Is it possible to add a zigbee device if no Hubitat driver exists for it? I know that a z-wave device can report its own capabilities. I don't know if a hub can discover anything about a zigbee device.
The architecture of the Hub requires a driver, even if it's wrong. 
As you pair a Zigbee device to your hub, it will "guess" at the closest driver. If nothing is close, the hub chooses "Device" -- which is a do-nothing driver.
3 Likes
It can (when paired with the “Device” driver). However be aware that many zigbee devices use non-standard clusters, so the information you discover may or may not be useful in writing a driver.
2 Likes
Some devices will work (or basic features will work, at least) with one of the built-in generic zigbee or z-wave drivers.
If you manually reassign a device to use one of those drivers, you’ll usually need to hit the “configure” button on the device commands page afterwards.
This might help. 
1 Like
Thanks for all the good info.
What exactly is the device you’re asking about?
1 Like
I haven't purchased it yet. It's a Sonoff Zigbee Smart Water Valve SWV-BSP/SWV-NH.
There's a community driver from @kkossev that works very well with this device. This one:
3 Likes
Received the device yesterday. When jnserting batteries it did nothing. The device LED was supposed to come on and begin flashing - indicating an attempt to pair. Tried again this morning and re-inserted batteries and the result was what it should be. Paired quickly as simply device. Recognized the manufacturer. Switched to the Sinope water valve driver and it seems to switch open and closed on command.
Thanks for the help - made it easy.
2 Likes
Any time you're looking at a device that isn't on the Hubitat compatible devices list, it frequently pays to search this forum for the device brand/model.
There are many devs here (like the amazing @kkossev who created the driver you're using) who have created community drivers for devices that Hubitat does not officially support, and in some cases the community developer may be willing to modify one of their existing drivers to support the device.
If the valve basic functions (open/close) are working OK using the HE inbuilt drivers (like the Sinope driver linked in the first post), there is no need to use custom drivers….
Sonoff are trying to follow the ZCL standards (more or less successfully), so I suppose that even the HE inbuilt Generic Switch driver should work as well.
1 Like
