this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024

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I was wrong to ignore Zigbee and Z-Wave. They’re the best part of my smart home. (arstechnica.com)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/7783032

When I started at Ars in the summer of 2022, the next generation of smart home standards was on the way. Matter, an interoperable device setup and management system, and Thread, a radio network that would provide secure, far-reaching connectivity optimized for tiny batteries. Together, they would offer a home that, while well-connected, could also work entirely inside a home network and switch between controlling ecosystems with ease. I knew this tech wouldn't show up immediately, but I thought it was a good time to start looking to the future, to leave behind the old standards and coalesce into something new.

Instead, Matter and Thread are a big mess, and I am now writing to tell you that I was wrong, or at least ignorant, to have ignored the good things that already existed: Zigbee and Z-Wave. I've put in my time with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and various brittle combinations of the two. They're useful for data-rich devices and for things that can stay plugged in. Zigbee and Z-Wave have been around, but they always seemed fidgety, obscure, and vaguely European at a glance. But here, in the year 2024, I am now an admirer of both, and I think they still have a place in our homes.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 10 months ago (5 children)

What does "vaguely European" even mean?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 10 months ago (2 children)

That's how I'd describe Tommy Wiseau or John Waters lol

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Gillian Anderson in her later career also.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I would have never thought about it, but somehow you're exactly right.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Haha, I have no idea. Possibly less corporate, more "small, simple, open system that others can contribute to".
I can only speak in vagueness on the "european-ness", to be honest.
HASS/Zigbee have an open, european feel to me.
HomeSeer has a very american "this is the way we're doing it, it costs this much" feel.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

My mind went to IKEA-like with a funny name and modern styling.

But I have no idea if that's what the author meant.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I had the same thought. Is it an insult?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

I don't think so.

I think it just means they seemed like standards which were more prevalent in Europe, meaning support might be better for Euro hardware, or that the (presumably) American market was leaning in a different direction.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

A wall plug came with a Schuko adapter...

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

What i have a problem is the developer accessebility.
I want to build my own sensors into boards and use those, but the devboards are so expensive, its not worth it.
A board with an esp8266 costs just 1-2€, with zigbee its 20-25€.
Might aswell go for the new esp32 versions now and use thread.. and its still cheaper.
(though that wasnt an option a few years back, best option there was esp-mesh which kinda sucked)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

esp32-c6 (supports zigbee), is pretty cheap.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If only ESPHome had support for Zigbee on the C6 and H2. So much potential for cool projects.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I agree, I'd be picking up a bunch of those, if that were the case.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I've never actually tried doing dev on a zigbee board. A cursory glance puts them at £6.
But I can absolutely understand why ESP is so much more popular. Which is a shame, as I like not having to mess with wifi/BLE.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Try getting a Zwave devboard 😅

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

ZigBee and Z-Wave are awesome because they stay functional irrespective of:

WiFi
Router
Internet
Cloud

So long as the Home Assistant is alive, everything works. The reliability and uptime approaches the AC mains.

And they allow for battery powered devices to have multi-year battery life.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

The internet and cloud points are my favorite. Specifically the fact that those things are out of the picture.

No VLAN configuration necessary. The hub is "the VLAN". They literally can't phone home because they have no route to the internet, with no extra setup necessary. For WiFi devices, I have to make sure they're connecting to the right VLAN and controlled properly, and if I misconfigure something, they are phoning home or joining a botnet.

(This stops being as applicable if you have a sketchy hub you don't trust, but I trust deconz and ZHA fine enough in this context).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Exactly. Which allows you to use devices from any vendor without having to worry about the preloaded botnet agent. 🤭

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Same here. Not having a path to the internet by default is lovely. Local data stays local without any extra config.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Until Zigbee2MQTT breaks again ;P

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Using ZHA for a year and a bit. No breakage so far. Knocks on wood.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

ZHA isn't compatible with a lot of recent Hue bulbs. It's a bit frustrating.

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[+] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I found hue bulbs to be a lot more responsive once I ditched the hub, and paired my bulbs directly with a zigbee coordinator.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This is the way. I've had absolutely zero issues with my Hue bulbs directly connected to a USB Zigbee controller and running zigbee2mqtt. With Zigbee bindings to smart switches, they respond practically instantly as well whenever we decide to control them that way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

I used to use a USB Zigbee coordinator, but an Ethernet one with PoE is way more flexible since I can place it anywhere in the house. https://smartlight.me/smart-home-devices/zigbee-devices/smlight-slzb-06en. This one has a nice web UI for updating the firmware, too. I switched from a Sonoff Zigbee dongle recently and really should have done it earlier.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As someone who runs HomeAssistant in a VM that could migrate between three different servers at anytime depending on what is going on, a networked Zigbee coordinator was essential.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Eh, just stick the USB into a pi and host the usb port over the network into the vm.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's just a networked Zigbee coordinator with more steps. The coordinator I linked to uses PoE so all I need is a network cable.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That does also look like a good option. In my case, I have a Pi 4 running both zigbee2mqtt and zwave-js-ui using connected Zigbee and Zwave USB dongles placed centrally in the house (Eclipse mosquitto is running on a separate 3-server cluster). I've only briefly searched, but network zwave controllers seem to be much less common or more expensive, so I probably wouldn't benefit much from changing my Zigbee controller at the moment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

The Zigbee ones aren't too expensive. The one I use (Smartlight SLZB-06) is $30 plus shipping ($8 to the USA) from their official store.

Z-wave is more of a niche at this point, especially since newer Zigbee radios also support Thread (which is the future).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Oh I know, but my thermostat and a handful of other devices are Zwave, so for me specifically it's probably not worth changing things up at this time.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I’ve had next to zero issues with my Hue setup. It’s performed near flawlessly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I had a dual-hub setup, with ~60 bulbs. I was running close to the max device limit of one so I had to add another. The only issues I've had were with a particular model of bulb. The A21 1600lm white. A fifth of the bulbs developed hardware problems which resemble control issues in some but they really are much more serious. They begin to self power cycle. Some eventually die and don't turn on anymore. Some get loose elements inside. All of that says excess heat. Apart from the problems with this particular bulb I've had no problems whatsoever.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Try changing your Zigbee channel. I had awful performance until I tried that. Not always perfect now but WAY better.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Still hopeful that matter and thread get ironed out. It's the standardization the systems need: no more "download tuya to install"

Offline control
standardized setup
Low energy optimized

Currently I have to run a few different bridges to keep everything happy. Zigbee2mqtt is definitely my most used.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's funny, I'm eyeing up an air conditioner atm.
And the one I'm focussing on looks pretty special, not because it runs tuya, but because absolute gods in the FOSS community have made a complete alternative firmware for it that works with HASS directly on the tuya host hardware.

[–] huskypenguin 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Which air conditioner? Sounds like a gem.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Don't download Tuya. 😂

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

correct

If a smart home app is required I'm out

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