Compatibility question

Hi all,
I am currently buying a new house and therefore designing a new automation system from scratch, i have come across Hubitat and i love what i see so far, i have a few questions (some what simple but I couldn’t find answers)

  1. Can i use any Zigbee device? If Hubitat has not written a driver for it will it still work?
  2. Does Zigbee rely on Wi-Fi signal or rf? I was planning on having very good Wi-Fi coverage across the house with lots of access points or do i need to thinking about rf coverage?
  3. As i am in the UK sonoff is very popular, are you planning to build a driver for the sonoff basic which has Zigbee, or will it work a different way?
  4. Are you able list preferred devices that work well, door sensors, internal and external PIRs, Light bulbs, LED strips, relays etc.

Thanks in advance
Andy

RF is actually a general abbreviation for 'Radio Frequency' so technically they are all RF :slight_smile:

In answer to your sonoff question.. @ericm has developed some sonoff drivers - have a look here:

I'm in the UK too and there are less devices available to us compared to our friends across the pond in the US
I use a lot of the Philips Hue stuff either connected to their bridge (bulbs & LED strips) or directly connected to HE (motion sensors - both internal and external)

You can also look at the SmartThings devices (motion sensors, door contacts, sockets, leak sensors etc) most, if not all, will use in-built HE drivers and are solid and reliable (at least for me)

Although the devices I use are not the cheapest, they have all been reliable for me.
(Which for me is more important!)

Andy

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What is the sonoff stuff is it WiFi ? Or ZigBee

No idea as I’ve never used them :slight_smile:

@Carl answered NO and is technically correct, however Hubitat has many "Generic Zigbee" drivers for different functions. Below are SOME (not all) of the current Generic Zigbee drivers.

image

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Andy, I have some sonoff zigbee Basic devices. They paired easily and have worked perfectly So far using the Generic Zigbee Outlet driver..

Thanks mark, i am planning a large garden lighting scheme and wanted to base them on sonoff due to the cheap cost, have you found any UK sensors or bulbs that have worked for you.

I have Xiaomi contact and motion sensors, Xiaomi buttons, Tradfri plug-in outlets and usb repeaters. Also Samsung Zigbee buttons, Samsung Zigbee leak detectors, several Hubduino wifi devices along with Aeotec nano and TKB Z-wave devices. I also have some Innr Zigbee bulbs, which have worked well among the others

In recent weeks, after adding the Tradfri Repeaters and making some small configuration changes to wifi settings I have had near perfect performance from this setup, although I know everyone's environment etc. can always give different results.

Mark.

Thank you mark, very helpful, gives me a good start to build the systems

In general, if your Zigbee device is compliant with the ZHA 1.2 or ZLL standards and it is doing something that other Hubitat Zigbee devices do (switching, dimming , contact , motion, etc) the odds are VERY good that you will be able to get basic functionality from that capability from the Generic driver. But, it's always good to stick to stuff on thesupported devices list as those are much more likely to work.