I continue to believe Zigbee delivers on the important things that Matter and Thread keep promising, but actually:
• mature
• widely available
• affordable
The one thing Matter over Thread devices can claim is that they work without a hub… except they don’t; the hub still has to be built into your Nest display, Apple HomePod, etc.
I have hundreds of low power, local-only smart devices from a dozen or so brands and it all… just works together.
@cassidy Do you have any more information about your setup? I've been thinking about getting some Zigbee devices. Currently, I use Home Assistant with mostly ESPHome devices on WiFi. To start, I would like to setup some temperature sensors and perhaps a few lights.
@tuhgy I should really maintain a page on my website or something, but… I have a few dozen bulbs, a dozen door/window sensors, a dozen motion sensors, a bunch of climate sensors, some plugs, a few buttons, and a few air quality things all from probably 10+ manufacturers... running through a Sonoff Zigbee stick plugged into my Home Assistant server.
For climate sensors, I’d recommend Sonoff; they have small squares you can stick anywhere or ones with a display which is nice in some places.
@tuhgy for lights, I have had the absolute highest reliability with Cree bulbs (make sure you get Zigbee ones), but I think they’re just single-color (e.g. warm white, not tunable white or RGBW). I like the IKEA bulbs for their price but I don’t love the RGBW ones' color reproduction, and the tunable white spectrum is pretty limited. Philips Hue will be the best color, but are way more expensive.
• Sengled, because they’re not repeaters (so they don’t improve the network)
• OSRAM, Signify, or Sylvania: these are all from the same manufacturer and have given me nothing but trouble
Other than those that I’ve found, any Zigbee bulb ultimately should work fine—and I think my problems above are more prominent due to how many devices I have.
Matter over Wi-Fi sounds neat but my wireless network is already over-congested, and a self-healing, self-managed mesh network is a whole lot nicer to work with.
It took me years to get over the “but I don’t want a hub!” line with Zigbee, and I regret wasting so much time on Wi-Fi devices. Zigbee is just better in every way.
This thread (ha) brought to you by my new smart devices this week:
• IKEA air quality sensor
• IKEA air purifier
• Lumary wafer light
• Aqara door/window sensors
The one newer smart device we have that isn’t Zigbee is a Meross garage door opener, but it works locally thanks to HomeKit (also an unsung hero of the interoperable smart home).
But it all works beautifully with Home Assistant, locally, and with my own automations to make things work exactly how I want.
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