.
        
       | devonkim wrote:
       | One thing I found a bit unsettling about some products is how
       | manufacturers can say they support a standard when they're really
       | using it as a basis for a proprietary lock-in strategy. I didn't
       | realize the standards were so loose until I started researching
       | some newer devices to support Home Assistant, namely the Aqara
       | U100 which seems to require the Aqara hub to be able to support
       | standard Zigbee when it's advertised as supporting Zigbee
       | 
       | https://community.home-assistant.io/t/aqara-u100-smart-lock/...
        
         | yurishimo wrote:
         | Is this true of Zwave? From what I understood, one of the
         | reasons that zwave devices are substantially more expensive, is
         | that the licensing and certification requirements are much more
         | strict. There also isn't a "first party" zwave hub that I can
         | find. The Zwave alliance seems to only deal with the protocol
         | and licensing, thus, any hub that claims to support zwave, will
         | work with any zwave device.
        
           | organsnyder wrote:
           | That's been my experience so far. I have ~20 Z-wave devices
           | from a variety of manufacturers. They all work very well with
           | Home Assistant, and many of them now support firmware
           | updating directly through HA as well.
        
           | gh02t wrote:
           | No. Loosely speaking, Zwave pretty strictly defines a list of
           | device types (lightbulb, thermometer, etc) and supported
           | formats for read/writes to it by device type (turn on/off,
           | reports temperature,...). The API to handle those is then
           | standardized, and the device manufacturer just fills in the
           | code to implement the calls appropriate to the device.
           | Devices are more-or-less "self-describing."
           | 
           | Baseline Zigbee is a bit more freeform (it's not solely a
           | home automation protocol) and is a transport for whatever
           | data format manufacturers want to send, with devices
           | implementing their own details on top. Later on there was an
           | attempt to standardize the communication format for home
           | automation similar to how Zwave works and it was somewhat
           | successful, but manufacturers still have a bad habit of
           | having deviations and quirks. The standard is also not as
           | rigidly enforced like it is with Zwave.
           | 
           | Again this is all simplified and there's more nuance but
           | that's generally the breakdown. Practically speaking you'll
           | have more consistency with Zwave devices, but nowadays Zigbee
           | devices have a lot more variety. Support for (and quality of
           | support for) new devices in Zigbee _can_ be a bit more hit-
           | or-miss, but it 's usually pretty good nowadays with Zigbee
           | having more marketshare/momentum. I use both, I have more
           | problems with Zigbee, but I also have more devices for it by
           | virtue of their being more choices.
        
         | vineyardmike wrote:
         | This seems like an edge case. It's pretty rare to see a product
         | advertise a protocol that isn't freely used like this one. It
         | even explicitly says in the product description it requires a
         | hub. Aqara has always played fast and loose with support of
         | various open specs.
         | 
         | Ecobee remote thermometers use Zigbee, but they can't be
         | generally paired to non ecobee products, and as such they don't
         | advertise Zigbee support.
        
       | yesimahuman wrote:
       | My zigbee devices are the best part of my smart home setup (with
       | home assistant). They always work, battery life is ridiculous,
       | and they're interoperable. Have only had issues with one motion
       | detector from a brand that has otherwise been rock solid. If I
       | had only known about zigbee before I swore off smart home tech
       | (instead of wifi and proprietary hubs) the last time I tried I
       | would have had a lot more fun!
        
       | bhaney wrote:
       | Apparently I'm one of the rare few people who fell on the WiFi
       | side of the WiFi/Zigbee smart home war.
       | 
       | All of my lightbulbs, occupancy sensors, etc just connect
       | directly to WiFi, and run custom firmware that I wrote so I know
       | exactly what they're doing and how to control them. They make no
       | attempt to access the wider Internet, but they're all on a vlan
       | without Internet access anyway.
       | 
       | It feels like introducing Zigbee to this would just be an extra
       | hub device taking up space, acting as an extra point of failure,
       | and making it more complicated to develop against my devices. As
       | it stands now I can easily manually control devices by piping
       | crap into netcat if I need to for some reason, since they're all
       | just normal IP networked devices. I think I would have to jump
       | though extra hoops to do similar things with Zigbee.
       | 
       | Is the main aspect driving people to Zigbee just that off the
       | shelf consumer smart devices that use WiFi tend to be annoying
       | dogshit, and Zigbee keeps manufacturers in line better? I don't
       | see any reliability or simplicity benefits to it, just the market
       | poisoning WiFi and Zigbee being the only worthwhile alternative.
        
         | karlgkk wrote:
         | For zigbee, you could either obtain a zigbee/usb dongle
         | (interact over virtual serial port to send zigbee commands -
         | tons of libraries exist to provide an api surface), or obtain a
         | hub and figure out its api.
         | 
         | Zigbee also has functional mesh features that wifi doesn't. One
         | is designed for high bandwidth single point communication while
         | the other is designed for low bandwidth long range.
        
         | Tomuus wrote:
         | ZigBee is a mesh network, this is very important in many
         | situations eg. battery powered or large area
        
         | dzikimarian wrote:
         | There's at least a few interesting points for zigbee:
         | 
         | * If you use universal hub like Home Assistant, they are pretty
         | interoperable between various manufacturers
         | 
         | * Devices don't have direct connection to internet (again esp.
         | with HA), so better privacy, they are faster (no cloud lag) and
         | do not depend on internet connection
         | 
         | * Battery life is way better for small devices
         | 
         | * Mesh is nice when you have bigger area to cover
         | 
         | * If you have to use shitty ISP router, it will have issues
         | with large number of devices
         | 
         | * Usually easy push-to-pair setup
         | 
         | And there isn't many downsides - one time cost of some kind of
         | coordinator and very slightly pricier equipment.
        
         | alwa wrote:
         | I'm a latecomer to the home automation game, so I'm speaking
         | from theory more than experience. In the environments where I'm
         | thinking about building out, the WiFi is... you know, _fine_ ,
         | but it's not a rock solid corporate campus pushing reliable
         | signal to every crevice of every garage and outbuilding where I
         | might be interested in adding sensors. Power, though, is
         | plentiful, and Zigbee's auto-meshing capabilities are therefore
         | attractive to me.
         | 
         | I also have an impression that Zigbee et al are more friendly
         | to extremely low-power, battery-operated sensors participating
         | in the network in situations where a WiFi radio might drain
         | down quickly.
         | 
         | You do mention occupancy sensors, though--if you have
         | experience with battery-powered models that work reliably on
         | WiFi, I'd be open to changing my mind.
        
           | bhaney wrote:
           | > I also have an impression that Zigbee et al are more
           | friendly to extremely low-power, battery-operated sensors
           | 
           | That makes sense. All of my "smart" devices are wired to
           | power because I don't want to maintain batteries, and "power
           | is plentiful" as you said. But I can see why WiFi would be a
           | detriment for battery-powered devices, and why some devices
           | would be annoying to hard wire to power (door/window sensors
           | come to mind).
           | 
           | > if you have experience with battery-powered models that
           | work reliably on WiFi
           | 
           | I don't. Most of my sensor devices are just generic sensor
           | components wired into a ESP8266 breakout board, plugged into
           | power. Not much that's ready off-the-shelf.
        
         | matthew-wegner wrote:
         | How long do your battery-powered devices last?
         | 
         | AFAIK a big benefit of Zigbee is that it's designed to be low-
         | power. I have motion sensors that last for 2-3 years on a coin
         | battery, depending on location/traffic. Mains-powered devices
         | like lightbulbs act as repeaters in a Zigbee network, so
         | placement can be anywhere.
        
       | t43562 wrote:
       | I have had a rotten time so far trying to get anything to happen
       | with my Tradfri lights - I started off assuming that all of this
       | could be done from the commandline - no not without difficulty.
       | 
       | How do you pair your computer's zigbee with the lightbulb? Who
       | @#$#$ knows. The button - how do you EVER get that to pair or do
       | you?
       | 
       | I'm so hacked off with it I cannot go back and try again for a
       | while but IMO it all has a very long way before it gets as simple
       | even as bluetooth and that was always pretty horrible itself
       | (from the commandline at least).
        
       | apapapa wrote:
       | So functionality isn't the best part of your smart home?
       | 
       | For me it is a wirelessly-controlled deadbolt
        
       | tw04 wrote:
       | +1 for Hubitat - assuming they don't sell out their business
       | model is perfect. They sell the base hardware which you'll need
       | to upgrade over time as new z-wave/zigbee/other protocols come
       | out. Additionally they will sell a subscription for backing up
       | the hub configuration to the cloud, and essentially creating a
       | reverse proxy to manage their hubs remotely.
       | 
       | The hub can operate completely offline, or if you're technically
       | capable of setting up a reverse proxy/vpn/whatever to manage it
       | you can do that as well. They provide timely updates, the hub for
       | the most part has been rock solid, and the upgrade path between
       | generations is pretty painless.
       | 
       | I've got a mix of both zigbee, z-wave, and a handful of wifi
       | devices (that were free, I would never ever spend money on a wifi
       | smart device if I could avoid it).
       | 
       | As an added bonus if you were a smartthings user, you can migrate
       | your automation/drivers/etc with little to no modifications.
       | Think about them as smart things 2.0.
       | 
       | www.hubitat.com
       | 
       | Disclaimer: not affiliated, just a fan.
        
       | the_mitsuhiko wrote:
       | Zigbee continues to be the only reliable thing in my household. I
       | switched to the IKEA Dirigera hub for most of it and it's pretty
       | stable. Cannot say that about almost anything else and I tried a
       | lot.
        
       | m463 wrote:
       | question - what system would you recommend for people in high
       | density housing?
        
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