What gateways (such as Xiaomi Aqara) are supported by openHAB

I’ve seen the bindings that are available in openHAB. What I want to know is the full list of all gateways (such as Xiaomi Aqara) of all brands that are supported by openHAB. Where can I find them?

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I just bought the Xiaomi MiJia Control Hub and I am unable to activate the Development mode with Mi Home Android App - I don’t know if this is because of UI change (the About menu that contained the link is no longer available) or because the Hardware no longer offers the mode.

I don’t think you’ll find such a list.
You’ll have to go through the bindings and find out which on these use a technology that requires a gateway (or several) and which gateways are supported in each binding.

The gateways are the manufacturers way to interact with their tech. Some of these manufacturer have created several gateways over time.
The bindings are created by openHAB users and developpers to integrate the tech into openHAB. Some bindings will use the gateways API, some will bypass it. Each binding behaves differently depending on the tech. If a gateway is needed and/or supported it will be in the binding documentation.

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Once you figure it out you should start the list :joy:

I noticed that all the “working Versions” are the once that only work with your app when the app is set to “Mainland China” -> other thread

My version is from Hongkong and does only work when the app is set to the same locale. But the app looks different when I switch it to “China”… I will have a look around if I can find the Chinese version of the Hub to verify.

Thank you for your answer. I think I should have been a little bit more specific. Do you know what Zigbee-based gateways are supported by openHAB? (e.g. Xiaomi Aqara, as this gateway supports zigbee)

The Xiaomi Aquara looks like an earlier version of the MiJia Home Control Hub I am using. The Problem there is not the Zigbee part.

This Hub connects all kinds of sensors, smartlights, switches, etc. using Zigbee, but it is connected to your network using regular WiFi. To be able to use OpenHAB to control those devices the Hub needs to be configured to forward messages from your network to the Zigbee side.

By default the Hub is configured to be controlled by the Xiaomi smartphone app and you don’t get a connection using the available OpenHAB binding.

There is a way to activate the Developer Mode - see the OpenHAB documentation - inside the app and configure the Hub so that it can be discovered by OpenHAB. And there is the Problem …

I’m sorry but this is not the answer to my question. I want to know all the zigbee-based gateways that are supported by openhab.

All of them are - in theory. It depends on the software that is installed on them. The one that I bought looks exactly like the one in the OpenHAB docs:

But activating the Developer Mode does not work - or works differently than described.

Zigbee is wireless mesh communication that is used by the hub to communicate with sensors and other smarthome devices connected to it. The communication with OpenHAB has to go through your regular WiFi network. And by default this is not allowed - you have to switch on the Developer Mode first.

Or are you using a separate Zigbee receiver that you already integrated into OpenHAB ?

So, in the Openhab Binding description it says “Gateway v2 (with radio support) or v3” is supported.

Can you tell me what this v3 Gateway exactly is? Is it possible to activate the developer mode? Does it support all Xiaomi sensors?

@selbolder I gave up on mine - I am sure that it is possible to activate the Dev Mode somehow… but given the different software I cannot find any documentation on it.

My solution is to go around the XiaoMi Hub and use the Zigbee signal from the sensors directly. There is a project on Github called Zigbee2MQTT that uses a Zigbee Sniffer to turns those signals into MQTT messages. There is a nice tutorial available here on how to install it and bind your XiaoMi sensors to the system.

hello, i have a Xaomi Gateway (i think v3). I gave up on it too, there are sooo many issues, sometimes its not connecting, i had loads of trouble even registering an account, then signing in, i probably cant name them all. and connecting the devices to openhab never worked since they complete removed developer mode for my version, not sure though if they opened it again …

i switched to the Raspbee from Dresden Electronics, which uses the deconz binding. it works very well and you can use loads of zigbee devices with just that single system. you need a raspi though. they also have a conbee which is a usb stick you can plug into any computer you want.

but there are other options too add zigbee devices as well, i think there is a general zigbee binding which uses just a regular zigbee usb stick. the cc2531 as far a i know.

I don’t want to be so negative on the XiaoMi products - beautiful designed, sensors work great, very affordable.

But if you try to use the Gateway without the XiaoMi Cloud offerings - well, it seems that the company does not want that to happen anymore. Or maybe the new documentation did not yet get translated to English. I could not find anything about it.

The solution for me, as mentioned above, uses the CC2531 - it is a USB stick you plug into your RasPi or NUC after flashing it with this custom firmware from Github. After that, all you need is an MQTT server that receives the messages forwarded from your XiaoMi sensors.

You can integrate those to OpenHab directly, or in my case, I use a Homematic CCU that runs Mosquito and Node-Red to handle the MQTT part for me - a 100% cloud-free and very flexible setup.

I don’t have any trouble with any XiaoMi Sensors, on the contrary, i would recommend to buy them !

But if you want to implement them into Openhab, just dont buy the gateway with them (you can get them without it), rather choose another solution like the CC2531 or deconz. From my experience those two work reliable as Gateways and are open to many systems. (and from a money point of view, cost around the same)

I was using a similar setup with a CC2531 on my raspberry and openhab and it was working. Nevertheless the connection was not very reliable, especially after a reboot of the raspberry I had to re-sync the sensors to the raspberry which failed once a while and is also not appreciated on my side as the connection would be lost in case of power loss.

Can you confirm this behavior?

Best
Matthias

My system used to behave like yours. Very frustrated. I then bought couple more CC2531 sticks and use them as routers. I distribute three around the house; one each in the basement, first floor and second floor. Since then, in the last coupe months, the system has been very stable. I haven’t had to re-sync them, after after re-starting the PI.

it’s a range issue. Add more routers, re-associate with the closest routers, and you should be good.

So far I had no reconnection issues. But I am using the RasPi right next to the sensors - 1-3m direct line of sight.

Zigbee gets into a lot of problems when you have a strong WiFi signal interfering - let’s say you have your WiFi router next to your Pi (+ Zigbee Stick) and there are several WiFi IP cameras connected to the router streaming 24/7. The frequencies overlap enough to be disruptive. It is better to use Z-Wave in such cases. There are some commercial Z-Wave Gateways available and I get a much better range out of those under such conditions.

But if you are able to isolate your Zigbee network a bit - or in my case, just make sure that the sensors are close to the bridge. I don’t have any issues.

Update from my side: There are two options how to integrate a CC2531 into openhab (maybe even more).

One directly as a Zigbee Device and pairing via the OpenHab web configuration. This was not stable on my side, especially after a reboot I had to re-connect the devices manually.

An alternative is to install zigbee2mqtt and feed in the data via MQTT into OpenHAB. This works quite stable with around 30 devices so far. No need for re-connecting after restart.

I hope this helps one or the other to clearly distinguish between two options.