The Lab · Smart Home

Smart Home

About twenty devices spread across two Zigbee meshes, with almost nothing leaving the LAN.

Across five rooms (living room, bedroom, kitchen, work room, balcony) there are about twenty devices, split deliberately between the Hue Bridge and everything else. Hue runs its own Zigbee mesh through the BSB002, which has been steady for years and which I have never seen any upside in moving over to Z2M. Everything else Zigbee, including the door sensor and the leak sensor, talks to Home Assistant via the SLZB-MR1 and Zigbee2MQTT. The Tuya devices speak Tuya Local over WiFi, the Atom Echo and the Upsy Desky run ESPHome, and the Aranet4 is the only Bluetooth holdout, which the Pi happens to read over its onboard radio because the radio is sitting there anyway.

Smart Home · 21 items

Zigbee gateway (lighting)Hue Bridge: Philips BSB002 in the living room, wired ethernet. Runs its own Zigbee mesh for the Hue lamps and the dimmer switch, separate from the rest of the Zigbee stack.
Color bulbHue Lamp · Bedroom: Philips LCT007. Voice, the Hue app, the dimmer switch, or HA.
Color bulbHue Lamp · Work Room: Philips LCT007. Same set of controls as the bedroom lamp.
Wireless remote (Hue)Hue Dimmer Switch: Philips RWL022. Four buttons, wall-mountable, also gets carried around.
Desk lampYeelight Desk Lamp: Yeelight MJCTD01YL on the work desk, over WiFi. Adjustable color temperature.
Zigbee coordinator (everything else)SLZB-MR1: SMLIGHT, work room, wired ethernet. Hosts the Zigbee2MQTT mesh. The door sensor and the leak sensor live on it.
Open/close sensorBalcony Door Sensor: Tuya TS0203 over Zigbee. Drives the evening-check and night-alert automations.
Flood probeWater Leakage Sensor: Tuya Zigbee flood sensor with a 1m probe cable. Sits where water tends to gather.
Voice assistant + speakerAtom Echo: M5Stack Atom Echo in the work room, WiFi, ESPHome firmware. HA voice assistant with Gemini for STT and TTS.
ESPHome desk controllerUpsy Desky: Standing-desk controller v4.0.2 on the work desk, over WiFi. Up/down plus height presets via HA.
Android TVLiving Room TV: ACT4K1007. Casting target plus Plex client.
Cast speakerLiving Room Speaker: Google Home in the living room. Voice and casting.
Cast speakerKitchen Speaker: Google Nest Mini in the kitchen. Voice and casting.
Cast groupHome Speakers Group: Group covering both Cast speakers, for whole-house audio.
Pan-tilt cameraLiving Room Camera: TP-Link Tapo C200 in the living room. Live feed and snapshots through HA.
Air quality monitorAranet4: CO2, temperature, humidity. Bluetooth into HA via the Pi's onboard radio.
Smart heaterWater Heater: Tuya WiFi heater in the bedroom. On the morning schedule.
Smart heaterWork Heater: Tuya WiFi heater in the work room. Morning schedule plus an on-demand button.
Smart plugGarden Pump: Tuya WiFi plug on the balcony. Drives the plant pump.
Smart plugTravelling Socket: Tuya WiFi plug in the work room. Whatever needs scheduling for a week.
UPSCyberpower UT2200E: Sits under the work-room rack. USB to wednesday for monitoring. Holds Plex, the SLZB-MR1 and the Zyxel switch through outages.

Last updated · April 28, 2026