Zigbee2MQTT
Open-source software that drives a Zigbee coordinator and publishes every paired device as MQTT topics, so Home Assistant or any other MQTT client can read and control it.
Photo: Domaintechnik / Unsplash
Zigbee2MQTT is a bridge between a Zigbee network and an MQTT broker. It runs as its own service, talks to a Zigbee coordinator over a serial link, and turns each device into topics: a sensor publishes its readings as JSON, and a light accepts commands written to a set topic. Device-specific converters translate the many manufacturer variations of the Zigbee standard into a consistent format, and a web frontend handles pairing, settings and a network map.
Its main use is with Home Assistant, where devices appear automatically through MQTT discovery, as an alternative to the built-in ZHA integration. Because the output is plain MQTT, the same devices can also feed Node-RED, a database or another platform. The trade-off is one more moving part: a broker has to be installed, secured and kept running. Zigbee explained covers the network underneath.
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