Zigbee
Reddit take
Not enough linked mention summaries yet; the source excerpts below are the evidence.
Pros
- For your lights/switches, air quality sensors, etc., Zigbee or z-wave have both worked really well for me.
- In general, I agree with the others: ZigBee is *much* better than Bluetooth. Close to five times the range, much more standardized across brands, and much more reliable.
- The Zigbee network will be much more robust thanks to mesh networking, Bluetooth also isn’t really a home automation standard so support of Bluetooth devices is going to be really hit or miss.
- You’re better off using zigbee or something else that’s wireless.
- Zigbee is boring but very proven. A single Zigbee coordinator with HA will happily run all the IKEA stuff and a lot of other devices with very little drama.
Cons
- ZigBee is cheap but wild-west, it's harder to find stuff that is UL-certified (as in: not likely to burn your house down), though innovelli and some others do it. It's great for usb and battery-powered sensors though
- My only issue with Zigbee is that the market has many devices that are not all built to the same standard, sometimes yeilding unpredictable results. However when sticking with mainstream manufacturers they can be great.
- The platforms that are evolving (Matter) or uncertified (Zigbee) are so variable as to who supports what and how close they are to the specs.
- Yeah in oversaturated NYC I've had Zigbee stuff not responding or turning on/off for no reason, but the Z-Wave stuff was never a problem.
- I also do have a lot of zigbee devices but they’ve been the least reliable and hardest to optimize the network for, and many vendors like Leviton seem to be dropping new zigbee devices.
Sentiment
26 positive (58%) · 12 mixed (27%) · 7 negative (16%)
Trust + time weighted score: +42% · raw score 42%
What redditors said (10 of 45)
For your lights/switches, air quality sensors, etc., Zigbee or z-wave have both worked really well for me.
ZigBee is cheap but wild-west, it's harder to find stuff that is UL-certified (as in: not likely to burn your house down), though innovelli and some others do it. It's great for usb and battery-powered sensors though
My only issue with Zigbee is that the market has many devices that are not all built to the same standard, sometimes yeilding unpredictable results. However when sticking with mainstream manufacturers they can be great.
In general, I agree with the others: ZigBee is *much* better than Bluetooth. Close to five times the range, much more standardized across brands, and much more reliable.
The Zigbee network will be much more robust thanks to mesh networking, Bluetooth also isn’t really a home automation standard so support of Bluetooth devices is going to be really hit or miss.
You’re better off using zigbee or something else that’s wireless.
The platforms that are evolving (Matter) or uncertified (Zigbee) are so variable as to who supports what and how close they are to the specs.
Yeah in oversaturated NYC I've had Zigbee stuff not responding or turning on/off for no reason, but the Z-Wave stuff was never a problem.
Zigbee is boring but very proven. A single Zigbee coordinator with HA will happily run all the IKEA stuff and a lot of other devices with very little drama.
I advise you to replace your standard switches with Zigbee or Z-Wave versions which will work in predictable ways however it was used by the last person.