#Looking for hardware suggestion for future setup.

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

grave goblet
#

Hello! I'm very new to the whole "smart" anything, but I'm really intruged in it all. I've done some research, and it seems that if I'm only doing a few small things, wifi connections are fine. Anything more, and it can clutter a main network. Then steps in Zigbee (or Z-Wave). It helpts to clean up the main network. But, I'm curious. Could I setup two networks?

What I mean is, can I keep the router im currently using for regular internet (its a spectrum router) but then get my own like tp link router and access point and then dump all of the home assistant connections onto that network. then, also connect that router to the other main network, so it still gets internet when needed, but the home assistaint and other stuff are kinda setup on different networks. i'd use this for most things, as i assume finding wifi-based smart appliances is way easier than zigbee stuff, but then add on a zigbee communicator for other niche things or for battery operated stuff that needs a longer battery life.

No clue if this would work or if it's even a smart idea. Would love some insight.

P.S. I also plan on running two servers, one with a high core (but older gen for better price) cpu and a gpu for jellyfin/plex running proxmox for different services (including HA) and then another that's just a NAS that will be connected to the first server. If you know anything about this (relating to HA obviously) feedback would also be appreciated!

I'm very new to pretty much everything, and this is just a "plan for the future" type of thing. I'll probably start with something small like a minipc for basic stuff to learn.

merry tree
#

Yes, you can have 2 WiFi networks. Some recent routers include also an 'IoT' network, that is simply a different WiFi network. That said, I recommend you to buy a ZigBee hub and using it via Zigbee2MQTT. I use the SLZB-06 from SMLIGHT and works like a charm. And you'll see how the number of devices grow exponentially...😅

#

So, you can use WiFi devices and also ZigBee devices. IKEA has very nice ZigBee devices that are reliable and cheap. No cheap crap 🙂

grave goblet
# merry tree Yes, you can have 2 WiFi networks. Some recent routers include also an 'IoT' net...

actually, the idea was to get something like that SLZB-06 already, and connect it to the secondary router to use both wifi and zigbee stuff on its own network, unless the SLZB-06 supports both wifi and zigbee connections. main reason why i want to keep wifi connections viable is I want to custom make a decent number of esp32 based iot devices and wifi just works out of the box for those

#

but i do appreciate the kind respose!

grave goblet
#

actually, what is the point of Zigbee2MQTT? 🤔

merry tree
grave goblet
#

ah i see, thanks!

hearty stump
# grave goblet actually, what is the point of Zigbee2MQTT? 🤔

No point to use it really. ZHA in Home Assistant works just fine.
My advice is to buy HA Green together with SkyConnect Zigbee dongle and start building your ZigBee network leaving your existing WiFi devices for a while if you already have some. HA Green is cheap, easy to use and exceptionally fail-safe. The best option for newbies. Especially if you're married and have not much time to experiment and don't want to annoy your family while you restart your powerful server with everything onboard and they just can't turn that f.cking light on.

white socket