Just for the record, in case anyone is following, I'm really rather impressed.
I have installed one of these:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0B6P22YJC?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1
That's connected (physically) to the VM running on my Synology, with a 2m USB extension.
The same host also runs Openluup, Mosquito, HA Bridge.
Yesterday I installed Zigbee2mqtt. That was a bit of a PITA but mostly because of ports and permissions.
Once up and running, and the correct boxes ticked, immediately visible in Home Assistant via the MQTT integration, and thence into Reactor
I've only got two devices. I bought the cheapest sensor I could find, which is a door sensor. Dead easy to add to ZIgbee2mqtt and again, immediately visible in HA.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FPQLWRW1?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
The dongle is on the top floor of the house, and I wanted the sensor on the back door (just about as far apart as it's possible to get short of going into the garage) When I moved the sensor downstairs it dropped out pretty instantly (which wasn't a huge surprise) so quick bit of research found out that smart plugs will act as routers so...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FDQDPGBB?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
Took me about 30 seconds to connect. Updated the name. Instantly visible in Reactor with the new name pushed over from Zigbee2mqtt.
And lo, the door sensor now has a signal of 140 and works as far as I can tell perfectly and instantly (unlike my z-wave one).
A few more of those will be purchased and used to replace the Tuya wifi cloud devices and the (continually failing) Z-wave plugs (yeah, they were TKB so....)
Commended to the house. Thanks for everyone that got me on the right lines.
C
Hello oh great ones.
After a couple of hours messing with ports and permissions I have Zigbee2mqtt installed and running on my virtual pi
Can connect to the front end and everything
Odd one though, simply cannot get systemctl to work and the error is, well, unhelpful. The service file is this:
[Unit]
Description=zigbee2mqtt
After=network.target
[Service]
Environment=NODE_ENV=production
Type=notify
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/node index.js
WorkingDirectory=/opt/zigbee2mqtt
StandardOutput=inherit
# Or use StandardOutput=null if you don't want Zigbee2MQTT messages filling syslog, for more options see systemd.exec(5)
StandardError=inherit
WatchdogSec=10s
Restart=always
RestartSec=10s
User=pi
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Straight out of the docs with the change to point to my local node install (which we know works as it's the same as the very fine Reactor is using.
Running manually pnpm start
in /opt/zigbee2mqtt works fine
However:
catman@openluup:/etc/systemd/system$ sudo systemctl start zigbee2mqtt.service
Job for zigbee2mqtt.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status zigbee2mqtt.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
Which I have
catman@openluup:/etc/systemd/system$ sudo systemctl status zigbee2mqtt.service
● zigbee2mqtt.service - zigbee2mqtt
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/zigbee2mqtt.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: activating (auto-restart) (Result: exit-code) since Tue 2025-12-16 12:32:42 GMT; 4s ago
Process: 3093 ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/node index.js (code=exited, status=217/USER)
Main PID: 3093 (code=exited, status=217/USER)
and
-- A start job for unit zigbee2mqtt.service has begun execution.
--
-- The job identifier is 17477.
Dec 16 12:35:16 openluup systemd[3178]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed to determine user credentials: No such process
Dec 16 12:35:16 openluup systemd[3178]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed at step USER spawning /usr/local/bin/node: No such process
-- Subject: Process /usr/local/bin/node could not be executed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- The process /usr/local/bin/node could not be executed and failed.
--
-- The error number returned by this process is ERRNO.
Dec 16 12:35:16 openluup systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=217/USER
-- Subject: Unit process exited
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- An ExecStart= process belonging to unit zigbee2mqtt.service has exited.
--
-- The process' exit code is 'exited' and its exit status is 217.
Dec 16 12:35:16 openluup systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
-- Subject: Unit failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- The unit zigbee2mqtt.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
Dec 16 12:35:16 openluup systemd[1]: Failed to start zigbee2mqtt.
-- Subject: A start job for unit zigbee2mqtt.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://www.debian.org/support
--
-- A start job for unit zigbee2mqtt.service has finished with a failure.
Which strikes me as very odd.
Any blindingly obvious things I'm missing?
TIA!
C
Obviously a quiet forum, but perhaps it's time
I'm looking at rolling Zigbee into my system, in large part for the Aqara FP300 presence sensors which seem to finally provide a solution to if the wasp is actually in the box.
My current set up is as follows:
One Debian VM on Synology NAS running:
Z-wave Server
Open Luup
Multi system reactor
HA bridge
Mosquito MQQT broker
This machine has a UZB Z-wave stick connected via the USB port on the NAS
Another HAOS VM on the same NAS running HAOS
I've got some older Z-wave stuff that I keep around until it fails.
I have some Tuya stuff integrated in HA
My thought was to get either a SMLIGHT SLZB-06M
or an Aqara Hub M2
Integrate them via Zigbee2MQQT (running on the Debian machine) and then expose them in HA so I can continue to automate in MSR.
Thoughts on which of those devices wold be preferable long term. Both are POE capable which is good. It also appears I could add a USB dongle to the NAS and expose it to the HAOS machine.
Any thoughts from the assembled experts here? TIA
C
I have an oven that I need to manage the temperature of, keeping it in the neighborhood of 600° C (1100° F). I have not been able to find a Zigbee-enabled solution to measure temps that high. Does anyone know if such a thing exists? If not, any ideas for how to roll a custom solution that I could integrate into a Sonoff ihost controller? I have no trouble finding high temperature probes, but none of them interface with my automation stack.
I have got mainly hue bulbs around the house, apart from a couple of places where it wasn't practical or pretty enough.
In those cases I put in sonoff in line switches so I can control them remotely. But now I'm wanting to further upgrade by replacing most of my light switches with Hue Tap dials (and add some fittings in where I tend to not want lots of light, but will need it some time). Then I can easily switch between different profiles and have guests do the same.
Does anyone know if I can get a replacement for the sonoffs that can be recognised in Hue so that I can control it with the Tap Dials?
Or alternatively any good alternatives to replacing the light switches with smart controllers?
Thanks
I'm looking for a zigbee smart bridge recommendation.
I need something I can hide in the ceiling as want to use for downlights.
I don't want a pairing button, I'm looking for another idea as don't want to pull out the ceiling to re-pair. Must work with Amazon hub, as I don't want to use manufacturers hub.
Any recommendations?
Thanks,
Hello!
I have recently begun making my home smarter, and I've run into some trouble while trying to get my Sonoff zbmini-l, which is connected to my Philips Hue bridge, to work properly. I am able to control it individually, but not through scenes or with the Google Home app. Has anyone else encountered this problem and know of a fix? Additionally, I have another Zigbee bridge, but I am unable to find the Sonoff device on it.
Thank you in advance for your help!
PS: I am very new to this.
After researching a number of various Zigbee solutions, I have come to the conclusion that Deconz with a ConbeeII is probably the best one available, covering the two HA1.2 stacks and ZLL stacks with the widest compatibility range, even better than the ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT components of Home Assistant, and also the best maintained with regurlar firmware updates. It is really an equivalent to z-way but for zigbee. It has a rest API so I am dreaming awake of a bridge for openLuup here...
https://dresden-elektronik.github.io/deconz-rest-doc/
Could be a good project? I may get one to play with... It could potentially enable unifying the hue devices into one network.
2.4Ghz band Zigbee, WIFI, BT, Microwave, Cordless Phones Interferences. What Zigbee channel to pick?
Kicking off this section with a quick write up on Zigbee 2.4GHz channel utilization.
Zigbee has become a very popular protocol over the past few years mostly due to its low power consumption, low chip cost (not being proprietary like z-wave was) and ease of inclusion.
It does come with a couple of downsides however ranging from single controller topography (aka single PAN coordinator) to what the title says: It uses the 2.4GHz (ISM) band which is possibly ultra saturated by other wireless protocols and even a variety of other more or less proprietary zigbee stacks. (i.e philips hue, Ikea Tradfi, Xiaomi, Plantlink etc...)
It is therefore important to make sure they don't interfere with one another.
This is a good article showing the correspondence between Zigbee and WIFI.
https://support.metageek.com/hc/en-us/articles/203845040-ZigBee-and-WiFi-Coexistence
Interferences lead to range reduction, dropped packets, more retries and lags. I have a 2.4GHz spectrum analyzer I can post some results from. I read through the zigbee alliance presentation claiming low interference but my experience demonstrates quite the opposite. When I was using SonosNET and Hue at the same time on neighboring channels, playing SONOS would kill the philips hue network.
Genuinely impressed with Zigbee and HA / Reactor
Zigbee
1
Posts
1
Posters
10
Views
1
Watching
-
Just for the record, in case anyone is following, I'm really rather impressed.
I have installed one of these:
That's connected (physically) to the VM running on my Synology, with a 2m USB extension.
The same host also runs Openluup, Mosquito, HA Bridge.Yesterday I installed Zigbee2mqtt. That was a bit of a PITA but mostly because of ports and permissions.
Once up and running, and the correct boxes ticked, immediately visible in Home Assistant via the MQTT integration, and thence into Reactor
I've only got two devices. I bought the cheapest sensor I could find, which is a door sensor. Dead easy to add to ZIgbee2mqtt and again, immediately visible in HA.
The dongle is on the top floor of the house, and I wanted the sensor on the back door (just about as far apart as it's possible to get short of going into the garage) When I moved the sensor downstairs it dropped out pretty instantly (which wasn't a huge surprise) so quick bit of research found out that smart plugs will act as routers so...
Took me about 30 seconds to connect. Updated the name. Instantly visible in Reactor with the new name pushed over from Zigbee2mqtt.
And lo, the door sensor now has a signal of 140 and works as far as I can tell perfectly and instantly (unlike my z-wave one).
A few more of those will be purchased and used to replace the Tuya wifi cloud devices and the (continually failing) Z-wave plugs (yeah, they were TKB so....)
Commended to the house. Thanks for everyone that got me on the right lines.
C
SONOFF Universal Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus ZBDongle E Gateway with Antenna for Home Assistant, Open HAB etc, Support Data Flow Control : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
