Xiaomi devices with out the gateway?

Trying to find some information on this, as not 100% sure. Can I use the Xiaomi sensors like the window/door sensor without the Xiaomi gateway?

Thanks!

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In a word, yes.
You will need the custom DH's though.
Do a search and I'm sure you will find them.

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Sorry, really new to this. What is DH?

Device Type Handler. DTH.
In the menus on the hub you will see one for 'Drivers Code'.
If you click on it a new screen opens and if you click on the 'New Driver' button, you can copy and paste in the custom drivers for the Xiaomi devices.
Once you have saved, let's say, a contact sensors DTH code, when you try and pair a Xiaomi contact sensor it should automatically allocate the correct driver code to the device.

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Perfect, thanks for explaining that :slight_smile:

To be more accurate, I don't even think you can use Xiaomi devices on Hubitat with the Xiaomi Gateway (which is basically their hub, the device they're intended to be used with--the fact that we can trick Hubitat, SmartThings, and a couple other "standard" ZigBee HA 1.2 controllers into working with them at all is just luck). If there were such an integration, it would (if it's like what I've seen on other platforms) likely require Internet access via Xiaomi's "cloud," so you wouldn't really get the "local" benefits of Hubitat. As always, they are a bit of a pain to get paired but most people find they work well as long as there is a strong signal between them and the hub or one of few known "good" repeaters for these devices.

Also, "drivers" are what Hubitat calls the code that SmartThings refers to as "device type handlers," or DTHs/DHs. :wink:

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Just to let you know,? This week I added a Xiaomi Temperature sensor (the circular model) to my small but growing system as I’m also new to Zwave and ZigBee IOT.
Despite the included manual being of many pages, my Chinese is non existent, so google and YouTube came to the rescue. :grinning:
I found a Hubitat driver online, put the hub into Discovery, put the Temp Sensor into its Pairing mode and it got discovered straight away. I was in another room to the Hubitat Hub, about 20m away. Then I added the downloaded device driver to the newly discovered device and all was good.
I opened the log tab, checked the Config, pressed Save on the driver page and could see good log entries coming through.
I made a Dashboard tile, assigned it to the device, with type as Temperature and there it was 16c, working as expected.
It was really straight forward but as I indicated my current Hubitat system is a testing environment, for my sanity. So I can get familiar with it and it’s operation before I release it to the household.

Just be forewarned that 20m is quite far without a repeater. You may have been able to get the device to pair at that distance, but keeping it paired is another story altogether.

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Good point. Keep an eye on its RSSI in the zigbee logging info ( from the zigbee info page). I tried using one of my buttons about 10m away (but on a lower floor with three intervening sheetrock walls in between); I don't have any devices that will repeat properly for Xiaomi so the RSSI that gets reported is indeed from the child device not a repeater (the RSSI that gets logged is always from the last hop). I noticed the RSSI was in the high negative 90's all the way down to -105. It worked very sporadically in that location. I relocated it about 15ft closer and the signal strength improved to around -87 to -92 and it works fine there.

Thanks for all the help with this!

I might be missing it, but apart from the few videos on the home page is there no central documentation/wiki on using this device? Even just YouTube videos are hard to come by. I think I have seen one other video that is not by hubitat on YouTube while there are heaps for home assistant. Is it just cause it's relatively new?

It it primarily because it is so new in relation to Home Assistant and others. Documentation is an issue, no question.

@SmartHomePrimer , @Tony thanks for the extra info. Really good to know and I’ll watchout for any dropouts.
Can I ask what you’d say a ‘safe’ range would be ?
Also want’s RSSI stand for ?
Cheers,

FYI; Before I left for a vacation, the Temp. Sensor was relocated to what I hope is it’s final location which “as a bird flies” is probably about 10m from the HH.

But, it’s now outside the house but very sheltered from the Sun and the Weather.
We’ll see if the Foil building paper under the exterior cladding of the house blocks or dampens the signal down.

10m might work ok. As @Tony pointed out, it really depends on what building material are obstructing line of sight. A repeater can help if that location causes dropout, but the Xiaomi don't respond well to just any zigbee repeater. @gavincampbell explains his testing with the Sylvania Smart+ (non-A version) here, and there is lots of info about the Xbee as a repeater, both in that thread and here.

RSSI is an indication of received signal strength on a Zigbee radio link hop. It's an 'indication' rather than an actual measurement of the strength of the data link because it also happens to encompass whatever other radio signals (potentially other interfering networks on the same channel, or even random noise in the given frequency band) are active at the time of the measurement which is a timeslice during the data transmission. It isn't an end-to-end measure if you have repeaters in the path and a lot of interference at the right frequency will produce a strong reading so its not an infallible measure of signal quality.

I don't know for sure what the limits are for reliable operation but from what I've seen on my own network in my small house (I live in a wifi wilderness; I am the only visible wifi network within range and its signal doesn't conflict with my Hubitat or ST hubs) the strongest signal usually reads around -52 a few feet from my hub (that's from an Iris plug which has a nice strong Zigbee radio; any end devices routed through it will report this figure) and the weakest in around -90 (a contact sensor I use for temperature reading that is buried inside my freezer). Most of the direct connected Xiaomi devices are in the minus mid 70's to minus high 80's.

In general my Zigbee network is reliable so I'd say these numbers are probably typical. I'd be interested to hear what other folks are seeing on their networks.

OK, guys thanks. That’s given me something to watch as I’m currently on route to Burning Man, via Palm Springs.
Sure is hot over here but my Temps in Sydney are reporting as expected. The little Xiaomi showing the chilly morning outside temp of 8-10 degrees C.

Love Sydney; visited there a couple of times. Enjoy your trip.

@tony, Cheers, BM is a Bucket List item so really thrilled and excited to be heading down this rabbit hole. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Enjoy!