Hello,
I don’t have any ‘smart’ items in my house (or home assistant currently) but I want to set this up but I have questions about compatibility with hardware before I purchase. They have a integration page does that mean all of those hardware devices work? Or do some work better than others? According to a person on Reddit they recommend https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/ I’m just curious if anything has changed in the past year. Or if anyone here has a list of recommendations. I plan to start with some lights and a thermostat.
Cheers and thanks.
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There’s an important consideration to use local mesh radio networks or not - for responsiveness, privacy, not being dependent on a vendor to continue supplying cloud services. I always prefer one of these, but as I continue to grow, there’s always a reasons to support more networks, and HA excels at that. HA also excels at the number of devices it supports: I suppose it’s a good idea to check compatibility but the only ones that won’t work are devices too tied to a specific vendor, and you should probably avoid those anyway
In theory I prioritize z-wave devices, but I also have Zigbee, WiFi, Ethernet, and Matter devices working together flawlessly. I have a z-wave IR blaster to integrate an air conditioner by acting as its remote control. I’ve considered Bluetooth and Thread devices, which I expect to be just as convenient
While it’s prudent to check compatibility, I guess I’m recommending to not over-think it. Concerns like vendor lock-in, responsiveness, reliability, no ads, are more important to think about
so by vender lock in a good example is I should get matter compatible lightbulbs and not buy into per say Phillips brand
Ideally, yes, Matter/Thread has a lot of potential to be that common framework that makes everything work together. I want to recommend it for everything new …… but products have been really really slow to come out, so your choices may be limited.
My understanding of Philips Hue is limited but I believe they do use Zigbee as a standard network, but functionality is extremely limited unless you use their hub. That’s been more than enough for me to stay away
Clarifying the terminology for the new standard:
- Matter is Ethernet/WiFi, based on IPv6. Great for powered devices, especially those that do need to connect to the internet. Many powered Matter devices will route Thread traffic
- Thread is a local wireless mesh network, similar to Zigbee or z-wave. The range should cover a home, but it is low power, low latency, suitable for all sorts of devices that do not need internet access, or where low power is important
- Device Profiles are a feature that the standards committee has spent huge amounts of time on as a way to make everything’s work together. These define what a device can do, so all such devices work the same way. For example, it defines a light that has statuses and operations for on-off, brightness, color, and maybe more. Instead of a company like Philips having proprietary definitions, now all lightbulbs can be controlled the same way
Thanks so much for the information Im going to start with some general matter / thread bulbs looking into good thermostats currently looking at the Honeywell ones and ecobee and venstar.
If it has constant power, skip all the zwave and zigbee stuff. I landed on Lutton Caseta Diva dimmers. My thermostat is a Honeywell T9.
If it doesn’t have constant power, skip that too 😁
The dimmers use a hub. A concession I was willing to make for the 100% reliability the system brings
The thermostat is WiFi, and I have it blocked from the Internet in my router.
Just a sidenote: zigbee2mqtt is not required unless you specifically need the MQTT part of it. I’m using the official ZHA plugin and everything works as expected. With the added bonus that I can easily backup everything (incl. device pairings!) and restore it to any other Home Assistant.
