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I have been using the Xiaomy Gateway v2 for over 10 years, mostly ZigBee sensors, buttons, power outlets and WiFi lights. It’s still ok, however, there starting to arise issues with vendor lock, closing dev. modes, separating with Aqara, not supporting a lot of new devices.

I am looking for a better solution than purchasing their latest hub.

My requirements include seamless Home Assistant integration, cloud/updates/any alike vendor’s garbage cutoff option, predominantly wireless operation for multiple(20-50) devices with fast and reliable response in the presence of multiple WiFis(for example - I hate bluetooth, half of tested WiFi sometimes feel sluggish, however, some of them are ok for their job), area coverage of up to 100m2, support for a wide range of devices, and a price that is not sky-high over Xiaomy’s pricing.

Please do share hardware ecosystems that align with my requirements.

Les
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3 Answers3

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Some considerations, for reliable and fast control.

  1. You should not be using bluetooth or wifi devices, that is just nuts.
  2. You shouldn't be mixing different architecture/platform devices.

I using a Fibaro Home Center with Zwave devices.

  1. While I am not locked in to Fibaro, I have tried to use mainly their devices. Where they do not have suitable ones, I am using Aeotec devices.
  2. You do not have to use Fibaro's server, you can just use Home Assistant or any number of other servers to manage them.
  3. Try not to use every manufacturer's devices, stick to the mainstream ones.
  4. Zigbee will also give you the same breadth of reliable devises to use.
Rohit Gupta
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Home Assistant has its own Zigbee hardware (USB) dongle called SkyConnect. I preordered one hoping it would get Thread support faster, so far (as far as I can tell) it's still just Zigbee. It should be trivial to get your Zigbee devices running on that.

If you're looking to replace a lot of devices with Z-wave, check out Home Assistant's list of Z-wave hardware so you can add Z-wave directly to Home Assistant.

If you're looking for commercial hubs and apps, your mileage will vary; I haven't found any systems yet that don't discontinue some hardware/features now and then, and there are a lot of cross-vendor compatibility issues.

Fredric Shope
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The tested solution.

I successfully migrated all my Xiaomi Gateway v2 Zigbee devices to Zigbee2mqtt using a bought ZStack compitable coordinator (cheap noname, see the list of reccomanded on the z2m's site). It effortlessly paired all my Aqara and Xiaomi/Mi Zigbee devices in easier way than the original hub. Even those Aqara devices that were unsupported by the Gateway and were on a shelf got paired without any issues. It's baffling that these devices weren't supported initially, considering Aqara is essentially a sub-brand of Xiaomi.

In terms of performance, the ZStack with serial over TCP/IP is faster than the Gateway's API. Additionally, Zigbee2mqtt provided insights like mesh map into my Zigbee mesh network, highlighting some conectivity issues that I wasn't even aware of because the information wasn't available in Mi Home (the Xiaomy's / Aqara's HA app).

The only real cost associated with this solution was the hardware coordinator (for tests bought a very cheap 30$ one). If we consider the devices I can now use without any additional costs, it feels more like a pure profit.

I highly recommend it. z2m has the widest (IMHO, ofk) device and home automation systems support, so, it is possible that this solution also applicable to many Zigbee fleets operating under proprientary gateways.

Les
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