Nice video, maybe you could take the opportunity to make a video explaining how to go from ZHA to Z2M.

You get more versatility with Zigbee2MQQT. The support for devices is much larger. If you want some simple door sensors ZHA is the way to go.

Great video for new users of Home Assistant! 👍🏻⭐ Very informative and detailed, but still very concise. 😊 I've been using Z2M for several years now because of its bigger compatibility and I can't see myself going over to ZHA at the moment.

Great video! You offered tons of options for me. I like the way you concluded. I think Z2M sounds better overall but even though I'm new to Zigbee.

Love the video! Having separate Z2M installation and perhaps also broker of course also means more maintenance and chance of partially broken system. Doing backups with ZHA could make recovery from broken installation easier

So wish this video was around four years ago. Great summary

As usual, I learned something new. thanks!

I have been using z2m for past 2 years after (briefly using zha). ZHA looks to have gotten a lot better, but had poor support for a lot of cheap aliexpress sensors back then so I chose z2m. Have been really happy with it. I switched from a conbee2 to a ethernet zigbee coordinator, which was a pain in re-paring the devices (didn't see a path to move everything over between those 2 coordinators) and everything continues to work great.

Invaluable insight & worth watching before installing many Zigbee devices. I started with ZHA then hit the frustrations mentioned & started again with Z2M 😂😢

Thanks. Been using HA over 2 years and had no idea what's the deference between the two. I remember trying ZHA and switching to mqtt not long after

Thanks a lot for a comprehensive walk through. Recently moved from RP4+ConbeeII+Deconz to the Yellow where I now run the ConbeeII+deconz + ZHA. But am disappointed with ZHA. So now I will try a move to z2m

Thanks a ton for the very informative video! Been using Deconz with a Conbee II stick for a couple of years and although I have standard Zigbee devices (Aqara, Ikea), I would rather go with Zigbee2MQTT if I had to do it again to benefit from the advanced features such as the OTA updates of the devices.

Informational video ,thanks!

Congratulations on the video. I currently use both options, precisely to have two zigbee networks in operation. Notably, zigbee2mqtt not only has more compatibility, but also better use of the resources of each device, such as entities, configurations, etc. However, I notice a better response from devices with ZHA. Even if it's almost imperceptible. Studying the possibility of migrating the current zigbee to a docker version in my proxmox, and creating a second zigbee2mqtt installation to replace the ZHA.

I use both, over 200 devices. Skyconnect ZHA, Sonoff 3 Plus Zigbee2MQTT. Through out house and garage, use seporate channels have no issues. I would agree new user, get a Skyconnect and go with ZHA, much simpler setup, once you get more advanced, then branch out to Zigbee2MQTT. Good video thanks for taking the time.

Until recently I've been using WiFi only, but because of some random reliability issues due to devices dropping off line unexpectedly. I decided to look at ZigBee, ZWave and Matter, & because the Sky Connect does/will support ZigBee and Matter support at the same time it seemed like a good idea & it's also a nice way to give something back to the HA team. This lead me down the ZHA route, although I appreciate I can swap. As you mentioned not all devices are supported within ZHA and even devices on the Blackadder site can be misleading especially when manufacturers release a number of revisions of the same device under the same product code (Yes, AQARA! I'm talking to you) anyways my devices do now work although missing some features, custom quirks are great for ZHA as users can test them in-between HA releases and my community interaction was a positive one, which made it a nice experience. I just wish the process to create Quirk's was better explained (perhaps an idea for a video 😉) as I would like to get more involved.

Thanks for sharing this video. I have many switches and plugs from the Bseed brand. These are better supported at Zigbee2mqtt. For this reason I switched from ZHA to Zigbee2mqtt.

ZHA developers also has a new ”Quirks V2” request for change for the zigpy library it uses to change the way ZHA works with unsupported devices out-of-the-box to allow more attributes that do not have a quirk in ZHA Device Handlers to at least be pass-through to ZHA

I just migrated from ZHA to Z2M and indeed, most of my sonoff battery sensors were not detected. But all my mains powered devices appeared with additional configuration. Glad I made the switch, as I was even thinking of using only mains or usb powered devices/sensors.

Changed from years ZHA to Z2M and it's fantastic! Much greater device support and pairing was much easier(Sonoff USB zigbee P stick)

Great video, keep them coming :) p.s. I am ZHA team, started early and decided that ZHA is a way to go, still there

I have a Termostat with a clock. It never got the correct time with ZHA, but updated imediatly with Zigee2MQTT

This is perfect timing! I was wondering this afternoon when I move do I want to switch to Z2M so I can add some new aqara switches or if I should stick with what I've got and find another smooth solution

Thanks B.T.

Great video ! I was wondering if you could maybe make one that explains how device "binding" is supposed to work in either ZHA (or Z2M). Its not really clear how to for example connect a Philips Hue Remote onto a ZHA light group directly so that it does not have to go through HA automations.

Once again a grate video. I am using Z2M , i tried ZHA some time ago and had few problems so i decided to move to Z2M and i am quite happy with it. One think that i find helpful is to have the MQTT part to be able to debug if something it worked or not. One question, what coordinator do you recommend that works well with Z2M? Thanks

Regarding z2m 1.35, with that new feature of supporting "unsupported" devices on the basic level: it sounds like z2m starting to do what ZHA was doing all along. ZigBee clusters from official ZCL (Zigbee cluster library) are supported without quirks in ZHA. It's the manufacturer-specific, non-standard stuff that requires quirks. However adding quirks for ZHA is indeed cumbersome and in general case requires changes in 2 repositories.

Nice video, maybe you can share what piece of hardware you showed to allow to extend coverage to a detached garage? Do you have a vídeo on own to do it?

Thanks for the very informative video. What was that white device you held up that expands the network?

Thanks for this video. Very usefull. Could you watch straight in the camera? Its easier to watch when u look straight at the camera.

This might explain why the new Sonoff "P" switch I bought this week just wasn't working with ZHA? I could see the device but it didn't expose any values. I installed zigbee2mqtt and got it working.

@BeardedTinker I was thinking of running Z2M network along side ZHA in one HA instance which you showed us in the video. I'm currently using SkyConnect for ZHA and have Sonoff Dongle P which I'll be using for ZTM. From your experience can you advise if I need to be careful about anything related to installing and running another Zigbee network and it won't break my existing network? Any suggestion or tip will be helpful :)

Hello, I'm using Z2M for about 4-5 years now. It's installed on a dedicated Pi3 (to avoid problem with other software). I'm using the full install option (no docker). Before buying a device, I always look at the Z2M database which is very complete. I think for people who just have hue or ikea, the ZHA should be enough but I'm not sure that people using HA limit themself to hue and ikea device :). One little question, I don't remember how to add a shortcut in the left panel to Z2M as you have :S

I need both and use both on the same HA instant. I have a Odroid 2N+ (HA Blue) For ZHA I use the skyconnect and for Z2M a ConBee II stick. The reason is I really like the Ikea cheap switches and is only ZHA compatible and I usse a Moes IR-sender that is only Z2M compatible. My main network is on ZHA and whats nbot compatible goes to Z2M and it is working great for almost 6 months no issues at all.

Thanks for comparing, nice video. Wounder if you tested the emqx as broaker? I think it would give more data about trafic and so on, but at the same time they migh just drop free version one day, not shure if I go that way.

I was about to Say that you did not cover the option for two networks, untill I saw the end of the video. I am currently considering this dual network option, with a main ZHA network, and a secondary Z2M for some "New" devices. Any video covering this option would be great. Thx

Very nice Video! If I have well understood you can have both ZHA and Z2M working at the same time. My HA is running on a RPi and I use Synology to run some application like Frigate seen in HA as addons. Currently I use ZHA on Raspberry HA. May I at the same time use Z2M on Synology? will the devices be visible in both systems? Thanks

Went from ZHA to Z2M because of some firmware updates needed. Though I've got the feeling I experience that battery devices are losing connection more then they did before... Which doesn't make sense, because I've integrated a bunch of smartplugs on Zigbee which also function as a router.

Great Video. It would be interesting to know how to keep a zigbee network healthy, limitations of the most used coordinators like how many devices they can handle. Something more up to date. Any zigbee expert channel recommendations?

Some feedback on this new type of video: I have already gone through this subject of ZHA vs Z2M and for me this video is pretty easy to follow. But if I were new to HA and Zigbee, this is hard to understand. I think you need to dumb it down a little bit more or leave the more advanced subjects to the later parts of the video (like docker containers). What will also help is to make a clear separation between the various subjects on which you're comparing the ZHA and Z2M, like "device support", "coordinator support", "ease of installation", "flexibility? (docker etc)", etc. So not doing ZHA first and then Z2M, but step by step based on subject. That also makes it possible to make a side by side comparison list (pros/cons) that people can read themselves in the video (a bit like a powerpoint slide), extending it as you get further into the video. Basically a table with ZHA and Z2M at the top, and the subjects on the left, one subject per line. If you decide to make such a video, you could call it "ZHA vs Zigbee2MQTT for dummies" ;-) Follow up videos could then be: - How to install ZHA and add devices - How to install Z2M and add devices - How to move from ZHA to Z2M - Running ZHA and Z2M side by side, what do you need, what to look out for - How to move Z2M out of HA and into a separate VM/docker - How to run two Z2M instances in HA (it seems like this is possible with a trick, havent tried it yet) - How to change your Zigbee stick in Z2M (ie. from Conbee II to Sonoff P for example) - What if your Zigbee stick fails and you have to buy a new one, how to install - Pros/cons of USB vs Network Zigbee coordinators - Choose your Zigbee channel wisely (wifi vs zigbee, two coordinators on same channel or not?) - Zigbee (light) groups/scenes, how do ZHA and Z2M handle this, and what happens if you create scenes in HA/flooding Zigbee network? Anyway, keep up the good work, I generally like your videos!

I'm been using ZHA because it was easy to get up. But I now found human presence sensor that ZHA does handle, finds it, but not entities. So thinking for running both at the same time, but so far I get to Z2M to work with ZHA running. As for blacklist companies, I recently had a garage door opener install (AMOS), the supplier said it had an app, so I wrongly assume i could find a add-on for HA. It offers a subscription to allow IFTTT control the door. I asked for the API, but it not in there current plans. The door open, includes a camera, a motion detector, a light, so all these sensors are not available. I might just add an esphome switch to control it..... or learn how to reverse engineer the api.

I got to HA about 1 year ago following a tech KZfaqr (not a HA one though) who was suggesting deconz on a PI4. Some month ago I have migrated to a miniPC (which was incredibiy easy) adding a DongleP with z2m. If I only knew when I was starting! Far more reliable, extensive controls, lots of information resources, an extraordinary community)... Today I wouldn't go any other way

Deconz has been a nightmare with the Conbee III, especially when it's thru HA, guess I'll give zigbee2mqtt a shot cuz it's a similar amount of dependencies

Thanks for your great explanation, I have a question about controlling switches for ex (Tuya 4 gang switch) , I tested in ZHA and shows me just as one gang switch!! Will it be as 4 gang independently in z2mqtt or all of gangs as one gang Same as ZHA Thanks again for answering

I use both, ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT, with two different sticks!

I'm a user that want to use the best device for my usecase and then the compability is always a high priority, Zigbee2MQTT have always been the goto. Specially now with the new feature that will make none compatible devices still somewhat work, this is 100% smarthome for me.

Im on Z2M in a HA OS, on Raspberry pi. I just installed this system a few weeks ago. Everything is working, I'm on Z2M because of the compatibility list, but I'm not all that impressed and here is why: 1. Several of my initial devices are not really working or only partially working. I'm using Tuya devices, I have until now been using a dimmer, that had no minimum dim setting and still has no max dim setting, in the Z2M frontend, so I went to try to get that fixed and managed to find a working solution. But now Z2M has been updated to have a minimum dim setting in the frontend, but that is not working to me, probably because of my homemade fix, but now I dont know how to undo that homemade fix. 2. Many devices need you to do stuff like copy a file to an unspecified destination next to some other file!? Next to?? I never before herd anybody talking about one file beeing next to another file, do they meen in the same directory? 3. Also there seams to be a lot of talks about the .Yml file but I find zero information on how to work with that. 4. Also words like sudo and other stuff is used randomly, but nobody takes time to explain what is meant by that?! 5. Also I would like to use the Binding function, in order for some devices to talk directly to each other, but I can not get it to work and the help/info file i zigbee2mqtt.io leaves me with more questions then answers. 6. I want to use one button buttons to control my dimmers, and I want them to function in a very standard way something like: single click= power cycle, duble click = switch everything in the room off, long press dim the light down then next long press dim up and so on. Making long press dim is super hard but should be very straight forward. I'm not sure if this is a Z2M issue or if its a HA issue, but to me it's a big huge problem and It almost makes me wanna quit Zigbee, HA and Z2m and MQTT all together. This was supposed to be fairly easy for a person with a technical mindset, but it's not at all. In fact it feels like you ned to be a programmer to get any of this working, witch to me is a a shame and someone needs to communicate this, you need to be a programmer to use Z2M and HA properly. 7. Also the user forum is a disappointment to me, I was expecting to find some help and some getting started guides, possible some help videos, but no it's pretty much nothing. 8. Even the user forum, where you are suppose to post If you have an unsupported device, or find errors are impossible to figure out where to ask for help and when you do help is slow or no help at all... I find my self in pull request land, which I know is some programming stuff, that I guess is not where I should be poking around having zero programming knowledge, but no where can I find my way to a forum where I can report errors or ask for newbee help? To sum up my newbee Z2M/HA on HA OS experience, I'm really unimpressed so far. I have been trying for many many hours over several weeks now and I'm about to give up on the whole thing, time and money wasted... I hope You can use the above comments to make some new help videos on those topics as I think I'm not the only one with these problems.

I have some tuya zigbee door and motion sensors but when I pair them using ZHA, they are not shown as sensor so I use Z2M

I'm currently running HAOS on a Dell thin client with a Skyconnect using ZHA. I've been interested in migrating to Z2MQTT but I thought that you could run either one or the other, not both. If I understood you correctly, I can run both ZHA and Z2MQTT simultaneously on the same HAOS instance, correct? I would like to set this up if possible, so that I could experiment and migrate one device at a time instead of having my entire Zigbee network go down while I migrate approximately 50 devices from ZHA to Z2MQTT. Is there a guide available on doing this and should I buy a second coordinator like the Sonoff dongle P/E? Many thanks BT!

So I am using a Sonoff dongle and Z2M. I now have a HA Yellow and as I understand it you can run Z2M from the internal antenna on the Yellow. Is that true and it would great to see a video on that.

Right now I got only 1 device not working... Tuya presence sensor TZE204 the zha quirk is busted it seems and it really annoys me to have to go for z2m also considering I got the sonoff - E coordinator...

hello all. I just started on zigbee2mqqt. I have a sonoff coordinator from there i have 2 wall plugs and 2 sensor. the sensor keep going offline. why? one is 3 meters away from the coordinator the other is probably 6 to 7 meters that one is behind a wall maybe thats why it goes offline. what do i need to extended the signal? thank you

Does Z2M also allow backups of your Zigbee network like ZHA?

I started with ZHA and now I'm too deep to migrate. One thing that is stopping ZHA from expanding is there is no clear manual on how to make a custom quirk. I consider myself to be pretty good with coding but when I tried to read on custom quirks and then actually looking over some of the existing I found things that were contradicting each other. Also not knowing anything about python doesn't help. I just wish there was some clear and concise manual on creating custom quirks I'd have no problem doing some.

Question for all Z2M users: I just started in the HA game two days ago with HA Green and SkyConnect. I am a newb at coding and want to avoid that as much as possible, so it hough I’d keep it simple thus went with ZHA. But already the first few Aqara sensors are failing or not supported. Removing ZHA and setting up Z2M looks manageable, but question: is the pairing and automating as “easy” (coding free as much as can be) with Z2M as with ZHA? Thanks so much in advance!

Hello, nice presentation. I was wondering if someone here knows a PoE/Ethernet Zigbee and Bluetooth Coordinator, I'm running Ha in docker in Synology and can't add USB.

Pleaseee help me how did you Connect skyconnect with m2t ? I am really trying and not did it happen . It stoppes after some mins . Thank you !! 🙏🙏

To be honest, if ZHA would support so many end devices as Z2M does, it would be a no-brainer for me. I'm running Z2M (with Sonoff Dongle Plus-E) and some devices are not re-joining e.g. after HA restart, sometimes Z2M crashes while pairing devices. Not that really stable imo. But I can live with that for now, it will get better over time.

Sonoff 3 Plus Zigbee2MQTT here.

It is not just if the device is supported but also if _all_ of the options are supported. ZHA supports devices at a simple level which will not help you if you need the other options. For example a motion detector with luminance sensor. ZHA would say it is supported even if it only detects motion. That is not helpful if you want to get the lux info.

Zigbee2MQTT for sure

Zigbee2MQTT has definetely better MAP function, and easier interface to add a new device. I would not change it to ZHA, but I had to due to my purchase of the SkyConnect. It was downhill from there on. ZHA map function sucks and I don't use it anymore.

Curious what people's thoughts are on ZHA vs Z2MQTT with the sonoff 3 "e" dongle?

i had bad experience with zha. It loses devices

Z2M

Can I have double Zigbee2MQTT in HA OS? I have same 2 coordinators Zigbee2mqtt supported.

i will just say zigbee2mqtt

TLDW 😞