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Author Topic: ZigBee LightLink support?  (Read 4043 times)

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Offline elemecca

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ZigBee LightLink support?
« on: August 31, 2015, 04:27:52 pm »
There are a number of fairly official statements that ZigBee LightLink is not supported by the Almond+. For example:
One downside of ZigBee is the use of profiles. The Almond+ supports the ZigBee Home Automation (HA) 1.2 profile, whereas for example, something like the Philips Hue system uses ZigBee Light Link (ZLL). The two aren’t fully compatible and this is why the Almond+ can’t talk directly to Philips Hue bulbs. The good news here is that many of the ZigBee bulb manufacturers now offer bulbs that are also compatible with ZigBee HA 1.2, such as the GE Link bulbs. There are also plenty of other ZigBee standards that the Almond+ can’t talk to due to the different profiles used, such as ZigBee Smart Energy, a standard that is used in some mains power meters.
Quote from: Lars on 2013-05-31
Yes, ZigBee is a bit funny, we support ZigBee HA (Home Automation), but things like power meters and certain light bulbs that use the Light Link profile as a couple of examples won't work. It's not a matter of using things at the same time, as other brands of sensors will work just fine, as long as the adhere to the ZigBee HA profile. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZigBee#Standard_and_profiles for more details.

On the other hand, there are also some posts that say it might be supported eventually:
Quote from: Lars on 2014-07-10
Considering that light link is the "light" version of ZigBee, it's not quite fair to say that HA profile support is a limitation, since it's the most advanced version of ZigBee. As for interoperability with other ZigBee profiles, feel free to contact the ZigBee alliance as we think this is as bad as you guys do. Apparently it's meant to be possible to add LL devices to an HA gateway, but there are no instructions on how to do so that we're aware of. We're looking at some other options, such as a means of profile switching, but please don't expect anything any time soon. If profile switching works, you'd still only be able to use one profile at a time and a reboot would be required to change between profiles.

And even some that say it's supported now:
You should not need the Lightify hub from what I can tell. These are supposed to use ZigBee Light Link (although there is some mention they may use ZigBee Home Automation, but the Almond+ supports both).


So: does the Almond+ currently (firmware R080) support ZigBee LightLink devices that don't have HA fallback? If not, are there plans to add support in the future?

If LightLink-only devices will never work directly, is there a particular LightLink-to-HA or LightLink-to-WiFi bridge you would recommend?

Offline fillibar

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Re: ZigBee LightLink support?
« Reply #1 on: September 01, 2015, 10:10:09 am »
I would recommend not quoting me as I do not work for Securifi. I thought Light Link was supported though... So I guess I am confused also.

EDIT:
The official page for Almond+ on Securifi's website only states HA. So obviously I was wrong about the LL.
« Last Edit: September 01, 2015, 10:16:59 am by fillibar »
Almond 3 mesh handling the home.

Offline TheLostSwede

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Re: ZigBee LightLink support?
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2015, 11:34:50 am »
Since I guess I wrote most of the answers, I guess I can answer this, even though I no longer work for Securifi.

The Almond+ (and Almond 2015) only supports ZigBee HA.

That said, most of the ZigBee LL bulbs have something known as ZigBee HA fallback. This means that they will work with a ZigBee HA controller/gateway and ZigBee LL controllers.

This is a confusing aspect of ZigBee and something that wasn't made properly clear. ZigBee 3.0 should remove all of this, as ZigBee HA and ZigBee LL will become a single standard.

Just keep in mind that Philips bulbs can't be manually reset, unlike all other ZigBee bulbs that were tested while I worked at Securifi. You can only pair new, single Philips bulbs, as the bundled bulbs are already pre-paired with the Philips controller and as they can't be reset, they can't be paired with other controllers. Philips have some semi-functional software that allows you to pair them with another Philips controller, but that's it.

I'm not aware of any bulbs that don't have HA fallback, as I managed to pair Philips (not recommended as per above), GE, Osram, Sylvania, Belkin and Cree bulbs just fine. Never tested the LG bulb, but we also had some other no-name products working. Not all worked perfectly, but hopefully most of that has been fixed since then.

The hope was to be able to support multiple ZigBee profiles, but it was too complicated to switch ZigBee profiles. Regardless, you shouldn't need ZigBee LL support to get the various lights working.

 

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