Heyho,
as I will soon move into my first "own" apartment (have lived in shared apartments so far), I would like to set up some smart home devices. Primarily lights, but I am open to other ideas.
Looking into the topic I noticed that basically all cloudless setups need a server - often they use a Raspberry Pie, a low energy protocol - like Zigbee or Thread, and a managing software like Home Assistant or openHAB.
Currently, I think about using the Raspberry Pie 5 (should also be helpful for other projects such as Immich) together with some kind of USB to connect to the Thread network (guess there is something similar like conbee2 for Zigbee) and openHAB as the software for greater customization. While openHAB is probably overkill, as a computer scientist I think I might enjoy the greater customization options.
So my question: Are there any good tutorials for this setup? While I knew of Zigbee before this project, I wasn't aware of Thread and am just looking into it. I don't feel comfortable yet to double down on it without learning more on possible ways to connect Thread to openHAB on a Raspberry Pie.
Thanks in advance!
Alright: For now I have bought:
- Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2, Zigbee 3.0/Thread/Matter USB-Adapter
- Soyo MiniPC M4
Instead of choosing openHAB, I will start with Home Assistant. While some people argued that they use Zigbee without issues, I still feel like Matter/Thread is the more interesting standard. Given that you can only use one standard with a ZBT-2, I will try to find all my devices in the Matter/Thread ecosystem.
I'm using the HomeAssistant Blue. Amazing device you can no longer get but can build something similar. I'm slowly working on integrating HomeAssistant into an old house I'm fixing up while I live in it. I build many of my own sensors and controllers using ESP32'S and ESP8266's. They run on wifi and use a bit more power but I can build a single box that costs me about 30 bucks and will cover multiple zigbee devices so don't discount the use of wifi. The ESPHome Bluetooth proxy paired with the Bermuda BLE Triangulation is another plus for ESP32's for tracking as you can use a phone with Bluetooth low energy setup in the HomeAssistant app or you can use the android ble trackers.
I've been integrating some zigbee devices lately and ones like the Sonoff ZBMINIR2'S are really nice to have since they can turn any dumb switch into a smart one. This will be less useful in an apartment but something to keep in mind. For zigbee sensors I use a vibration sensor on my front door and have some moisture sensors that will be paired with a zigbee faucet valve for automatically watering my garden this year. I have a couple zigbee rgb bulbs and they seem fine as well.
Another project to look into is WLED is truly amazing for RGB strips and strings.b
For the thread/matter vs zigbee stuff there is a ton of information out there. They use different frequencies (zigbee overlaps with wifi thread/matter doesn't.) Thread/matter utilizes IPv6 and can provide internet access while zigbee does not. Zigbee has been around longer and is very stable and mature thread/matter is newer and aiming for higher bandwidth an better interoperability.
Just to throw a wrench into the works there is also Z-wave
https://lemmy.world/c/homeassistant is a good place to get more help and info on HomeAssistant as well as directly on the HomeAssistant site.