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Home Assistant is open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first.
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ZigBee and Zwave? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I see a lot of posts about people who like their Zigbee and Z-Wave products. As I'm setting up the hardware in my home, I'm using Wi-Fi products because I already have Wi-Fi. I don't see much difference in price. What is the actual benefit of setting up a separate network for home devices? Is there a reason that I should consider setting up one of these networks?

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

One thing I like about Z-Wave and Zigbee devices is that they can't connect to the internet no matter what, because they don't have the hardware for it.

This means you don't need to worry about them phoning home with usage data. (privacy)
It means you don't need to worry about them being used by a hacker to penetrate your network. (security)
It means you don't need to worry about them being a node in some botnet mining crypto for someone else with your electricity. (resource usage)

You've already got HomeAssistant to connect them to your Google Home or HomeKit account, so you can still turn on your closet light from the bar or whatever. You're not losing anything by them not being connected to the internet directly. You just never have to worry about that stuff. Instead of having to keep 40 devices that were sold by some company that no longer exists up to date on their firmware, you just need to keep HA up to date.

All it costs is one $30 usb dongle.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I love ZigBee sensors basically because they can run years with a coin battery, and I don't dislike WiFi devices that are connected to the power, I just put them in a VLAN with no Internet access.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

It's great that you have the skills to do that, but we both know that most people buying smart home gadgets don't have those skills. I'd prefer those people to have a safe by default setup, which is why I advocate for Zigbee and Z-Wave.