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?
No no, you are understanding this right. Both do pretty much the same thing and neither is truely better or worse than the other. ZHA seems to be the more user friendly option and Zigbee2MQTT the more involved one. But then again plenty of happy users with either of those two. It just doesn’t matter much. If you already have a ton of Tasmota Wifi devices that use MQTT, then using Zigbee2MQTT may be more familiar to you.
I don’t use it, but my impression is that people who prefer MQTT either have a lot of other devices already working that way, or use additional programs like Node Red to handle some of what HA can also do which require MQTT.
The first part is very understandable, as that’s pretty much why all of us likely end up with a favorite protocol! I didn’t really plan to be mostly using Zigbee and Hue devices, but now that it’s the case I am going to keep going in that direction even more.
This. It depends how involved you are. ZHA is fine when getting started. But how far do you plan to take it?
My home automation is -sooo- expanded since it’s early days, where HA is now “just a part of”. Then MQTT comes into the picture. MQTT is my main “message bus” these days, where not only HA connects on, but also Node-Red, miscellaneous python scripts ( for e.g. Smart Meter Reading), my car also connects to it,… And then some more with Grafana, also sending things to influx,… It all depends where your focus is. For me, MQTT is the “solid foundation” of real-time data. I do have to say: Z2MQTT is rock stable, and the community is very involved. Top notch to be honest.