SonoffLAN VS zigbee2mqtt

If you're stuck on the Sonoff Micro as you seem to be (they are pretty cool and cheap as chips so I get it) it runs off the eWeLink app but there's a Sonoff add-on for Home Assistant in HACS here https://github.com/AlexxIT/SonoffLAN that makes it work locally, but it does need to be added via the app first.

This is the HACS available integration with HA that I'm using: https://github.com/AlexxIT/SonoffLAN

You plug it in and set it up to go on/off whenever you want. That model comes with monitoring aka it can see how much current is going through it. Then you use something like https://github.com/AlexxIT/SonoffLAN with Home Assistant and setup a specific automation. e.g. if watts usage is > X, then do Y. yadda yadda.

I can recommend these together with the sonoff zigbee bridge using the custom integration sonoffLAN https://github.com/AlexxIT/SonoffLAN.

And for the node-red direct connection, I haven't tried that. I use AlexIT's SonoffLAN to connect between my Sonoff Basics and Minis to HassOS without connecting to the cloud.

Using this thing https://github.com/AlexxIT/SonoffLAN I got it all working without tasmota! Well except that currently the zibgee bulb is only on/off but perhaps that can be sorted. So no need to flash anything in order to try it out at least.

Have you considered Zigbee2mqtt[0]? You'd be running an extra program, but the docs are really good, it's pretty lightweight, and MQTT is incredibly easy to talk to from python or basically anything else.

[0] - https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/

For Zigbee, I can recommend using the Zigbee2MQTT (https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/) integration instead of HomeAssistant's built-in ZHA system. It might be a bit more complex to set up, but it's very powerful and works fantastically. (User "simon42" on YouTube has some good videos about the topic, but they're in German.)

This is definitely better than many of the alternatives but still not perfect. With Zigbee etc you end up locked into one or more of the ecosystems, not to mention some manufacturers implementing it in a way that has weird quirks (see [1]). With esphome you have a limited choice of devices (would love to see more), but you also usually end up locked into keeping a 2.4GHz WPA2 AP for your devices (and you miss out on mesh, but also the problems when it doesn't work...)

1: https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/issues/16717

I can recommend this: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/

You can keep your Hue bulbs and devices but threw away the app, hub, and need to work with hue as an institution at all.

I got a $30 USB zigbee stick to replace the hub. works great!

It looks like it uses zigbee? If you have a server you could run zigbee2mqtt. You'd also need a zigbee dongle / adapter.

\also posted on the z2m* github device discussion board

If you want to use HA on your phone, you would need to install it on the pi, along with either ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT for the Zigbee network interface. Debian alone won't be able to interface with most of your smart devices.