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Comment by vlod | Hacker News Reader

I've installed a lot of Wemo (old) devices in my house and they worked well. Tried to buy some new ones (simple socket switch) and they pretty much didn't work. Extremely frustrating. I spent a lot of time futzing with it and swore a lot about closed-systems.

Yesterday was getting tempted by Zigbee again and then this arrived at my email. This is the last straw and decided to go full steam ahead [0]. btw the dongle is 25% off on amazon atm (prime day).

[0] It's this one, not tried it yet (fingers crossed it will work): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KXTCMSC

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I use this exact Sonoff dongle! I use it with ZHA and I've been very happy with it. I have it paired with a Hue bulb, several cheapo Aliexpress scene switches, and (my recommended switch) a MOES ZigBee scene switch.

Only tip I have for you is that everyone suggests to use a USB extension cable with these to get it away from your PC or whatever device. My dongle is sticky-tacked to my office wall.

The Home Assistant-branded ZBT-1 [0] is $30ish and, if your goal is Home Assistant, you're probably better off going that route especially now that IKEA is going all in on Thread/Matter (which the ZBT-1 supports in addition to Zigbee.)

I do have that particular Sonoff dongle - as well as a ZBT-1 - and I can vouch that the dongle works as well as the Hue hub it replaced, controlling a couple dozen lights.

(Obligatory prime-day-is-not-much-of-an-actual-discount so don't worry if you miss out on this sale - https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B09KXTCMSC)

[0] https://www.home-assistant.io/connectzbt1/

The docs for ZBT-1 seems to indicate that it can only do one of ZigBee or Thread at a time (that is, you must choose one of the two firmwares to flash), right?

It looks like there's third-party work to make Sonoff ZBDongle-E (which is _not_ the linked device) do both at once, but that's not officially supported…

I also had lots of issues with the newer Wemo products, even when using them without the Wemo app (over HomeKit). I spent tons of time on the phone with their support team, manually resetting the devices time and time again. They work maybe half the time.

A warning on Zigbee - Ikea just announced that they're moving their smarthome products to Matter over Thread. It's a win for interoperability, but they've been one of the main reliable and affordable vendors for Zigbee buttons/remotes, door sensors, smart outlets, lightbulbs (way cheaper than Hue), etc. There will still be others, but the ecosystem may not be the best long term investment anymore.

I use that dongle with Zigbee2MQTT, everything works perfectly and you can pry this setup from my cold, dead hands.

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