The ones I need, otherwise I always prefer core HA elements if possible.

With recently UI improvements in HA I have actually removed several HACS

He opens the video with “over the years I have used ZHA and Zigbee2mqtt” so I made a little assumption. but that makes it worse if he was already using Zigbee2mqtt when he picked up the Sky Connect and didn’t check compatibility.

If you are using a supported NON experimental adaptor / chipset and you have powered devices with strong connections to it, you should be fine. The only optimization I would do is put your USB stick on an extension cable and get it a little ways away from the computer as when they are jacked directly into a pi/computer the USB port can actually cause a little interference.

To save you going 5 min into the video… He was using an adapter with zigbee2mqtt that was listed as experimental.

It is less about the network adaptor and more that he switches from zha to zigbee2mqtt with the skyconnect / homeassistant adaptor that is still not fully supported in zigbee2mqtt.

Using a coordinator more central to your network can help but as long as a large number of your powered relay devices have a strong connection there isn’t anything wrong with using the USB ones.

The ONLY issue with the USB ones is that it is recommended you put them on an extension cable as the USB port it self can cause interference, and putting a little distance from the antenna helps.

So his solution DOES all that, and is a good solution, but I wouldn’t just go toss your USB stick in the bin…

Isn’t this exactly what the Camera Specific Configuration in the frigate documentation tells you to do?

Create a helper group that has all the lights.

Trigger:

Helper group turns on for 30 min

Condition:

I used time after and before as a fixed time.

Action:

service turn off with a target of the helper group

Should result in the trigger firing 30min after ANY light turns on and only turning them off at the set time.

Odd I have done the full setup several times As I run pure dockers / separate HA, Mosquito MQTT and Zigbee2mqtt and the devices all just auto discover and appear in HA has devices with entities with full control.

https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/guide/configuration/homeassistant.html

Did you enable home assistant discovery since you were doing a manual installation?

# Optional: Home Assistant integration (MQTT discovery) (default: false)
homeassistant: true

HA related the Litter Robot does have an integration for the wifi enabled ones and it will report state and error codes.

As previously stated I have an LR3 already that my cat STOPPED using… Not sure the LR4 opening is different enough to get him back in one.

Cost and my old cat not willing to try it are the two things that hold me back from getting an LR4… It it is wider but still not open so I am not sure he would use it.

I have a LR3 it is great until it isn’t… Both my cats used it for several months but my oldest cat with joint issues refuses to use anything but an open litter box now (doesn’t like the confined space)… Also possibly fixed in the LR4 the LR3 FULL sensor easily gets false positives due to dust build up from litter and is a PITA to clean.

I have been looking at a lot of reviews for alternatives but all of them eventually seems to have some flaw around reliability.

The new hub requirement seems very odd, the newer hub I believe supports thread so maybe these are not zigbee devices but thread devices.

I highly suggest using the “stacks” feature in portainer as it lets you use standard docker compose YAML files to do the config but still lets you have the ease of use of the stop start, pull, CLI UI etc. The default way of using portainer often obfuscates important settings.

If the dockers networking is NOT in host mode it will not really discover much as discovery depends on a lot of ports for a lot of different protocols… As bookworm also noted DNS / mDNS is also very important to discovery.

Cheaper? :O This is the super-deluxe splurge option compared to some cheap IKEA ZigBee bulbs

Depends how many bulbs are on each switch, in my home it is typically 4 to 1 at a minimum and the switch will outlive the bulbs. Color is about the only reason to use a smart bulb.

I make the switches smart, not the bulbs… Retains normal functionality, is cheaper and more reliable.

Zigbee via Zigbee2MQTT: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/supported-devices/

Zigbee via ZHA: https://zigbee.blakadder.com/zha.html

Zwave via Z-Wave JS: https://devices.zwave-js.io/ ( I will note that even if a Z-wave device is not on the official known supported list most will work if they are basic devices like a switch)

If you have no plans on recording you may want to look up setting up a stand alone instance of go2rtc and one of the optional cards to support WebRTC and MSE near real time viewing vs home assistants default HLS which is sometimes 15seconds delayed and chunky.

If you are not going to view ALL of the streams at the same time the system requirements and overhead for go2rtc should be fairly low depending on the codecs of your cameras and the devices you want to view on as video and audio support on various devices is all over the map, but go2rtc can transcode on the fly.

Nearly all Zigbee and Z-wave devices JUST WORK or are very close as long as you just double check they are on the compatibility lists. They are also fully local, mature and have devices from switch / hardware makers that are reputable in making switches and outlets. (unlike most wifi devices)

I would also suggest matter devices but that is still beta in home assistant and too EARLY to say anything about the quality of devices that support the limited 1.0, 1.1 specs.