#What protocol you prefer most zwave/zigbee/matter

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

opaque condor
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Hi all,
I started using HA for 2 months. So far I got zwave(zooz & ring), zigbee(philips hue & cheap aliexpress devices) and some wifi devices.
While my ZooZ zwave devices are reliable and fast, ring's zwave devices were not.
Somehow I couldn't like the zigbee devices I found them very unstable and slow.
WiFi devices are more reliable but I just don't want to pollute my wifi with so many devices.
I have never tried the other protocols and I would like to get your opinion which one you prefer and suggest

grand acorn
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The Zigbee problems were probably down to interference, or you bought Tuya

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I've got over 100 (non-Tuya) devices and zero problems

icy granite
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Matter over thread as much as I can, other than that I have a couple of wifi devices.

visual cedar
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Same as Tinkerer. 110+ Zigbee devices (and 125+ WiFi devices) and zero issues.

covert gale
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Zigbee is by far the most pain in the butt protocol to get working right. The information/guides out there are literally split down the middle to where one says do this and the other say don't do that. BUT it is by far the cheapest when it comes to a good chunk of type of sensors as well has some the others don't. Some Matter devices are very comparable in terms of pricing.

Matter in itself is weird. Matter over WiFi.. Matter over Thread.. wut?

In the end tho Zigbee wins on price alone, once you get it working right the sheer amount of sensors/devices they make that works with the protocol trumps the others no doubt I have found.

opaque condor
visual cedar
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Probably. Most likely you have a metal garage door. If that’s the case, you’re probably experiencing signal degradation. You could place a smart plug outside your garage and help with that.

opaque condor
visual cedar
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That’s not correct. I have many sensors that are away from my interior routing devices. It largely depends on the composition of your walls and such. Plus, Tuya zigbee devices usually use crappy zigbee chips/radios. it could very well be that your routing devices are fine and projecting a signal well beyond your walls, but the crap radios in the Tuya devices is just unable to really receive the signal.

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For instance, I have a sensor in my mailbox that is about 100’ from my house. I have a routing devices (a 3rd Reality smart plug) in my laundry room. It can connect to it just fine without any issues.

opaque condor
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I see so i should just get rid of these crappy tuya devices.
What about the main usb stick? I have sonoff zigbee 3.0 usb dongle plus. Is that a good product?

opaque condor
visual cedar
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That’s really the whole ”trick” to zigbee. Make sure you have enough decent routing devices and try to avoid Tuya devices. Brands like Hue, Aqara, Innr, ThirdReality and maybe even Sonoff are much better. It’s largely a “you get what you pay for” kind of thing.

opaque condor
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That explained a lot! Thank you so much 🙂

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I've primarily invested in Z-Wave devices so far. What's likely to become the standard in the future?

visual cedar
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Anytime! Happy to help!

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They both are. Maybe in the next few years Matter will become better and more fleshed out. Right now, it’s still largely beta. But both zigbee and zwave are good. I don’t have many zwave devices, But zigbee and WiFi run everything in my house.

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Zwave does have an advantage with the long range features though.

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But the prices… ugh.

opaque condor
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for WiFi devices I feel like I should isolate the network. I just can't trust any company

visual cedar
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Yeah, you could do that. I have a VLAN for those devices and they are blocked from the internet.

opaque condor
visual cedar
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But, I wouldn’t recommend it until you have equipment that can do proper mDNS repeating across VLANs. Or just ignore mDNS and use IP addresses for everything.

visual cedar
opaque condor
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I have a RPI and running Adguard Home on it. Disabled DHCP on router. Somehow ATT router is poisining DNS requests

visual cedar
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I have a full UniFi setup and I still have mDNS issues and I’ve been doing this for 10 years… soooo lol

opaque condor
visual cedar
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It’s an ATT router. What do you expect? 🤣

opaque condor
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Hope I can find any Black Friday deal for unifi 😄

visual cedar
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Eh, you could go with something like a pfSense router and a VLAN capable switch or even TP-Link’s Omada platform. They are both fairly cheap and perform well.

visual cedar
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The Omada platform is fairly decent from what I’ve heard for the price.

opaque condor
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Are they silent enough for a wife approval? 😄

visual cedar
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But for my needs, I pretty much have to go with an enterprise network setup. 125+ WiFi devices and another 30 wired devices.

visual cedar
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Plus you can buy most of their stuff on Amazon.

opaque condor
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I will take a look at them. Since you are using unifi do you have also unifi cameras? What cameras would you suggest. I started with Ring Security Cameras with my friend's recommendation and regretted a lot. Now looking for an alternative. Reolink take my attention.

visual cedar
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Ugh. Screw Ring. I use Reolink cameras. Local recording and good prices. I have 16 of them.

opaque condor
visual cedar
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Yeah… lol I’m all for wired connections if I can. Plus POE is AWESOME.

opaque condor
visual cedar
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They all do onboard AI processing for person/animal/vehicle detection and support SD-Cards (up to 256gb) for recording and no cloud requirements.

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https://a.co/d/0tiN7gw PoE powered and a great image. Downside is Reolink is known for subpar nighttime images. They don’t have great IR sensors in them. But it’s never bothered me as I have floodlights just in case.

opaque condor
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That sounds cool. I am preparing a cart for blackfriday sale 😄

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So for corners I should go with duo2?

visual cedar
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lol the Duo2 is AWESOME. 180 degree view and there is a floodlight addon for them.

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The amount of stuff I can see on my camera is insane.

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That’s my side house view.

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opaque condor
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I've invested a lot in Ring cameras, but they've been really disappointing. I'm ready to make one final purchase and want to get it right this time. I'm considering the following setup for my small home with a small backyard and front yard:

  • Wifi Doorbell Camera
  • POE DUO2 cameras for the backyard and front yard
  • POE E1 Outdoor Pro cameras for the corners
    Would you recommend this setup, or is there a better option for a home with a small lawn?
opaque condor
opaque condor
opaque condor
visual cedar
opaque condor
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I should go withUniFi or pfSense for PoE switch too?

visual cedar
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But you can get those pretty inexpensively. I’ve seen 16 port 10/100 POE switches for like $50 on Amazon.

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Nah. Not for cameras. Thats overkill.

visual cedar
opaque condor
visual cedar
visual cedar
opaque condor
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What do you use scrypted or frigate?

visual cedar
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Neither. I was using frigate for a long time, but tbh, Reolink AI is good for what I need. I just need alerts for people and vehicles and there’s binary sensors for both of those.

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I have automations to turn on floodlights and brighten outdoor lights when person or vehicles are detected. Works fantastic.

opaque condor
# visual cedar

WHAT? you can have different sensors for each of them? That is so cool!

visual cedar
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YUP! Now you see why I recommend them. The integration author did a FANTASTIC job on it.

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And pretty much everything you would want to control, you can.

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This is what the E1 pro PTZ exposes to HA.

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opaque condor
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It is enough to convince me 😄

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Thank you so much for everything. That helped a lot

covert gale
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too bad the cameras hooked to NVR isn't as nice as stand alone

visual cedar
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Happy to help. If you have more questions, don’t hesitate to ask.