DrWeevilJammer

Came here to post this exact thing, leaving with a warm and fuzzy feeling

I don't buy the colored lights myself, but I will still only buy Hue for three reasons:

[1] Reliability - in my experience, Hue bulbs literally last for years, don't glitch or flicker, and always respond immediately. I have some Hue bulbs in my house that have been running 24/7/365 for about 8 years.

[2] Proper ZigBee protocol implementation - I run Home Assistant with a third party ZigBee controller. Because Hue adheres to the ZigBee protocol, my controller is fully able to control all Hue bulb functions (including the color stuff) without requiring the use of the Hue Hub. It's not even plugged in.

The controller also allows me to use any protocol-compliant ZigBee device that "requires" the use of a hub, without the hub, which means no data is sent out of my network from these hubs to cloud servers somewhere, which increases my security.

[3] Hue bulbs are powerful ZigBee mesh network repeaters - they are the backbone of my Home Assistant network. The placement of at least one in every room strengthens the network and allows non-repeater battery-powered ZigBee devices (like motion sensors) to pass their data through the network to the controller more quickly and efficiently than they would if my bulbs were a) cheaper models with weaker signals, b) bulbs with incomplete ZigBee protocol compliance, or c) non-ZigBee bulbs (like wi-fi models).

The strength (and thus, range) of the Hue ZigBee signal also allows for the usage of smart devices at the edge of my network - like an automated pet food dispenser in a room with no plugs and an old, definitely not ZigBee fluorescent tube light.

9 out of 10 Ear Doctors recommend switching to baked beans on your ass if you experience ear blood during mustard orgasms

Spicy Dijohnny, they call him now...

The easiest way to make an ignorant person feel special is to identify an "other" for the ignorant person to look down on/blame for their problems.

1. Manufacture a scapegoat
2. Charismatic speaker blames the scapegoat
3. Get power/money

Oldest trick in the oldest of books.

Their task failed successfully...for you!

Really glad to hear it! Feel free to ping me if you have questions.

Edit: The Deconz is a good starter device, but it doesn't support nearly as many devices as Z2M. I got an Aqara Pet Feeder that Deconz doesn't support, but Z2M does, which is why I switched. You can't use Z2M with the ConBee.

This is the video I used to set up Z2M to work with the new controller.

It's a lot easier and cheaper than you might imagine. A used Dell 7040 for $120, a ZigBee controller for $30, install Home Assistant OS on the Dell, plug in the controller, and you've got a really powerful smart home hub that can control any ZigBee device you have locally without ever needing any "cloud" services.

Since you don't need cloud services, you don't need to worry about firewalls or networking or VLANS, because the controller replaces the "required" hubs that manufacturers say you need, that force you to use their servers.

With the controller, Home Assistant becomes your hub, and the ghost of Orwell will smile and nod at you approvingly, maybe even give you a cheeky thumbs up.

Have you looked into what Home Assistant has been doing with voice lately? This is what I'll be using to finally turn my Echos into muted speaker targets:

https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/using_voice_assistants_overview/

You can even turn old analog phones into HA "microphones" - just pick up the BatPhone/hamburger/banana phone, say "It's movie time" and hang up, and HA will convert your voice to text and run your "movie time" automation.

It's not a jetpack, but it certainly FEELS like living in the future...

No, I am currently using a TubesZB Ethernet controller, but before that I used a Deconz ConBee II. There are others available as well.

I used the hue bridge before setting up HA, but after setting up and configuring the other controller, you can unpair your hue bulbs from the hue bridge and pair them with the new controller instead. You can then unplug the hue bridge, because the new controller is now handling the hue bulbs.

This is possible because devices that comply with the ZigBee protocol specs must accept properly formatted commands from a hub/controller after a successful pairing.

So if you have one of these controllers, AND the ZigBee device you purchase is compliant with the protocol AND the device is supported by the controller, the controller will be able to control the device locally, and you can throw out the "required" hub from the manufacturer that sends your data to that company's servers. This is why you need to plan things out ahead of time, to ensure that what you get will work with what you have. Every controller has a list of what devices are supported. For example, here are the devices supported by the ConBee II, and here are the devices supported by the TubesZB device, which uses Zigbee2MQTT.

Bonus: with one of these controllers, your smart home stuff will now work just fine if your internet goes out. As long as your local network is up and running, all of your HA stuff will work as well.

Maybe that's just how you're supposed to play a skelephone

Everything became very easy for me once I decided to go all open source. In my opinion, the problem is all of the different proprietary "hubs". I got a ZigBee controller that can control all ZigBee devices without requiring a hub (there are several options available).

Lights: ZigBee Hue. Plugs: ZigBee Innr. Motion sensors: ZigBee Aqara. Cameras: Ethernet Amcrest. NVR: Frigate.

Everything is local, no data leaves my network, and everything is controlled directly from Home Assistant dashboards via the ZigBee controller, and I never have to open any proprietary apps.

Care does need to be taken to plan the network at least somewhat in advance, but that doesn't take too long, and everything is very stable and super reliable.