So i have been in the past week or so been setting up several differnet ways of using generic Zigbee Devices in Homey.
Just to set the situation, I am in Austraia and smart devices of named products are expensive, but we do have easy access to Smart devices from Aliexpress. Are they beeter than brand names… NO, but they hel me start on my Smart home Journey.. Yes.
Unforuanatley most of them are being added as generic devices. At this moment not after complex automations and basic features sut my need.
I have tried Zigee in Homey and devices add fine, had few drop outs in the past week.
I have now setup Zigbee2MQTT on a Home Assistant server and managed to bring them in to Homey and seem fine at the moment of the few devices i have tested.
I also tried ZHA in Home Assistant and although it connected found it lacked on the import into Homey when set up this way. Items like Smart wall switches lost functionilty of multipes on a gang switch.
My question is has anyone else been and gone down this path/Situation. Which way did you go? or wish you had gone.
I am happy to change my configuration but just thought one last question out to you all may just help strengthen my findings and maybe give me some insights to what MAY happen later down the journey
I use also Zigbee2MQTT with Home Assistant. For devices supported by the Homey Zigbee2MQTT app, I imported them into Homey using this Homey app, and for other devices, I used the Homey Home Assistant Community app. Everything works perfectly.
Some devices may need to be configured manually if they are not directly supported by either Homey app. If you have any questions about this, you can ask in the relevant app topic:
I’ve seen multiple posts with this hint, but imho you should add the downside as well: when using a Tuya gateway and Tuya app by Drenso, local zigbee devices become zigbee over internet (Tuya servers) devices.
Not everyone’s idea of local / privacy.
@Robert_Lewis I am in the same boat as you. I have some name brand sensors were reliability is more important and a bunch of cheap zigbee sensors from Aliexpress. The way i use it is, i have a zigbee2Mqtt instance running on one of my servers and connected a USB zigbee dongle. When i buy from Aliexpress i look for devices that are supported by Zigbee2Mqtt rather than Tuya (Both variants seem to be same prices). i connect them to Zigbeee2Mqtt and bring them into the Homey via Zigbee2mqtt app. It works perfect. Dont have any issues yet. I was able to add some older Tuya Zigbee devices by using Johan Bendz Tuya zigbee app but dosnt work for newer sensors like presence multisensors. Although i like the idea of single hub for all my devices at my home, i think having zigbee2Mqtt server running helps me to buy more economical sensors.
Thanks this is he guidence i was hoping to see. I have planty of options for hosting other set ups. But the whole process as much as it is tediace, it just means i can settle on the best i can (I always know nothing is perfect) but at least i know i have done enerything i can think of to set it up.
