There's plenty of room for this early-aughts tech in a modern connected space.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/7783032

When I started at Ars in the summer of 2022, the next generation of smart home standards was on the way. Matter, an interoperable device setup and management system, and Thread, a radio network that would provide secure, far-reaching connectivity optimized for tiny batteries. Together, they would offer a home that, while well-connected, could also work entirely inside a home network and switch between controlling ecosystems with ease. I knew this tech wouldn’t show up immediately, but I thought it was a good time to start looking to the future, to leave behind the old standards and coalesce into something new.

Instead, Matter and Thread are a big mess, and I am now writing to tell you that I was wrong, or at least ignorant, to have ignored the good things that already existed: Zigbee and Z-Wave. I’ve put in my time with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and various brittle combinations of the two. They’re useful for data-rich devices and for things that can stay plugged in. Zigbee and Z-Wave have been around, but they always seemed fidgety, obscure, and vaguely European at a glance. But here, in the year 2024, I am now an admirer of both, and I think they still have a place in our homes.

  • GreatAlbatrossOPMEnglish
    27•9 months ago

    I found hue bulbs to be a lot more responsive once I ditched the hub, and paired my bulbs directly with a zigbee coordinator.

    • @RehwynEnglish
      8•9 months ago

      This is the way. I’ve had absolutely zero issues with my Hue bulbs directly connected to a USB Zigbee controller and running zigbee2mqtt. With Zigbee bindings to smart switches, they respond practically instantly as well whenever we decide to control them that way.

        • @[email protected]English
          3•9 months ago

          As someone who runs HomeAssistant in a VM that could migrate between three different servers at anytime depending on what is going on, a networked Zigbee coordinator was essential.

          • Saik0English
            1•9 months ago

            Eh, just stick the USB into a pi and host the usb port over the network into the vm.

            • @[email protected]English
              2•9 months ago

              That’s just a networked Zigbee coordinator with more steps. The coordinator I linked to uses PoE so all I need is a network cable.

              • Saik0English
                0•9 months ago

                sure, but I don’t have to buy more things that I already have… and can do it with zwave too.

        • @RehwynEnglish
          1•8 months ago

          That does also look like a good option. In my case, I have a Pi 4 running both zigbee2mqtt and zwave-js-ui using connected Zigbee and Zwave USB dongles placed centrally in the house (Eclipse mosquitto is running on a separate 3-server cluster). I’ve only briefly searched, but network zwave controllers seem to be much less common or more expensive, so I probably wouldn’t benefit much from changing my Zigbee controller at the moment.

          • @[email protected]English
            1•8 months ago

            The Zigbee ones aren’t too expensive. The one I use (Smartlight SLZB-06) is $30 plus shipping ($8 to the USA) from their official store.

            Z-wave is more of a niche at this point, especially since newer Zigbee radios also support Thread (which is the future).

            • @RehwynEnglish
              1•8 months ago

              Oh I know, but my thermostat and a handful of other devices are Zwave, so for me specifically it’s probably not worth changing things up at this time.