Those who follow smarthomescene.com, already know the dominant communication protocol mentioned here is Zigbee. Almost every device I review tends to be Zigbee or open-source Wi-Fi (ESP Boards).
My networks are based on the Sonoff ZBDongles, especially the EZSP version working with Zigbee2MQTT and ZHA. Even though it’s marked as experimental in Z2M, they have performed well in my testing and development setup.
The ZigStar UZG-01 I am testing in this article is a hybrid Zigbee coordinator, which can work over USB, Wi-Fi or LAN. You can also choose to power it over USB-C or Power-over-Ethernet (PoE). This was sent to me by Radu from the ZigStar open source and DIY project. You can get it on Tindie or Elecrow.
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After deploying the ZigStar UZG-01 as a coordinator in a development Zigbee2MQTT network, I started to pair devices that I had on hand. My previous network centered around the ZBDongle-E was very robust and performed without hiccups.
The UZG-01 performed as I expected too and pairing devices was very responsive. This is largely dependent on the device itself though, usually end devices are more difficult to pair. Aqara devices are also known as difficult to pair, although by now I learned how to handle them properly.
If you are looking to replace your coordinator, consider the ZigStar UZG-01 as a top tier device. The flexibility it offers in terms of installation options is enough to chose it over other coordinators. Further, the CC2652P7 module it ships with is very powerful and officially supported in both Zigbee2MQTT and ZHA.
Can other zigbee gateways control hue lights? Sorry for a noob question.
It’s a very valid question, especially with Hue messing about recently. There’s some discussion in a previous thread on this and, whole I have only done this with IKEA bulbs myself (Sonoff dongle plugged into a Raspberry Pi 3), it’s perfectly possible and others on that thread have done it.
As far as I’m aware, if something uses Zigbee (as Hue bulbs do) and you have a ZigBee dongle or gateway like this hooked up to HA, then you just need to enter pairing mode and you should be able to have them controlled by your HA.
Nice! Thank you for the clear explanation, I appreciate you :)
No problem - having had to set up HA again from scratch after moving (with helpful input from folks here), it’s all pretty fresh in my mind and I’d more than likely avoid anything that wasn’t using Zigbee (or something like HomeKit) as it was very quick and easy to add all my Zigbee devices, Bluetooth has been a pain.
I have hue bulbs and IKEA bulbs running through a sonoff dongle on ZHA. They paired with the dongle easier than their own hub. It has given me much more consistent results regarding connectivity .
I use zigbee2mqtt and a sonoff zigbee3 dongle for a while now with hue bulbs and remotes and they work great, no complaints. Do be careful with the hue stuff, some of the newer things are Bluetooth and I haven’t tried those and I don’t know if they also include zigbee. I have a combo of white and white/color and both generations of the switch remotes and a dial remote if that is helpful as well!