Tired of the unreliable connectivity of Wifi when controlling critical stuff like lights, I want to move to Zigbee.

I’m going to move everything to the Hue bulbs, but I want to use something connected directly to HA for the hub. Anyone have some clear advice on a good, available USB dongle for Home Assistant, config/setup/adding Hue lights?

    • nottelling@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      My initial Conbee and two hue lights arrived today, and between the pain in the ass that I apparently need a hue hub or something to put the lights in pairing mode, plus this makes me think it’s not going to solve any of my connectivity problems.

      Just in time for my Wi-Fi devices to start dropping again for no reason.

      • sixincomefigure@lemmy.nzEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        You absolutely don’t need the Hue hub to pair a light. It will work out of the box with your Conbee and ZHA. Where did you read that you needed the hub?

        • nottelling@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          I couldn’t get the lights into pairing mode out of the box. It appears that for hue bulbs, the only option is a hue hub, a button combo with a remote switch, or resetting via the app and Bluetooth. None of those worked. The last option I found is touchlink.

          I switched from ZHA to Zigbee2MQTT, which has touchlink built in, and that finally reset the bulb.

          I tried a dozen times to get it to pair with ZHA, and it simply wouldn’t appear. Works fine with Zigbee2MQTT though.

          Blackadder claims that’s the only tool verified to work on this specific model, so maybe that’s the problem with ZHA.

          I’ve more or less figured out how to get things working with MQTT, but it really feels more complicated than it should be to just control a few lights.

          https://zigbee.blakadder.com/Philips_LCA007.html