Which Zigbee hardware works, and what breaks
Zigbee is a standard, but not every device sticks to it. Here is what actually goes wrong with off-the-shelf hardware, and what we catch for you.
Pair the sensor
One press of the button, done.
We watch along
How does this sensor behave?
Store the footprint
And compare it with what we know.
Stays better connected
A weak route stands out at once.
Where Zigbee goes wrong in practice
None of it is your fault, and all of it is known.
Adapter and firmware
A stick and the software around it have to match. One version out of step and nothing comes through, with no error that tells you why.
Brands that bend the rules
Tuya talks through a tunnel of its own. Aqara clings to the relay it first paired with. Neither is in the spec.
The room around it
USB 3.0 ports and 2.4 GHz wifi drown out Zigbee. Most dropouts start here, not in your devices.
Not every platform can do the same
Zigbee2MQTT, ZHA and deCONZ each expose different parts of the radio. That decides what we can do for you.
Where the platform steps in
Two things are easy to mix up here. Your coordinator is the stick that runs your network; your devices are the sensors and valves hanging off it. We look at both, and everything below is running today.
Your coordinator: we check the brand and its firmware
When you connect a coordinator we read what it is and which firmware it runs, and we hold that against the combinations we know are broken.
Your devices: nothing gets in unasked
Nothing lands on your dashboard on its own. A device sits in quarantine, we ask it what it is, and you decide whether it gets in.
Your devices: brand behaviour is on the card
When we recognise a brand that behaves differently, the card says so before you go hunting.
Your devices: 8,471 fingerprints in our library
Of every device that announces itself to your coordinator we store the fingerprint in our own database. We hold it against our library: what it can do, what it reports and how often. Anything we could not measure ourselves says so on the card. A borrowed value is never presented as a reading.
Which Zigbee coordinators you can connect
Straight from the platform, so this list cannot go stale.
| Coordinator | What we can do | Connect it yourself | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Assistant ZHAZHA inside Home Assistant, over its websocket API. Reports clusters as numbers. | Full control | yes | acceptance test running |
| Zigbee2MQTTAny stick Zigbee2MQTT supports: SONOFF ZBDongle-E and P, SLZB-06, ConBee III. | Full control | yes | acceptance test running |
| deCONZ / PhoscondeCONZ with a ConBee or RaspBee, over REST and websocket. Reports clusters as numbers. | Not yet established | not yet | acceptance test running |
| Closed hub (observer)Tuya hub, Hue bridge, Aqara hub. Incoming messages only, no commands. | Not yet established | not yet | acceptance test running |
Missing your coordinator? Tell us which one you run and we will look at what it takes.
Our own IP65 gateway
We are developing our own Zigbee gateway for outside the meter cupboard: IP65, built for a greenhouse or a barn, with industrial properties you will not find on a stick from the shop.
We expect CE certification by mid-2027. Until then the device is officially not approved. Test versions are open to discussion under conditions.
Where it usually goes wrong
Four things that solve most of it.
Put the stick on an extension cable
Half a metre away from your machine, and away from USB 3.0 ports and external drives. This alone fixes most dropouts.
Pair up close, then move it
Manufacturers underestimate pairing range. Pair next to the coordinator, then put the device where it belongs.
Add mains-powered devices
Anything on mains power relays traffic for the rest. Too few of them is the most common cause of a flaky network.
Do not switch channel lightly
Channels 15, 20 and 25 dodge wifi best, but changing channel forces every device to rejoin. On a big network that takes hours.
Bring your own Zigbee coordinator. Already running Zigbee2MQTT on your own stick? Connect it in four steps. Connect your coordinator
Your Zigbee coordinator is paired. Here is what comes next. Adding a device, approving it and knowing where it ends up. And what we watch for you after that. Add your first device
Which platform reads it is one question. Where it lands is the other.
The table above decides how much of the radio we can reach. What happens to a value afterwards is where the difference really sits: in FairGrow a soil reading stands next to the Copernicus index for that parcel, the NASA POWER forecast for your coordinates and the FAO-56 evaporation sum, so it comes back as an irrigation answer rather than a number on a card.
Questions we get
Do I have to buy your hardware?
No. Standard Zigbee devices from any shop work, and so does your own coordinator. That is the whole point.
What if my device is not in your library?
It can still join. The card then shows exactly what the device told us about itself and marks what we could not look up, so you know what you are getting.
Does the platform fix a bad firmware combination for me?
No, and we will not pretend otherwise. We recognise it and tell you what to do about it. Flashing your own dongle stays your call.
Which platform gives me the most?
Zigbee2MQTT today. It exposes the most of the radio, which is why it is the first one we support end to end.
Could I not just do this in Home Assistant?
You can read the sensor there, yes, and many people do. What is not there is the layer on top: satellite imagery per parcel, a reference evapotranspiration, a disease model, crop registration under EPPO codes. You can assemble it with custom integrations and templates, and then it is yours to keep running. We would rather you spent that evening elsewhere. Your existing automations are welcome to come along.
Connect your own coordinator
Already running Zigbee2MQTT? Download the bridge, get a pairing code and you are connected.