I have many Aqara, Xiaomi, Sonoff and some Tuya devices. Multiple Ikea repeaters. All my Zigbee repeaters are Ikea. Things have been running pretty good, the odd time a device drops off, some seem more prone to dropping off than others. Probably in a bad spot. Every
zigbee device is within eye shot of a repeater. I now know that is irrelevant as the path chosen by the device often makes no sense. One time a repeater dropped off and took multiple devices with it. The built in Ikea repeater device driver made no indication it was off line. Wasted a day figuring that one out.
Moving along I decided to buy a Zigbee Sinope thermostat. What do you think happened? Devices dropped off like flies. Well no not really. Within 24 hours of joining the thermostat all the Ikea repeaters were off line. that certainly would also bring down the zigbee devices. Another wasted few days. First thing I removed the thermostat from the mesh, Then re-established all the devices.
Was this a fluke? A few weeks after every thing was running again I rejoined the thermostat. Guess what? Exactly the same thing.
I am faced with replacing all these devices. That would be very expensive if you are the type of person that buys these devices because you can get multiple devices for the price 1 of the expensive devices AKA me. It is going to be much cheaper to buy another hub to put the thermostat on.
The Sinopé thermostats will indeed kick off non-standard Zigbee Aquara/Xiaomi sensors from the mesh. They play well with Sonoff and Tuya in my experience.
I have all my zigbee devices (including the Sinopé thermostats) on my main hub. I have all my Aquara and Xiaomi sensors on a separate hub with a bunch of Ikea and Tuya Zigbee 3.0 repeaters.
I like the Sinopé thermostats so much that I ended-up changing all my baseboard thermostats. I really like that the screen can be turned on and off and that it can display the outside temperature.
One thing to remember particularly with motion sensors is sometimes that extra money means less sensors are needed.
Initally had Smartthings and Aeotec motion sensors and was very disappointed when I started to think about how many I would need for reliable coverage. I would have needed like 3 or 4 of each. Both my Ring gen 2 motion sensor and the ADT Smartthings motion sensor it replaced cover that entire room and can pick me up about 10-15 feet outside the door. That is around 25- 30 feet from the sensor. Allot of sensors don't have that kind of range.
Try ebay my friend. Alot of xfinity/Comcast, centralite, iris sensors work amazing with Hubitat and you can save big. Search zigbee lot or zigbee bulk. I got xfinity zigbee contact sensor that also does temp for under 5 bucks each in a lot of 10. Had so many I put them in my fridge and freezers to keep an eye on the temps.
When buying stuff like that though do a quick search of the product and the word hubitat. It will lead you to a forum post here. Someone likely already posted about the status of an item if they work or not, or if someone created a community driver. This community is absolutely excellent.
But first, try your existing equipment, if it works it works. The only aqara sensors I have are the vibration sensors and they work flawlessly. I couldn't even find another brand capable of doing what it does.
Yes and yes. I've had one in there for several years and have had no issue with it reporting to the hub. I keep the magnet taped to the sensor to have it always show closed.
Understood. And I get that there is a point where more make sense if the cost is low enough. It also means more to break. It is a judgement call.
It was just my observation with cheaper motion sensors that I have test and looked at over the past so many years. I just don't care to deal with sensors that can't reliably detect motion in what i would consider anything but a small room.
The OP did ask about a reliable and affordable option as well and that is where I was comong from. I don't thin $30 is bad when you consider that.
I would suggest the op watch some youtube reviews as well to see how well different one work.
I have one of the SNZB03s. It's the only Zigbee device in my house (so far) and it's about 30 ft from my hub. It has been perfect for over three weeks now.
I just installed 6 Sonoff snzb-04 contact sensors last week with 3 of the Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 dongle plus set up as repeaters. This is on my Zigbee mesh that’s mostly sensors and button controllers with over 70 devices prior to the addition. I’ve not seen any issues, and the new routers have taken over much of the routing in the child and route info page. The contact sensors seem to be a little slower than my Iris V2 sensors (mostly with “close” events), but have been good otherwise. Total cost <$100 for 6 sensors and 3 routers.
I started this thread when I was just starting out with Hubitat. A little over a month on, I thought I’d give some feedback to say the set-up process is going well so far, thanks in no small part to all your advice.
I considered everyone’s pros and cons on Aqara devices but decided that they just seem to cause issues for too many people. I see there are workarounds to get them to function stably but I’d rather start off with devices that are fully compatible without having to make special concessions, and would also rather not have to start on the HA learning curve before I’ve mastered everything HE can do!
After much research, YouTube reviews, price comparison and testing, I settled on the following Zigbee devices, all of which so far are working fine for me:
Ikea TRÅDFRI repeaters (£9 each)
Sonoff ZBMINI and ZBMINI-L switches (I got them around £10 each from Amazon and EBay but can get slightly cheaper with delivery from China)
Sonoff S26R2ZB smart plugs (£9.67 each, Amazon)
Sonoff SNZB-01 buttons (£5.86 each delivered, EBay)
Sonoff SNZB-03 motion sensors (£5.75 each delivered, BangGood)
Sonoff SNZB-04 contact sensors (£5.38 each delivered, AliExpress)
Tuya temperature & humidity sensors (£6.02 each delivered, AliExpress; here’s where I deviated from Sonoff as some comparative reviews say they don’t give very accurate measurements)
Innr RGBW bulbs (£23.50 each, Amazon; I guess these don’t count as low budget like the rest of this list, but I only need 2 so affordability was less of a factor in this choice. A lot of the bulb brands most recommended by Hubitat users seem impossible to find here in UK.)
I also have an Alexa Echo Show and an Alexa Echo Flex that I’ve integrated into the system
Several of you recommended the Sonoff stuff, and I have been very satisfied with it for the price so far. Thanks @brad5 for the pointers to the docs on building a sound mesh. I already had a bit of experience of mesh networks from tinkering with microcontrollers years ago, but those were a really helpful read to refresh/update my knowledge. Super advice @jlv re Presence. I’m now mostly using the Oh La Labs drivers for exactly this reason. I’ve not looked into Device Activity Check as yet but I will do (for the time being I just set up push notifications via the Notifications app to alert me of lost Presence).
FWIW, I added some of their contacts to my system along with the custom drivers. While, I cannot really point a finger at them, my hub (C-4) crashed twice in the weeks following the install. About 10 days ago, both the devices and driver were removed. So far, no crashes or funny business.
IKEA Tradfri RGBW bulbs have been great for me and very cheap. I think they act as repeaters too so you can save on the Tradfri repeaters.
Also, I've been using aqara door and motion sensors for several years without hiccups. I understand that this is because the Tradfri repeaters keep them stable....Stu
