Getting Started with our Zigbee Products

Created: 1 February 2022
Updated: 1 February 2022
By: Adam Allport
Reading time: 3 mins

Content

Introduction to Zigbee

Zigbee is a low-cost, low-power, wireless mesh network standard targeted at battery-powered devices in wireless control and monitoring applications1. At Local Bytes, we stock a range of Zigbee devices, that can be used to kick-start your home automation setup.

Zigbee Devices typically fall into 3 categories:

  • Co-ordinators
  • Effectors (E.g. Smart Relays, Light Bulbs)
  • Sensors (E.g. Contact Sensors, Motion Detectors, & Buttons)

Coincidently, the Zigbee Standard has important classes of devices:

  • Zigbee Coordinators - To manage a Zigbee network
  • Zigbee Routers (ZRs) - To relay messages from coordinators & end devices
  • End Devices (ZEDs) - To send messages & act on received messages

Note: Devices that battery powered will often be end-devices, mains powered devices will often be routers (but not always)! Routers send/receive like end devices

Example Network

graph RL coord([Coordinator]) light1(Light Bulb #1<br/>Router) -.Weak.-> coord light2(Light Bulb #2<br/>Router) --Strong--> coord light1 --Strong--> light2 ct1(Contact Sensor<br/>End Device) --Strong--> light1 ct1 -.Weak.-> light2 button1(Button<br/>End Device) -.Weak.-> coord button1 --Strong--> light2

In this example:

  • Only Lightbulb #2 has a strong connection to the Coordinator
    • Lightbulb #1 uses Lightbulb #2 as it's parent
    • The button also uses Lightbulb #2 as it's parent
  • The Contact Sensor can neither connect to the Coordinator, or Lightbulb #2, and therefore connects to Lightbulb #1 as it's parent

Getting started with Zigbee devices

What you'll need

As per the above example, You'll need at least 2 devices. We sell a coordinator, and end devices on the shop! For this example, we'll be using Home Assistant and Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA)

Connecting the Coordinator

  1. To get started, you'll want to head over the Integrations dashboard (Configuration → Devices & Services)
  2. Plug your coordinator into your automation hub
  3. Home Assistant should detect the coordinator and guide you through the setup process
  4. If not, click the plus button, and type "ZHA" to find the Zigbee Home Automation integration!

Connecting the Devices

  1. Put ZHA into pairing mode. You can do this by clicking: Configuration → Devices & Services → Zigbee Home Automation (Configure) → Add Device
  2. Remove the battery protector from the device
  3. You may need to find the pairing button (often a pinhole button), and press it until the status LED starts flashing
  4. After a few seconds, you should see the device appear in Home Assistant!

Conclusion

That's all. You should now have a functioning Zigbee network.
Time to get automating!

Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zigbee ↩