Recommended Zigbee adapter

Mozilla IoT
#1

Hi. I want to get started with the Things gateway and decided to go with Zigbee devices (none acquired yet).

The supported hardware wiki refers to 2 Zigbee adapters supported, the Digi Xstick and the Conbee. I live in Canada and the Digi is slightly more expansive than the Conbee. However, on the Zigbee devices compatibility side the Conbee seems more oriented to European devices brands, while I haven’t found any devices compatibility info for the Digi.

If anyone could share his/her experience with those adapters and how easy, or not, they are to work with the Things gateway and Zigbee devices, it would be great.

Similarly, I am also open to recommendation on a particular brand for Zigbee devices (e.g., motion sensor, plugs, …).

Thanks. Z.

#2

Personally, I prefer the ConBee II. The ConBee & ConBee II support using some of the Ikea devices which don’t work with the ConBee.

The ConBee dongles emulate being a light bulb and devices like the Ikea Motion sensor are not designed to talk to a gateway, but will only talk directly to a light bulb. The ConBee emulation allows these Ikea devices to be used.

#3

Thanks for the insights. I wasn’t considering Ikea devices yet, but it is good to know.

Any experience with using the Conbee II with zigbee devices available in north-america, that might not be on the official Conbee compatibility list?

Thanks again.