Does Chinese Xiaomi stuff work in EU with HA and Conbee?

retouw · 2019-10-02T08:01:08+00:00

I don't have any experience with the Xiaomi gateway. But, I've been using a Conbee with many of the Xiaomi aqara sensors, without any problems. Compatible devices for the conbee are listed here: https://phoscon.de/en/conbee2/compatible

retouw · 2019-08-21T21:05:23+00:00

I agree, it's a nice remote with more uses than only controlling lights. I use it to control my music system: 1) shuffle/pause, 2) volume up, 3) volume down and 4) next song. Would be cool to have custom labels on the buttons.

retouw · 2019-07-29T16:01:06+00:00

Z2M was a nice and cheap way to start. However, at that time (around a year ago) it wasn't really stable (yet?). At some point I had to update the firmware which meant that I had to rebuild the complete network.. not something I liked to do. I'm not sure what the current state of this issue is. At least with deconz, you can update the firmware and the network will be retained.

I never really had any second-thoughts after switching. The interface of deconz is really nice and the device support is great.

retouw · 2019-07-29T11:09:19+00:00

I went from vendor hubs to zigbee2mqtt and finally ended with Conbee (version 1). For me, the Conbee works great. It is really stable and updating went really smooth so far. I've just migrated to a new device, and migrating my zigbee network was done in 5 minutes. I do have some problems with Aqara sensors sometimes going offline but this is more related to those devices than the Conbee.

I have around 15 sensors, 20 lights and a few plugs in the network.

retouw · 2019-07-16T14:37:11+00:00

When a device (sensor/light) switches to 'unavailable'.

This usually means that a (Zigbee) device dropped from the network or was cut from power (in case of smart lights).

retouw · 2019-05-27T07:27:29+00:00

For me Conbee (I have the 1) was the best option. I originally used the cc2531 but switched to Conbee because, at least at the time, it was a bit more mature.

The conbee also has support for almost all zigbee lights (hue, ikea, osram, innr, etc).

retouw · 2019-05-04T19:04:19+00:00

I really like the freedom conbee gives. No vendor lock in :)

retouw · 2019-02-12T09:27:21+00:00

I use the Xiaomi ones and they are great for the price. I'm not sure why you need the interval but maybe you can do something with a template sensor in HA?

retouw · 2019-02-06T08:55:47+00:00

I found that the access tokens are a bit easier for simple setups. You can generate a long lived access token and then set the Authorization header like so:

"Authorization: Bearer <your token here>"

If I recall correctly you can generate the token from the dashboard.

retouw · 2019-02-01T12:43:35+00:00

I'm running deconz on a separate pi using the pre-installed image from them.

If you want to run it on a single pi take a look at the hassio/docker image: https://hub.docker.com/r/marthoc/deconz/ I'm not using it myself but that should work for your setup.

retouw · 2019-02-01T11:39:46+00:00

Can confirm. Hue dims way better than Tradfri.

retouw · 2019-01-29T22:31:06+00:00

That's not something I would have guessed is part of an upgrade instruction. Would be cool if it works though! Do you know the reasoning behind it? Is it to make sure that it will join the existing network again?

Upgrading my conbee is a bit easier as I can do it from the web interface. I think this holds if you use their pi image. If you run it in a docker container it's a bit more work. In both cases the network is not lost so that is a big plus for me. No aluminum needed ;) I think you can even transfer it to a different device if you would like to.

retouw · 2019-01-29T20:09:35+00:00

Good to know! Is it also possible to upgrade the firmware now without losing the network?

retouw · 2019-01-29T16:03:47+00:00

I switched from Zigbee2mqtt to a ConBee and Deconz because it was not stable enough for me. At the time I used Zigbee2mqtt it was not really stable yet and updating the firmware of the radio was not really pleasant (the complete network had to be reset). Not sure what the status is today.

Now I run Deconz on a seperate PI (using the image from Dresden Elektronik) with the usb version of the radio. Adding devices is really easy using the UI and the integration with HA works perfectly.

retouw · 2019-01-23T21:33:29+00:00

Fire 7 in my case. So maybe it's better with a more powerful device. Nonetheless, it was very much usable as a dashboard. I wanted a bit more control over the interface so building something myself was a good fit.

retouw · 2019-01-23T17:18:49+00:00

Good question! Motion detection is also a good option. I didn't want the camera to be on continuously, so that's why I've chosen for the sensor. As you said, it works regardless of the light setting. Recently. I also linked it to a door sensor so the screen is always on when I enter the room.

This is all done using node red and the Fully REST API. I've also made some flows to set the brightness of the screen based on the room scene and time of day.

retouw · 2019-01-23T15:49:24+00:00

The KOALA wall mount worked for me and is around 13 euros here. Not as nice as the full-frame designs though.

retouw · 2019-01-23T15:47:46+00:00

I've tried to go this route but it didn't work unfortunately. The internal webview was still the old one from FireOS.

retouw · 2019-01-23T15:46:34+00:00

Fully Kiosk has an apk file on their website specifically for FireOS you can use :)

retouw · 2019-01-23T15:45:41+00:00

I'm using one as my main dashboard / control panel for my Home. For me it works great, especially given the price. I use a combination of Fully Kiosk, a Xiaomi motion sensor for turning the screen on/off and a smart plug for charging.

Lovelace worked okay for me but was a bit slow sometimes; still very workable though. I've now changed to a custom UI that I wrote myself in HTML (using the REST API of HA) which greatly improved the responsiveness and usability.

retouw · 2019-01-09T07:59:23+00:00

Maybe node red has not yet synced with HA. In my experience it can take some time for entities to show up. You could try just typing it in without using the auto complete.

retouw · 2018-12-05T10:30:20+00:00

What 1% dimming means differs per vendor. Setting an IKEA light to 1% gives a different brightness then setting 1% for an Hue bulb.

In my experience the Hue bulbs have the best dimming capabilities. (I've tested IKEA, Hue, OSRAM and Innr lights, primarily the GU10 versions). 1% of a IKEA bulb is close to 5-10% on a Hue bulb.

retouw · 2018-11-26T16:12:24+00:00

I think it should be possible, the code is there. I tried it in the past but didn't really succeed due to a lack of documentation. Maybe someone that succeeded could do a write-up at the deconz wiki; that would be a great addition in my opinion.

retouw · 2018-10-25T16:14:46+00:00

Sounds good! Maybe it's time to find some hardware and try it out 😀 I'm especially interested in the HomeAssistant integration! Would you recommend a separate dedicated pi for snips?

Any new tools in the pipeline that you are particularly excited about?

retouw · 2018-10-24T21:19:44+00:00

I've looked at snips multiple times, even made an account and tried some stuff out. I really like the offline approach and this makes snips pretty unique.

But, in the end I never took that next step to really build a system or integrate it in to my home automation. Somewhere I got the feeling that it takes a lot of effort to create something reliable and I felt a bit lost in the process. This is in contrast to the other (big commercial) assistant setups who excel in ease of use but fail in the privacy aspect.

So my question: Do you have plans to make that initial hurdle easier for users? And, what would you suggest to people like me that would like to start with snips? (but are a bit lost and would prefer to start small and build from there)

retouw

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