Zigbee2MQTT has become a household name for those who dabble in the world of smart home automation. With its remarkable compatibility, it has charmed a plethora of Zigbee devices, welcoming them into its ever-growing family. However, despite its impressive repertoire, the Zigbee technology itself has a few Achilles' heels, and these extend to any Zigbee ecosystem. One prominent issue with Zigbee is its inability to gracefully handle flooding due to limited bandwidth. This shortcoming can manifest as delays and general lag, particularly when several Zigbee products share the same space or are in close quarters. Fortunately, the Zigbee2MQTT platform offers a silver lining in the form of Zigbee groups.
You should know about groups in Zigbee2MQTT
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Latest update: Easier setup!
The process of establishing groups in Zigbee2MQTT has taken a leap towards simplicity, courtesy of an official web dashboard. This upgrade ensures that Zigbee groups are now automatically discovered by Home Assistant via MQTT Discovery, streamlining the entire experience for users.
Taming traffic is the secret power of Zigbee2MQTT Groups
Embedded within the fabric of Zigbee, groups serve as more than just an organizational feature in Zigbee2MQTT. In the Zigbee network landscape, a group is essentially a gathering of endpoints, such as a cluster of lightbulbs. The magic of group addressing lies in its ability to communicate with multiple endpoints belonging to a set of devices, effectively reducing Zigbee traffic.
One command to rule them all
The concept of groups might seem a tad complex at first glance, but it boils down to this: using a single command can address the entire group, rather than sending individual commands to each endpoint. Picture a light fixture adorned with three Philips Hue spotlights. By grouping these lights, a solitary command can illuminate the entire fixture. Without grouping, you'd need three separate commands to achieve the same effect. With this strategy, we've managed to trim command usage by two-thirds.
A gentle reminder: Zigbee groups differ from Home Assistant's Light Groups. While the latter may seem similar, they primarily serve as a decorative touch and offer user convenience. To truly harness the power of groups, one must configure them within Zigbee2MQTT, not Home Assistant.
Crafting Zigbee2MQTT Groups: A step-by-step guide
To form a Zigbee group in Zigbee2MQTT, begin by opening the configuration.yaml file within Zigbee2MQTT—careful not to confuse it with Home Assistant's identically named file. Below, you'll find an example of my office light fixture, home to a duo of spotlights:
groups:
'1':
friendly_name: office_ceiling_lights
retain: false
transition: 1
devices:
- '0x001788010271ee2e'
- '0x00158d0002c7e094'Each group requires a unique numerical ID, in this case, group 1. Next up, a moniker for your lights: I've dubbed mine office_ceiling_lights. The optional retain setting pertains to the retained message function of MQTT, with its default state set to not retain messages. The transition parameter, another optional field, dictates the speed of transitions (e.g., when adjusting a light fixture's brightness). Lastly, list the devices you'd like to include in the group using their ieeeAddr, a sequence of letters and numbers, rather than their friendly_name.
For additional configuration parameters, consult the Zigbee2MQTT website. The inquisitive among you can join the ongoing conversation at the project's GitHub repository.
A curated selection of Zigbee hardware
In my smart home adventures, I've developed a fondness for a blend of Philips Hue, IKEA, and Gledopto Zigbee lights. The Gledopto LED strip controllers have earned a special place in my heart, thanks to their versatility (allowing you to attach your own strips) and wallet-friendly pricing.
Here's a hand-picked list of devices I, personally, use and wholeheartedly recommend. When paired with the Gledopto GL-C-008, the LED strip emerges as the pièce de résistance.
How to add later on those Zigbee Groups to Home Assistant?
This will hopefully help you out: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/integration/home_assistant.html#groups
Hi,
I have Milight bulbs and hub run over wifi. I want move to zigbee. Because of the mesh network so everywhere in the house there is a signal.
In how many groups can one single bulb added!
Will the bulbs all go on/off/ change color ons same time or is there some delay between them?
Cheers
Peter
Hi Peter. There can be delay, for example some Gledopto controllers have a bit more lag than others. In general, it hasn’t been too bad to bother me.