To explain it all, I am newbie, reason why I chose OpenHAB was the best documentation for open source home automation. I loved the detailed instruction how to install, got everything working on Raspberry Pi 3 added without big struggle the Z-wave and all the things (Aeon Labs Multisensor 6) and then got stuck with zigbee part…
Different conversations on that topic (at least those I found) end will silence. So
Ideally I would love to use IKEA trädfri bulbs as they are cheap and near. Would the best approach be that I should buy Ikea trädfri controller? Is there any step by step tutorials available how to add it? After testing I’d like to move HAB to Synology. Or is there USB stick that works flawlessly?
PS! Flashing and scripting is not yet my skill level without step by step instructions…
Although I don’t have a great deal of experience with the IKEA Tradfri stuff, I do have a few of there bulbs. I also have a number of Philips Hue bulbs. OpenHAB has a binding for both of the hubs and quite straightforward to get setup. I did attempt to get my Tradfri bulbs to connect to my Philips Hue bridge but had zero success so ended up having to get the Tradfri bridge also. The theory being that as both use the zigbee protocol they should be compatible with each other, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
My advise would be to purchase the Tradfri controller and use the binding, if that’s the route your going to take. If you think you may end up using Philips Hue bulbs also, then I would suggest you do some research on zigbee controllers or look at some of the open source projects and see if they meet your needs.
I am using the Tradfri Bulbs with a cc2531usb stick and they work great. You can buy those pre flashed with the right firmware on Ebay pretty cheap.
The advantage you will have when using one of the usb sticks supported by the Zigbee Binding https://www.openhab.org/addons/bindings/zigbee/#supported-coordinators
is that you won’t have another bridge standing around and that you will have a lot more choice in the future to use zigbee products from different vendors.
If you go with the ikea bridge it’s going to work with the Tradfri binding and not the Zigbee one https://www.openhab.org/addons/bindings/tradfri/
Johannes
I would personally suggest not to use the TI CC2531 dongle. While they are readily available, they are no longer supported by TI, and are likely to become a problem to support in future even if they do work “ok” at the moment. I’ve just spent a lot of time for a customer writing a new driver for the latest TI firmware for ZigBee 3 (which is now working), and there are a lot of problems with this firmware which will not be fixed by TI.
I would suggest to use the Silabs dongles - unfortunately they are not as readily available as the cheap TI dongles from China. If you’re in the US, then there is a HUSBZB dongle which is popular, or in Europe there is a Bitron dongle which is sold by DT but this will generally only work with Linux due to driver issues (as described in the Zigbee binding docs).
There are others available, but they need to be programmed.
