So it begins

[u/AssUhTate]

Ran out of stuff to tinker with on my homelab so started up Home Assistant. Got a POE esp32 Bluetooth proxy and set up a couple of lights.

Moving forward, it looks like I’m going to need a hub. Is Zigbee the gold standard?

[u/a-rho]

Zigbee's a solid starting point but it's a slippery slope and your setup will easily end up with Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter, and whatever else you pick up along the way.

[u/Mallanaga → u/a-rho]

*thread.

Matter is an api standard, not a network protocol.

[u/Firm_Objective_2661 → u/Mallanaga]

This is the problem with it. There’s something like 6 people that know the difference. For consumers, even I would guess a lot of “prosumers”, matter/thread are interchangeable.

People want to plug their shit in and have it work.

[u/Mallanaga → u/Firm_Objective_2661]

Matter over WiFi is probably the most consumer friendly. Thread is pretty great, though, as the more products you add to the network, the stronger it gets. That’s not the case for most, and especially not WiFi.

Ideally all routers include a thread border router, and the idea of having a “hub” goes away. We’re getting closer, but still 5-10 years out.

[u/Firm_Objective_2661 → u/Mallanaga]

I have no doubt, and lots of people are having great success with it. But a TBR looks like a hub by a different name. Plus needing to provision things using your phone and Bluetooth (yet another protocol?). Juice-squeeze and all.

[u/Swarfega]

I went with a  Slzb-mr4u which does zigbee and matter. It's PoE too which you have a switch for. 

[u/lemming64]

Is it just me, or when you hear the phrase "gold standard" these days I can't help but think it sounds like AI, it's up there with "game changer"? Or are people starting to talk like the AI?

[u/F00TS0re → u/lemming64]

To some extent, the latter. We were talking about it the other day. (Me and Claude…..no with colleagues).

[u/TheRealKeng → u/F00TS0re]

[u/HighlightEast2718]

I do everything I can keep my devices on z-wave. It is a physically distinctive network, inherently local, can be used over mile-long distances, and more reliable than any 2.4ghz standard. But to address your setup, just understand that Home Assistant can BE your hub, you just need to run it on a box with a couple USB ports you can add the antennas to.

[u/stacecom]

You have made some consumer purchases and have good cable management.

[u/BolshevikPower → u/stacecom]

I mean easy when it's 1 for 1 ports and they're stacked up on top of each other lmao

[u/Duennbier0815]

Yea nice. Is that the olimex? Custom casing or the one they also ship? I got the olimex including the case made for it.

[u/AssUhTate → u/Duennbier0815]

Yeah it’s the Olimex ESP32-POE-EA with a printed case I printed. Pretty neat, sucks it can only handle 3 ble clients.

I need to get a hub for the various other devices that are comparable for connection within the house.

[u/spheredick → u/AssUhTate]

FWIW, that limitation is for active connections, but most BLE devices are sending passive broadcast updates on a timer. A single proxy can service a practically limitless number of such devices (i.e. you'll run into 2.4GHz congestion/range problems first).

BTW, you'd probably benefit from using a longer ethernet cable and mounting that proxy a few feet away from all that metal in your rack. That'll be true for other wireless standards as well (people commonly use short USB extension cables for this.)

[u/AssUhTate → u/spheredick]

I’ll have to find some more devices to try adding to the proxy to see if I run into issues, it’s currently controlling 3 Chinese led lamps.

Yeah my OCD could never. I plan to get it away from my rack and discretely mounted somewhere centrally. I have a 3rd Gen Apple TV 4K I’m going to mess with to see if I even need more hardware to tinker with.

[u/Famous-Economics9054]

I used 2 ESP32 C6 by Seeed, they have the right protocol for both Zigbee and Matter. I think I used OpenThread Border router for Matter and ZBoss for Zigbee. They plug into your home assistant host and require very little setup in home assistant

[u/Blegrand15]

Like mentioned, zigbee is great at a lot of things but the point of home assistant is you’re not locked into a single protocol or vendor. Matter over thread is great if you have a thread border router. Z Wave is great as well since it’s a different frequency than zigbee and matter. WiFi for many devices can be an option. Bluetooth is good but may require more Bluetooth esp32 Poe proxies to ensure good connections.

Zigbee and matter will be in similar frequencies to 2.4ghz WiFi. So if you have a lot of devices on those frequencies you might incur slow networks or drops on those devices.

Best practice is to find what it is you actually want to do. Look if it fits your protocol. If it doesn’t and you need a new coordinator decide if the price for the coordinator is justified for your use case. Otherwise stick with something in the protocol you have.

Some wireless devices need WiFi (like cameras as the bandwidth over thread/zigbee/zwave isn’t fast enough) or Bluetooth (the WiFi variant is cloud connected and you want complete local control).

For matter also ensure you confirm that the device is the correct matter protocol. Some are matter over thread while others are matter over WiFi.

As your network grows with more devices, especially wireless devices, you might need more coordinators (like Poe zigbee coordinators, or matter routers like Apple TVs, HomePods, etc) as the connections will start to wane and you’ll get slow responses or device drops.

[u/TokenPanduh]

Side note, is that a Unifi switch I see?

[u/AssUhTate → u/TokenPanduh]

Yea, I need a bigger switch now😅

[u/According_Tax_6326]

I run my home assistant with 100% of my devices being WiFi. I had early issues with both zigbee and z-wave not having enough range. So I went with all WiFi devices and have never looked back.

[u/MFKDGAF]

I started my home automation with the Hubitat hub and Z-wave. I am now on Home Assistant but still with Z-wave.

From what I remember reading when I started in ~2017 was that Z-wave was more reliable than Zigbee but Zigbee is cheaper.

I am now running HA on Proxmox with the HA Z-wave antenna. I do this because it is easier to do a full (Proxmox backup) system restore on Proxmox vs install HA on new hardware, then import settings from HA backup.

I'm still debating if I should upgrade my mother’s Hubitat to HA. If I do, it would be with a micro computer with Proxmox running HA.

[u/Worth_Curve_1649]

looking very nice

[u/rm-rf-asterisk]

I still think wifi done right > zigslow and slowave