I am situated in Germany, totally new to Zigbee and would like to “enlighten” some rooms with LED strips.
Currently planned are 3 lights, all dimmable, max lumen listed below
one consisting of two 5 m strips, approx. between 1200 and 1600 lm
one consisting of 4 strips with varying length (120, 130, 140 and 150 cm), approx. 600 lm
and one led strip of 7 m, approx. between 1200 and 1600 lm
All strips should be of decent quality, RGBW, enough diodes per meter for fancy ambient light, only inhouse use, no water near (IP 20 should be sufficient).
The lights are planned to be controlled via Zigbee.
Q1: Regarding disclosed security flaws in Zigbee protocol, are there any best practices to interface OH? Would it be best to use Zigbee2mqtt because this will use “text messages” and decouples Zigbee from OH in “a way”? I am asking because my whole house is KNX and controlled by OH.
Q2: I understand, that I can use a USB Stick, like a plain CC2531 or ConBee II or one of the sticks recommended on the ZigBee2mqtt project for more than 20 devices. Tempted by their low price tags compared to KNX, maybe I will use Zigbee sensors (if no security concerns). Anyway: which adapter do you recommend? BTW: the RasPi and ZigBee stick will be in an electrical Cabinet and I might need an external antenna with a short (20-30 cm ) extension cable.
Q3: Now the hardest part, as it seems I am not able to think of the right Google words…
I am looking for LED strips and a LED RGBW-Controller which can be controlled via ZigBee. I can’t find such a ZigBee-LED-Controller - or is it correct, that it costs around 30 € alone?Preferably I would like it to consume 240V, because 240V just is there. At the same time everything should be energy efficient and dimming should be smooth. Maybe an additional power supply is needed? I am really grateful for LED strip and ZigBee-LED-RGBW-Controller (or however it is called) recommendations!
Q3: If you don’t think about wasted money - is there any use to buy an additional Hue Bridge to get my wife started with the light and to relief me from finishing the OH part in short time - and maybe give me the chance to build a new OH, based on OH3, in parallel to the old one (new RasPi already ordered). Currently my familiy is used to control things via OH on their iPhones.
I usually think simple is better. Why flash zigbee2mqtt on to a stick instead of using the excellent Zigbee binding in OH? I doubt the zigbee2mqtt know the hardware better than the vendor.
No - this will make no difference. The security issues are related to the ZigBee protocol. But note that this is quite old, and ZB3 devices, or systems with insecure rejoin disabled, should not have this issue. I think that ZB2MQTT is actually using insecure rejoin to keep things simple for the less compliant devices.
Depending on what binding you use there are different sticks - you should check. I don’t think the ConBee is supported in any binding except the specific binding for that device.
There are many around, but I think most do not directly connect to 240V - you will need a separate power supply that is compatible with the LED strip you choose.
Thanx…and wow: 30 € for one piece alone. IMHO it is expensive compared to the upper priced Philips Hue strips, where you get such a controller, a power supply and the strip for 60 € all together.
Zigbee2mqtt had great hardware support and broad base of users and contributors. It also supports ota updates among other things. There are reasons why so many people run it. With that being said I’m shifting it out for the openhab binding which is excellent and maintained by Chris, who is devoted and helpful.
