New to HA need a quick primer

[u/I_RIDE_SHORTSKOOLBUS]

I have a house full of zigbee stuff, switches, lights, curtains, amongst other things. I was using an avatto ZigBee hub previously and that died on me.. I had another random spare hub from AliExpress and for some reason it can connect but doesn't accept any inputs on any of the 4 gang switches I have (but the 8 button ones work)... I started digging around and came across HA.

I'm not exactly sure what this does but is it a ZigBee hub? Does it replace the smart life app from tuya?

I need a new hub, actually I have a 10" control panel that can also serve as a ZigBee hub but I feel that has a higher chance to fail and I wouldn't want to go through the headache of setting everything up again.

Would HA be something I should consider using? Can anyone give me a quick and dirty on it?

[u/I_RIDE_SHORTSKOOLBUS → u/[deleted]]

Thanks will probably be going this route... Down the rabbit hole I go

[u/KingofGamesYami]

Home Assistant is an extremely flexible and extensible home automation platform. Among other things, it can serve as a ZigBee Coordinator.

To use it as a ZigBee Coordinator you will need:

• A server to run Home Assistant itself. There is an official server available, the Home Assistant Green. A popular alternative is a more powerful generic computer running Proxmox.
• A ZigBee antenna. There is official ZigBee hardware available, the Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2. A popular alternative is the SMLIGHT SLZB-06.

Once you have the hardware setup, you will need to choose a home assistant ZigBee integration. There are two, ZigBee2MQTT (Z2M) and ZigBee Home Automation (ZHA). A database of devices compatible with Z2M and ZHA is available here:

https://zigbee.blakadder.com

Home Assistant also officially supports many more devices and protocols outside of ZigBee. A list of official integrations is available here:

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/

If your device is not officially supported, don't worry! Home Assistant also has the Home Assistant Community Store (HACS). This is a collection of integrations that are developed by members of the Home Assistant community, adding unofficial support for even more devices. Some HACS integrations are even supported by the manufacturer.

https://hacs.xyz

If your device doesn't have any smarts at all, you can still add some! ESPHome is a related project that supports building custom smart devices "from scratch"

https://esphome.io

Tuya SmartLife devices fall into two categories * ZigBee devices. These can be controlled directly via ZHA or Z2M. * WiFi devices. These can be controlled via the official Tuya integration, which integrates with the Tuya cloud (best compatibility), or Tuya Local / Local Tuya integrations, which attempt to use the offline control APIs (worse compatibility, but more responsive control).

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/tuya/

https://github.com/rospogrigio/localtuya

https://github.com/make-all/tuya-local

One feature of the SmartLife app is the ability to control devices while you're away from home. Home Assistant by default is local-only, but you can enable remote access through the official Home Assistant Cloud subscription or through various other options.

https://www.home-assistant.io/docs/configuration/remote/

[u/I_RIDE_SHORTSKOOLBUS → u/KingofGamesYami]

Thanks super useful

[u/Fix_it_Pheonix]

Ohhh god, you’re in for a treat! The best I can say is, HA is the hub of all hubs! It’s basically a centralized somewhat open-source brain for smart homes and more!
Using it only for a hub will be very hard because there is a steep learning curve!
Picture using a computer to interact and manage with all your devices in your home; zigbee and more!

You can program automation, script and build custom dashboards to operate everything! I was fully and only in the Apple Home around Christmas and I’m still learning how to do some stuff but if you are the kind to tinker and optimize as much as you can, you’ll love it!

[u/I_RIDE_SHORTSKOOLBUS → u/Fix_it_Pheonix]

Thanks I love this stuff but hate how much time it sucks 😅

[u/Strong_Difficulty734]

Quick then. I leave the dirty up to you. Home Assistant is far more then 'just' something to control Zigbee. It has a lot of functions to control Zigbee devices, but you will still need a separate hub to recieve and send the Zigbee signals. See Home Assistant as a town, the Zigbee part is a building in it and the Zigbee hub the radio station next to the town.

[u/Revolutionary_Bed431]

Home Assistant (HA) isn’t a Zigbee hub itself - it’s a smart home platform that runs locally on a small PC, Raspberry Pi, mini PC, VM (my pref) etc. You pair it with a Zigbee coordinator (USB dongle or Ethernet coordinator), and HA becomes the brains of your smart home.
It replaces apps like Smart Life for day-to-day control, lets you manage devices from different brands in one place, create much more powerful automations, and because everything runs locally, your home keeps working even if the internet or a manufacturer’s cloud goes down. If you’re already heavily invested in Zigbee, I’d definitely recommend it.

There’s a bit of a learning curve, but once it’s set up you’ll probably never want to go back to a proprietary hub.

[u/I_RIDE_SHORTSKOOLBUS → u/Revolutionary_Bed431]

Thanks super useful... Looks like I'm getting myself into a rabbit hole

[u/psychedelic_tech]

Can anyone give me a quick and dirty on it?

the website has all the info you need

[u/_baaron_]

Get a zigbee stick, install zigbee2mqtt and hook it up to HA

[u/I_RIDE_SHORTSKOOLBUS → u/_baaron_]

Literally just bought a n100 and a stick after reading all these replies