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What hardware do you recommend for adding Zigbee connectivity to my system?

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    What hardware do you recommend for adding Zigbee connectivity to my system?

    Hi Wim,

    I have been trying your plugin and certainly will buy it in case all works well.

    I have a Philips Hue Bridge and a couple lamps and one motion sensor - works great with my HS3 running on a Hometroller Zee. I have a few devices already with Zwave, but they are expensive, so I now seek using Zigbee devices which are cheaper - not so much Philips, but I know I can use ones from IKEA, Xiaomi Aquara, etc.

    Actually I bought two Aquara temperature sensors, but I know, I cannot connect them to Philips Hue Brigde. I know I must connect them via some Zigbee gateway, and then, your plugin will recognize it and then I can use those Zigbee devices at HS3.

    My question to you is, and don't be afraid to recommend brands, what hardware setup should I invest on now? I have a Hometroller Zee (raspberry device with a UZB zwave stick attached to it) and a QNAP NAS, with multiple available USB ports.

    I read a lot about Conbee II USB "gateway", also about HUSBZB-1, deCONZ, Phoscon, CC2531 sniffers, a bunch of hardware/software, brokers, well... you know better than me, but although I am not the most tech savvy man, I am not afraid to fiddle with these kind of things.

    I would appreciate a recommendation like, knowing that I want to use my Hometroller Zee as my home automation base, which already have zwave connectivity, I would like to add Zigbee "universal" connectivity, hence your plugin enters (I know I will have to buy - ok).

    Do I go with Conbee II USB and connect it to my QNAP? Shall I connect it to my Hometroller Zee (I have read I shouldn't)? Shall I go with a Raspbee (also from dresden-elektronic, the same guys from Conbee II)? I am really confused and undecided, so your help would be much appreciated!

    Best regards,
    Jorge

    #2
    It all depends on your primary discriminator. If it is cost then it is zigbee2mqtt/mcsMQTT plugin with a total hw/sw cost of $10. If it is plug’n’play ease then it is Hubitat Elevation/mcsHubitat at a total cost of $100. If it is maximum overall capability with HS the Conbee/Raspbee/jowhowie is the choice. If it is loyalty to the HST brand then Norte/HS4 plugin. In this case there are some growing pains as the HST product is in development.

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      #3
      Michael is pointing you in the right directions here. As you already have a Philips Hue bridge a combination of adding a ConBee or ar a RaspBee (both are using deCONZ software as "gateway") would be fine combined with the JowiHue plugin. Both ConBee and Raspberry are delivering the same capabilities with the use of deCONZ, so you can check the easiest use for your case. deCONZ has to be installed locally on the machine with the ConBee stick or the RaspBee card.

      The use of Hometroller has caused issues for other users, not sure if this is solved for them somehow. As far I know it is not to be recommended. So you would need to have the deCONZ software on a different device then the HomeTroller helas.

      I also heard that here are users that have been able to dockerize deCONZ on a Synology (guessing it should work on QNAP too) but that is out of my league, so cannot really help you there.You should be able to find information on http://www.phoscone.de

      If you are planning to use a Raspberry, the raspbee card might be the best to use, There are ready made images available on http://www.phoscone.de
      if you are planning to use Windows, the conBee might be the easiest choice.

      Hope this will put you on thrack?

      Thanks,

      Wim
      -- Wim

      Plugins: JowiHue, RFXCOM, Sonos4, Jon00's Perfmon and Network monitor, EasyTrigger, Pushover 3P, rnbWeather, BLBackup, AK SmartDevice, Pushover, PHLocation, Zwave, GCalseer, SDJ-Health, Device History, BLGData

      1210 devices/features ---- 392 events ----- 40 scripts

      Comment


        #4
        Hi Michael and Wim,

        Yes, both answers are exactly what I was looking for! Thank you very much.

        I like the idea of extracting the most of my QNAP, so I think I'll go for the solution of buying a ConBee2, stick it to the QNAP, and dockerize deCONZ.

        BR,
        Jorge

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