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[261.06 --> 267.72] So as part of the Zigbee fridge temperature sensor stuff, I bought myself one of these
[267.72 --> 274.22] Sonoff CC2531 Zigbee sticks, USB sticks that goes into my Home Assistant box.
[274.90 --> 278.50] With Proxmox, it was a very easy pass through.
[278.50 --> 283.90] You just plug the thing in and then click add USB device and it just shows up in Home Assistant.
[284.16 --> 285.34] That bit couldn't have been easier.
[286.00 --> 292.54] But I was finding that the range from the Sonoff stick was pretty terrible.
[292.82 --> 296.44] I'm talking 10, 12 feet terrible.
[296.80 --> 298.44] Not good at all when it's in the basement.
[299.12 --> 299.28] Yeah.
[299.28 --> 305.12] So I sort of thought to myself, aren't these Philip Hue bulbs that I have already got 10
[305.12 --> 305.96] of in the house?
[306.36 --> 310.66] Because when I emigrated, I bought at Black Friday, I bought a 10 pack that came with the,
[310.70 --> 312.22] you know, starter pack that came with a hub.
[312.62 --> 314.12] It was a pretty good deal, as I recall.
[314.24 --> 317.52] I can't remember how much it was, but I remember thinking at the time, oh, this isn't too bad.
[318.34 --> 320.32] But anyway, so I've got a bunch of Zigbee devices.
[320.32 --> 328.16] And as part of the stuff I did for my dad's in England last month, the guy behind my local
[328.16 --> 335.50] bytes told me that any permanently powered Zigbee device acts as a mesh repeater in the
[335.50 --> 335.88] network.
[336.12 --> 341.72] And I was like, I could use these lamps to increase the range of my little USB stick.
[342.06 --> 346.76] So why don't I try unpairing from the Philips Hue app just one bulb?
[346.92 --> 349.04] I'm going to try just one, see how it goes.
[349.04 --> 353.52] Because within a minute, I'd unpaired and repaired it with ZHA and Home Assistant.
[353.70 --> 355.98] And I was like, whoa, that was easy.
[356.58 --> 360.26] So I thought to myself, well, okay, you've done one bulb in one minute.
[360.44 --> 364.20] Why don't you go and do the next bulb in the rear hallway that's just next to the fridge?
[364.24 --> 368.12] And then you've got two in a row that are then, and hopefully it'd be better for the
[368.12 --> 369.40] fridge sensors.
[370.12 --> 371.96] And then I thought, well, what, you've done two.
[374.40 --> 377.34] And I went all in and I did all 10 yesterday evening.
[377.34 --> 386.94] And the performance of the cheap Sonoff CC2531 was good when I had two or three devices.
[387.38 --> 391.02] But by the time I got to the 10th bulb, not so good.
[391.62 --> 395.30] I'm talking, I'd press a button in Home Assistant and I'd wait.
[395.30 --> 398.64] And I'd wait and I'd be like, did that register?
[398.96 --> 400.02] Is this working?
[400.18 --> 400.82] Are we here?
[400.90 --> 401.14] Hello?
[401.30 --> 402.12] Are we a light bulb?
[402.20 --> 403.16] Are we a crisp packet?
[403.32 --> 404.74] Are we a train?
[404.86 --> 405.24] What are we?
[405.42 --> 406.22] Oh, yes, that's right.
[406.24 --> 406.76] We're a light bulb.
[406.82 --> 407.62] I'm going to turn off now.
[408.48 --> 412.84] And yeah, so I've gone ahead and ordered one of these, what's it called?
[412.90 --> 417.96] A Con B version 2 based off a recommendation of one of the guys in Discord.
[417.96 --> 419.58] So it's going to show up tomorrow.
[419.76 --> 421.74] So maybe I'll report on that in the next episode.
[422.26 --> 428.38] But yeah, I mean, I've been pretty pleased with how easy Zigbee, you know, the de-hue hub
[428.38 --> 431.14] migration thing.
[431.22 --> 433.32] I've been pleased with how easy that was, to be honest with you.
[433.32 --> 439.78] You know, I've been experiencing some delays on occasion, not all the time, not consistently,
[439.96 --> 443.08] but I've been experiencing delays on my Z-Wave network.
[443.96 --> 450.24] And I just kind of put it all together that, well, yeah, I've recently added a couple of
[450.24 --> 455.24] more sensors and a couple of more power smart plugs that do power monitoring.
[455.38 --> 458.48] And so they're chatting more over Z-Wave and Z-Wave isn't super high bandwidth.
[459.78 --> 461.76] And that's interesting.
[461.76 --> 463.40] I kind of just assumed it was my Pi.
[463.92 --> 465.20] Which controller do you use?
[465.92 --> 470.40] I don't remember what it's been branded as, but it's based on the Sigma Design's Z-Wave
[470.40 --> 471.56] USB adapter.
[472.34 --> 476.36] And I've been pretty happy with it because it's got a big old antenna on it.
[476.56 --> 478.04] And so it gets pretty good range.
[478.12 --> 483.04] And then like Zigbee, each Z-Wave device also that's powered acts as a repeater.
[483.60 --> 488.06] And so I didn't even really stop to consider that maybe I've overloaded my network.
[488.06 --> 492.54] I've got 14 Z-Wave nodes now, which doesn't seem like a ton to me.
[493.02 --> 496.42] But after hearing your experience, maybe I am kind of in the range.
[496.58 --> 498.74] Maybe I need a more robust controller.
[499.58 --> 504.24] Yeah, I would say with the chatty devices in particular that are doing, you know,
[504.44 --> 510.52] an update every second or so, that's going to chew through the bandwidth that's available
[510.52 --> 511.20] pretty quickly.
[511.20 --> 515.08] Yeah, I mean, not to fanboy a bunch more about Matter because it's not even here yet.
[515.76 --> 520.52] But this is something I hope Matter solves because Matter is an IP-based protocol.
[521.44 --> 525.60] And a couple of things that are nice about that is it means you could route it over an
[525.60 --> 528.62] IP network where you could have a lot more bandwidth, right?
[528.70 --> 529.84] You could do that.
[530.62 --> 535.34] But additionally, a lot of devices already have thread radios built in and pretty much all
[535.34 --> 538.48] the vendors are going to use thread as the channel to communicate.
[538.48 --> 541.08] And that has pretty good bandwidth, too, compared to what we're used to.
[541.68 --> 545.00] I hope we start to see more vendors support it.
[545.36 --> 551.36] Amazon just kind of reaffirmed their commitment this week as we're recording that they're all
[551.36 --> 554.82] in and that they're going to use thread and they're going to support Matter with the Echo
[554.82 --> 555.26] devices.
[556.00 --> 560.12] So my hope is to ride this out for like another year and a half, two years, and then switch
[560.12 --> 562.86] over to Matter-based devices for pretty much all this stuff.
[563.18 --> 564.62] Could be just a dream, though.
[565.20 --> 568.04] Cynical old Alex over here doesn't believe a word of it.
[568.04 --> 568.38] I know.
[568.38 --> 570.00] I don't think Matter is going to solve anything.
[570.14 --> 572.36] It's just going to be yet another standard.
[572.86 --> 573.60] Maybe I'll be wrong.
[573.94 --> 574.70] Hopefully I'm wrong.
[575.54 --> 575.82] I hope.
[575.90 --> 576.62] But I don't know.
[576.68 --> 579.80] You know who's getting me all hyped is Paulus from Home Assistant.
[580.40 --> 582.60] Like the last couple of live streams, he's been talking about it.
[582.66 --> 585.98] And he made an analogy that kind of worked for me.
[586.42 --> 592.72] He said, you can think of Matter as what USB was for PC peripherals back in the early aughts
[592.72 --> 593.26] in the 90s.
[593.28 --> 600.18] You remember when we had like colored green and purple for PS2 and printers had different