#ZigBee Alternatives?

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

marsh trail
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Are there any smart home RF protocols y'all would recommend that expose proper socket interfaces as opposed to whatever the heck the ZCL thinks it's doing? or maybe I'm just failing to find relevant info on how to actually use zigbee beyond connecting manufacturer-provided devices?

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My current understanding (might be wrong) of ZigBee is that if I want to set up my own devices (running my own code) on a network is that I have to pass data entirely through the attribute system with no real alternative, even if I just want a simple point-to-point connection to a device in direct range of the source, as we're blocked from accessing anything below ZCL's application layer interface

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I've heard that in some cases the zigbee stack gets implemented with the ZCL in userspace and the firmware itself just handling IEEE 802.15.4, which I imagine would in theory give me what I want, but I'm not sure what would support that and I'm already struggling to find development related information for zigbee itself, nvm firmware-specific shenanigans

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At this point I almost want to move my home network to Bluetooth because at least I can work with that in code reasonably 😦

ember oracle
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You can do it (quite) easily. I am now doing a kind of playground hardware to home assistant through zigbee2mqtt. I am documenting right now and will share hw firmware converter and explain a bit.

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Mhhh perhaps misunderstood. You want zigbee without coordinator? Or do you want 2 devices binding like switch and light? What do you really want to achieve...?

marsh trail
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Goal is 2 devices binding for data transfer, not like a switch and light. I'm trying to actively bypass the cluster attribute layer

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I want to be able to send actual packets rather than just cluster commands

ember oracle
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Ok what kind of data? Why not doing thread then?

marsh trail
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Does thread support that? If so might be what I'm looking for

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As for the data, for the most part network monitoring stuff - I'm trying to avoid adding gateways to the network

ember oracle
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It just works. But never tried what you want to achieve. Just did matter over thread.

drifting condor
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thread gives you straight up ipv6 networking over 802.15.4, which you can run arbitrary protocols over (tho you have to be careful, since bandwidth and max unfragmented packet size are both very, very low)

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zigbee doesn't have any separation between the network and application layer, it's a single protocol which handles both parts. so there isn't really a way to use it for arbitrary data transfer.

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matter was pretty much what happened when they split the networking part of zigbee and the application layer into two separate things.

languid scroll
marsh trail
marsh trail
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Namely that I was looking for generic comm interfaces that explicitly don't specify an application level usage because I'm not looking to add a device configuration or anything like that

languid scroll
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Maybe something already exist to cover the use case 🙂

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Do you know the XCDC comic about standards?

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Maybe your use case is to learn about comms, that's perfect 👌

marsh trail
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And also as I mentioned, this has nothing to do with a specific device or any specific configuration of devices beyond perhaps "2 devices of which at least 1 can transmit"

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Neither the sender nor receiver would be purchased devices i.e. bulbs or switches

languid scroll
marsh trail
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MQTT has nothing to do with the network transport protocol?

languid scroll
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Maybe ESP-NOW?

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Interesting topic, that of the comms 🙂

marsh trail
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It's a bit outside the scope of Home Assistant related stuff, yeah

languid scroll
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I'm afraid this is hardware dependent
😢

marsh trail
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esp now looks interesting altho tbh if I'm using wifi i almost might as well dust off my wifi-direct code 😅

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esp-now def is better at supporting more connections fluidly tho

languid scroll
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AFAIK, ESPHome can be used with or without HA, so maybe is a good approach