I am a total newbie on home automation. Last year I tried adding a zigbee dongle to my home server and setting up home automate. I got so far as to pairing a couple of light bulbs throughout the house to propagate the signal. I have bought a few temp/air quality sensors that are still in the box. But I kind of burned out feeling home automate was too complicated for me.
Jump to now. I bought a Homey Pro as an early Christmas gift to myself and have connected the light bulbs as well as my outdoor sun blinds. This weekend the sensors are going up.
Cut to my questions. Now that I have access to a bunch of different protocols, is zigbee the right way to go? What I don’t like is that I cannot see the status of my bulbs. If the physical light switch is turned off homey loses control. Would this behaviour be better if I went for zwave or matter (or something else)?
I feel this is the time to choose what I really want to go for. I think the zigbee stuff will be kept as I believe the sensors should work fine(?) and it would be a waste to just scrap them.
Things I am considering adding down the line:
- smart light switches/dimmers
- Presence detection in rooms to control lights?
- Thermostats for our in floor heating water loops (I have so far only found zwave for this). Must work physically as well.
- door and window sensors
- Outdoor security cameras
- Outdoor light sensor for better control of the sun blinds
- Water sensors under the washing machine and sinks
- Smart plugs for things like heated blanket
I guess these are very different use cases. And I am open to mix and matching a bit. And things like security cameras is propably logical to use a connectable service for?
What would you choose if you were able to start over? The only caveat is that it must be supported by the Homey.
Other tips in general are also welcome!
What I don’t like is that I cannot see the status of my bulbs. If the physical light switch is turned off homey loses control. Would this behaviour be better if I went for zwave or matter (or something else)?
No. You’re killing power to the bulb, that doesn’t change with other protocols. You’d have to redo the wall switches.
Apart from that, I run Home Assistant with ZigBee sensors and smart socket adapters, plus WiFi smart sockets. It’s not unusual to use several protocols, depending on need. Especially bandwidth-heavy stuff like cameras will basically only work well over WiFi (or even better LAN, if possible).
Couple of things your issue with losing status for zigbee items is that they are expecting constant power to report status (switched on or off) so putting those devices on switched outlets won’t work well. This is true for both zwave and zigbee.
I have both zigbee and zwave devices. I find that having both is useful zigbee has a good selection of plug-in outlet devices, sensors(motion temperature ect). There’s a really good deal outlet 4 pack sonoff on Amazon. Zwave is great for smart switches basically anything hardwired, switches, dimmers, fan controllers, ect.
Thanks! I remember reading something about zwave getting an acknowledgement when the order has been done. Like turning on a light bulb. While zigbee doesn’t do that. Is that right? I guess it isn’t pertinent and my issue would be solved by changing the switches instead of the bulbs then.
I have to look into that pack, but Amazon usually doesn’t ship stuff like that to Norway. There is also the 240v vs 120v power supply difference to consider.
Ah yeah these would be 120v sonoff has other Euro spec stuff, I’ve seen some switches, so there may be a 240v equivalent.
Honestly day to day I couldn’t tell you the difference between zwave and zigbee they act as you’d expect and the UI updates status the same. The main difference is the setup and disconnect procedures, which can be even device specific.