Controlling Zigbee devices?

In another thread:

I know where you're coming from and appreciate the concern. It's just I've got some legacy zigbee devices that I can't get talking to Indigo, and it would be nice to use them. (Until someone writes a Zigbee plugin of course.

Might be possible, but the plugin will really need to talk to some hub device that happens to talk Zigbee. Like the Vera Bridge plugin is used for certain Z-Wave devices that Indigo can't control directly. I did a little research, and it appears that adding the Harmony Hub Extender to a Harmony Hub setup will allow the Hub to control Zigbee devices. If that works, then I expect my Harmony Hub plugin can be made to control the Zigbee devices (indirectly).

If not the Harmony setup, what other hubs do you know of that can control your old devices?

[jay (support)]

There are ZigBee interfaces (like Z-Wave interfaces) which use the official ZigBee API. We don't yet see the ZigBee market as being large enough to address this directly. However, some enterprising 3rd party could certainly look into it...

There are two popular hubs I know of that have full ZigBee HA built-in: the Wink hub and the Lowes Iris system. I think Wink does publish an API, but I kinda suspect the Lowes Iris system doesn't. It's based on the AlertMe technology which was bought by British Gas a while back. These two don't include the ones that just do Light Link (like the Hue and maybe LIFX?).

My SmartThings hub "works". My plan currently is to have the ST devices talk to Indigo via your better email plugin, and Indigo to talk to ST via the Maker Channel. The latter of these works FAST, and I've yet to test the former. Other ideas solicited!

Harmony doesn't see the Zigbee devices that I have left: two Iris door sensors, a Sengeld Zigbee bulb, and OSRAM GardenSpots. All my other Zigbee stuff is handled by the Hue Bridge.

And more than control--I'm really looking for these devices to talk to Indigo. Sending commands to my ST hub (or anything else) via IFTTT is easy. Getting past digest authentication into Indigo is hard.

There's another way to do this too: Ham Bridge.

Oh and one more thought: Considering the terrible levels of user satisfaction with ST, a plugin that talks directly to an ST hub would be a HUGE lure for those considering switching away from ST's cloud based model.

Harmony doesn't see the Zigbee devices that I have left: two Iris door sensors, a Sengeld Zigbee bulb, and OSRAM GardenSpots.

I don't think the Harmony will see any Zigbee unless you have the Extender.

Good luck!

[jay (support)]

There's another way to do this too: Ham Bridge.

If you're going to open up an unprotected port, you might as well just switch IWS to basic authentication. It's less secure, but probably more secure than no security...

ah no, you misunderstand. Ham Bridge will talk directly to ST, and Indigo can talk to HB.

[jay (support)]

ah no, you misunderstand. Ham Bridge will talk directly to ST, and Indigo can talk to HB.

To what end? Can you describe the information/command flow?

OK, first off, a caveat: This is NOT a system I use, have used, or intend to use. I decided it was more complication than I wanted.

But, if I did, I imagine it would be:

Indigo does all the control for everything.

Indigo sends curl commands to Ham Bridge.

HB sends whatever it sends to ST.

ST turns things on or off. Zigbee things.

Going the other way is what I really need anyway. I need ST to be able to communicate the state changes of some zigbee sensors to Indigo. Folder Actions via DropBox/IFTTT don't seem to be cutting it, though I freely admit this is likely in part due to my not chasing down bugs in my workflow.

[jay (support)]

In that scenario, Indigo can do anything Ham Bridge can do so you don't really need it. All you need to do is understand the "whatever it sends to ST" and do that in Indigo rather than in Ham Bridge...

I think Indigo needs to revisit considering directly supporting Zigbee - I'm not 100% for Zigbee, but it is starting to look like only supporting Z-wave really narrows the appeal of Indigo.

Here's my humble assessment of radio/RF interfaces in the DIY/Prosumer home automation space (corrections/updates appreciated):

Insteon (proprietary) - Fully supported by Indigo
Z-Wave (standardized, but proprietary with one silicon vendor (Sigma Designs) controlling the hardware) - Supported by Indigo
Zigbee (standardized, many silicon vendors) - Not supported by Indigo
Lutron (proprietary, two-different versions?) - Not supported by Indigo?
Somfy blinds - I don't know what they support

Connected lighting (lightbulbs in Edison A19, floodlight BR30s, and more) from most vendors seems to all be using Zigbee (Philips Hue, Cree, GE, TCP, others). This is a emerging big market.

Zigbee, unknown to most people, is the rf h/w used in every cable box/set-top box remote control that has rf (non line-of-sight) operation in addition to ir. That makes, in sheer numbers, Zigbee huge with millions and millions of chips shipped. (Of course, most of these are using a simple point-to-point protocol and it is not clear if cable boxes could be software/firmware updated to enable true Zigbee mesh protocols, but if they could..that means every cable box is potentially a home automation hub/controller.) This does make the raw cost of Zigbee chips very affordable.

I believe the Nest thermostat has a Zigbee chip included but not currently activated.

The Google Home Router has a Zigbee chip inside and Google's Thread/Wave protocols run on top of Zigbee radios (but are not Zigbee protocol).

A "hot" product area these days are smart locks. I think the available products are equally split between Z-Wave and Zigbee. Some of the more interesting products only support Zigbee.

Alarm systems - I don't have a lot of experience with these, but I assume some interface with Z-Wave and some interface with Zigbee.

Personally, part of the appeal of Indigo is that it is multi-protocol platform. It makes it a lot easier to justify the cost of a Mac mini, software, and PLM modems, Z-Wave stick, etc. when I can pitch it to my potential clients and friends as the "ultimate" Prosumer device. Spend more upfront, and avoid hours and hours of frustration with "toys" like Wink hub, Staples (now defunct), Insteon consumer hub, etc. etc.

I'm not sure the message is strong enough going forward if a whole class of growing/emerging devices that only support Zigbee is excluded.

Yes, gateways, bridges, and plugins talking to gateways that talk to bridges can partially work, but that's not supportable for mainstream users when non-Rube Goldberg solutions are becoming more available from other products.

As an interesting aside, I just listened to a home automation podcast interview with the founder of Indigo from three years ago where he said Indigo was taking a close look at adding Zigbee support.

Lutron is very well supported using a plugin. As are several other technologies on your list. Most mainstream alarm systems use serial communication for integration with automation systems. That's what they're designed for. They MAY use Zigbee or Z-wave for communication with wireless sensors, but hardwired is the way to go for reliability. I have serial ports connected to my Pool control system, my alarm panel, and my Whole House Audio multi-zone amp. Lutron interface is ethernet, as are all my POE IP cameras.

Using a plugin (rather than "native" support) is not a Rube Goldberg solution. Almost every other multi-protocol automation system out there (that I can think of) uses plugins of some kind. Many just refer to them as "drivers", but it's the same thing. An additional piece of code you load to talk to a specific device.

Your own description of all the zigbee-but-not-zigbee devices out there (Nest, cable boxes, etc) tells me that chasing Zigbee compatibility could be a disaster. Yes, there's a lot of other solutions out there that are built on Zigbee like hardware, but that's not the class of devices that Indigo users care about. They care about the end-point devices. The sensors, switches, etc. Not the hubs and controllers. So what devices are out there that aren't available in Z-wave or some other already supported (native or plugin) protocol? I'm quite curious about that, as I know very little about the Zigbee space. I know the Kwikset lock I bought came in both Zigbee and Zwave variants.

Good clarification.

I think plug-ins that talk directly to native hardware is fine.

I am only objecting to plug-ins that connect Indigo to other devices via crappy consumer hubs. A plug-in that talks to a wink hub is something that I would consider Rube Goldberg, especially since most consumer hubs are fully or partially dependent on Internet cloud connection to work.

I think there are well-defined Zigbee profiles for devices - particularly locks and lighting that may be important.

I only pointed out the plethora of Zigbee hardware to show that h/w cost of Zigbee chips will be driven down by the volumes.

The wildcard hardware is probably Bluetooth (and BLE mesh), primarily because both Android and iOS phones have BLE built-in and HomeKit from Apple ( love it or hate it) only has direct h/w support for WiFi and Bluetooth. [[Edit]]: So Apple, whether we care or not, is probably driving a lot of device manufacturers (such as El Gato / Eve, others) to consider BLE instead of Z-wave or Zigbee if they are only going to support one radio/RF interface.

I don't have any idea about the technical hurdles involved, or the business/logistical/licensing issues that would need to be overcome, but I'll say two things:

1. Zigbee stuff is much much easier to manage at the paring/unpairing end of things, compared to Zwave.
2. Even with its much broader support of a whole bunch of narrow use third party hardware (like the various serial interfaces) having Zigbee support would be the thing to put Indigo clearly above HomeSeer in terms of features for the consumer market.

[jay (support)]

Affordable ZigBee devices are really just now becoming available. The profiles (APIs) were a complete disaster until ZigBee lightlink came along. The ZigBee remote controls you mention generally only support the Remote Control (RFCE) profile, not the lightlink or the home automation profiles.

We were hoping ZigBee would pick up steam and overtake Z-Wave - and it may still. But at the moment, there are a lot more easily accessible and cost efficient Z-Wave devices. We continue to watch ZigBee, and it is definitely shaping up, but as a very small shop we have to maintain focus on the features that are most important to our users as part of the core product and continue to improve developer's ability to deliver the other functionality quickly and easily.

Will we support ZigBee as a built-in protocol? Maybe. However, we need to flesh out our Z-Wave support first.

Jay:

I know that it probably gets tedious having to explain some of the reasons behind decisions and "defending" yourself and decisions made as a company, but I think that users really appreciate it. I'm absolutely not saying this thread was attacking or anything, I just mean that I don't know of any other home automation product where users can know (to a reasonable extent) some of frank information and decisions that go into product development.

I know that we don't always get as much information as we want about upcoming features and such -- but on some major topics such as this we do get a small-but-important look into things.

Adam