I’m gut-renovating my future house, which will eventually have a bunch of smart devices managed through Home Assistant, including a large Zigbee network anchored by Inovelli blue switches. In the meantime I’ve got HA/Z2M and a number of test devices running in my current house, and the current HA machine (and all the network gear) will eventually move to the new house.
As part of the renovation, the electrical subcontractor will be installing a number of hardwired Zigbee devices (30+ Inovelli blue 2-1s and fan switches, 50+ Hue downlights). But the electrician won’t be responsible for any of the setup/configuration. That’ll be my job.
I see two possible ways to roll this out, and I’m looking for some advice as to which will be the smaller headache:
Give the electrician the new-in-box switches/lights to install. Let the devices run in their default configuration until I move the HA machine over and configure everything in the new house.
I think this means the Inovelli dimmers will start out in on/off mode, cutting power to the Hue lights when they’re off. Not the ideal setup, but minimum functionality so the electrician can confirm everything is wired properly. I assume by the time I move the HA controller to the new house, the individual devices won’t be in pairing mode anymore, so I’ll have to do button combos to reset them one at a time before I adopt into Z2M. Which I guess is probably preferable to figuring out which unnamed device is which with 80+ new devices.
Configure all the devices before installation, label them and mark up the electrical plans so the electrician knows precisely where each device should be installed.
At my current house, I’d temporarily wire up the devices for each room in the new house, adopt each device in Z2M, name and configure it, and set up Zigbee groups/bindings between the switches and Hue lights so the dimmers are in smart bulb mode and each room’s lights are controlled correctly. The electrician would install the preconfigured devices, and I assume the direct bindings I setup will be enough for basic control until the HA machine moves to the new house. When the HA machine moves, those devices will already be configured and adopted, and more complicated automations will be possible. Will the Zigbee topology be weird if I do it that way, or will the devices figure out a sensible network layout once they’re powered on in their final location?
Has anyone done a big installation like this? How did you roll it out?
I’ve never done anything this sized myself, but I would avoid the second option because all of the routing tables will be a mess since none of the devices will be in their final locations when joined to the network.
Yeah, I read through that thread and gleaned a lot of good info about larger installs – luckily mine won’t be quite so large, so I don’t think I’ll be pushing the limits of network size.
It seems like they’re gradually building out their network by adding a few devices at a time, which would also be my approach if I were already living in my new house and had my HA machine running there. And I guess that’s basically what I’d be doing with approach #1.
The routing/topology was my big concern with my second option. I had hoped that the devices would optimize/rebuild the network on their own (or at least have some kind of command to force a rebuild). But is that not the case?
I would unbox all your Hue lights and plug them. Update them via the Hue App via Bluetooth and then factory reset them all back to defaults. Then let the electrician put them in without worry about which one goes where. The update process will be the biggest issue you have if you do not do it before hand. It takes a long time over the Zigbee network to update and if your are using ZHA, that is not yet robust for Hue. Z2M is much better at the update process currently, but you are still looking at 20-40 minutes per device per firmware change. Some of the Hue lights will have 2 updates when done via Zigbee.
When joining lots of devices, I would start with all the Inovelli switches and keep them in the On/Off mode. That way you can deploy all the switches first, update your Inovelli firmware, and let the mesh settle for 24 hours. Then join your devices via the switch that is close to the devices. Will help make sure all your routes are good.
If you are going EZSP style adapters, I would use ZHA. If not, then Z2M is great.
I have built this network from the ground up a few times. It is a remodel that we have not moved into yet and been able to play with different options. At 283 so far, so you will be just fine at 80ish devices on a single adapter. I would avoid the ConBee III currently I do not have confidence in network stability yet, but maybe that is because I was trying to get it on Z2M instead of ZHA.
One more lesson, make sure the electrician watches how far they push the wires through on the switches. If they come too far into the switch, it can get to the switch paddle and when you press the paddle and that cause a circuit to turn off for a brief moment.
Great tip about the firmware. That was another of my reasons for considering my second method, but I hadn’t thought about updating and then factory resetting. Smart.
Is there any reason not to try the same thing with the Inovelli switches?
You can totally do that. But you must join them to a network, update them and then factory reset them again. Not a problem, but the time to update will be a bit…better to get it done before install if you can, and you can put them really close to the coordinator which should make them “quicker”. They will likely still be about 30 minutes per via Zigbee.
I’ve got a large network (well, two because I split them) like cscott. I would go with option 1. I’ve tried just about every coordinator, would recommend tubezb poe so that your coordinator is central with minimal interference from other devices. I also have had the best experience with zigbee2mqtt using cc2652 chipset. Good luck!
I’m currently using a Sonoff ZBDongle-P for coordinator. In my new house, I was going to have it mounted on the outside of the server cabinet (located in the basement) and rely on densely-placed Inovelli switches and Hue lights to build the mesh through the rest of the house up to the third floor. There would be 10-15 hardwired Zigbee hub devices within about 15 feet of the coordinator, though all but one of them would be on the other side of a floor/ceiling or drywall wall.
In your experience, does that sound like an okay plan, or am I going to regret it and wish I used something like a TubeZB in one of the upstairs rooms instead?
I would try to put it as close to the center of the house as possible. I also prefer network based coordinators to USB ones since it increases the flexibility of moving around the application controlling it from one machine to another without being tethered to the USB cable.
Regarding the electrician, you’ll need to ensure he understands how the Zigbee switches function. For many of them, smart switches equate solely to a Lutron Caseta-based installation leveraging the pico remotes; they don’t understand/bother past that - it is just about the remote. Those battery-powered remotes can be placed anywhere on the wall without pulling neutral and line, and definitely not bothering with a traveler for 3-way setups. It allows them to cut corner (less work), yet achieve the same functionality by slapping a remote where they would have had to pull wires with a dumb switch.
It will be important to let them know they can (or not, depending upon your preferences) dispense with the travelers but NOT with the line/neutral. You should discuss all 3-way (4-way) setups in detail with them before they start laying out wires.
Regarding 3-ways involving an outdoors dumb switch (outdoors porch light switch near the gate vs. smart switch in the home), recall that the Inovelli is not rated for outdoors; you’ll need to review the wiring schematics with the electrician ahead of time to make sure you don’t end up in a situation, like me (line-load in separate boxes with first switch outdoors), where I had to pull another wire through the conduit from the gate to the house.
The architect and GC for the renovation planned and specced the whole job for dumb switches and lights, and the smart stuff is a later addition by me. So they should just be sticking to their original plan, only using the switches I provide to them. I’ve already explained to the GC that I still want travelers run for the 3-ways (in addition to the line/neutral), so the wiring can gracefully fall back to dumb switches if I ever decide to remove these.
Good note about the outside rating. There’s not much opportunity for outdoor wiring in my city rowhouse with tiny concrete slab backyard, but I’ll double-check the plan for the roof deck. I’m pretty sure all of the switches are inside, by the door.