it has been some years since I touched Openhab, especially since my mini-pc running all the dockers died (asus chromebox v1, its ssd actually).
I have recently started playing with it again, installed the ubuntu servers, dockers with grafanas and what not, and started adding things… only to discover stuff doesnt work as it used to, given Smartthings changes couple years back.
So now Im researching what setup I should be looking at.
My plan was to use my v3 Smartthings as a Zigbee/Zwave hub and access the in openhab through either binding or the mqtt. Apparently that is not possible. Some time ago, I also considered going ‘local’ by purchasing hubitat, but that never happened. So I started browsing the forum to figure out the state of things and proper setup in 2025, and got lost with all the issues people have with various dongles, especially on the z-wave side.
The question is:
What is the recommended setup to be able to connect to all the zigbee devices in the house (plenty of ikea/hue/sylvania bulbs, ikea shades, buttons, remotes etc)?
What is the recommended setup to access my z-wave portfolio of device (mostly switches from inoveli and few other brands, and a couple of button/remotes)
is there a way to reuse my Smartthings V3, Hue Bridge or Ikea Bridge for my purposes or should I abandon them and move into hubless setup with 2 dongles?
what dongles are recommended for z-wave? zigbee is easier with a list of recommendations by the binding, but the zwave one is trickier with all the conflicting messages that anything above 500 series wont work or is not going to ge supported by the binding or whatever.
How does matter/thread matter in my setup? i dont believe I have any ‘matter’ devices unless accidentally, but I thought perhaps smarthings can distribute its things over matter for Openhab to connect to? is this a thing?
On the IT side I’ve got somewhat sophisticated unifi setup in a server rack, multiple switches and APs etc.
From what I understood I do need dongles, and currently looking at Sonoff for Zigbee and Zooz 800 for Zwave (unless I really need the 500 one).
Separately, perhaps off-topic, but is [influxdb/grafana/frontail/portainer/maria(mysql)] container setup still the way to go?
All of them are supported by the deconz-rest-api https://github.com/dresden-elektronik/deconz-rest-plugin and the ConBee Zigbee dongle. In my home setup, the deconz binding fully interacts with the local API on the same Raspberry PI device.
The 700 and 800 chip z-sticks will work in OH after OH4.0 in “Classic” mode nodes up to 232. Long Range inclusion, nodes over 256 require S2 security, smartStart are not supported by the OH ZW binding. There might need to be an adjustment initially as the latest Zooz sticks are shipped with 16 bit nodes as default. This is fixed in the OH 5.0 snapshots.
On the Zigbee side, because you have listed a bunch of stuff that is Zigbee plus some proprietary extensions (e.g. Ikea) you might need to look at the zigbee2mqtt service. The Zigbee binding in OH is great for pure Zigbee devices but a lot of these companies add stuff which makes full support challenging. zigbee2mqtt has more contributors so it’s better able to keep up with these proprietary extensions.
You should be thinking about Matter for future devices. Apple, Google, and Amazon appear to be embracing it. However, this is a transition point - there aren’t as many Matter devices out there as there are for Zigbee and Zwave. But they are starting to arrive. Eve and Inovelli and Tapo have light switches and various other devices. Thread is very closely related to Zigbee, so manufacturers should be able to add Matter support fairly easily.
The Matter binding is improving rapidly and allows Apple, Google, and Amazon Alexa to interact with OH directly - no need for cloud bridges.
Keep in mind that you need a Thread border router if your Matter device runs on Thread (not needed for those using Matter with Wifi).
And note that much of this is new and you’ll have more hiccups now using Matter, but it seems likely to be the future direction. I wouldn’t replace any currently working Zigbee or Zwave devices, but I would look at Matter for new devices.
