u/maatbekertje

Hi,

I’m currently reconsidering my smart home architecture and was wondering if separating Zigbee from the automation platform itself is the better long-term approach.

Right now I’m running a fairly large Zigbee network (110+ devices) in Home Assistant using ZHA and I’m thinking about moving the Zigbee stack into its own dedicated Proxmox LXC/VM using Zigbee2MQTT + MQTT.

The idea would be:

Zigbee devices
→ Zigbee2MQTT (dedicated container/VM)
→ MQTT
→ Home Assistant / Homey / other platform

My reasoning is that this might give me more flexibility to switch between platforms later without having to rebuild the entire Zigbee network or re-pair everything again as my device stack is heavily Zigbee-focused.

For example:
- Today using Home Assistant
- Tomorrow maybe Homey
- Later maybe something else

Questions:
- Is anyone here running this kind of “decoupled Zigbee architecture”?
- Does it actually make switching platforms easier in practice?
- Are there downsides I’m not seeing?
- Is Zigbee2MQTT stable enough long-term as the central Zigbee layer?
- Does this approach introduce any noticeable latency or slower responsiveness for automations?
- Would you recommend Ethernet coordinators over USB for this (currently using a Conbee ii stick which I wish to replace)?

Interested in hearing experiences from people who intentionally separated Zigbee from their automation platform.

Thanks!

Hi,

I’m discovering the possibility of migrating/starting over in Homey SHS with a bridge coming from Home Assistant.

At first glance my most critical devices seem to be compatible with Homey, however my biggest concern is migrating my Zigbee devices.

I currently have 116 Zigbee devices, of which around 35% are battery powered and the rest are router devices.

I’m mainly wondering:

- How well does Homey SHS/Bridge handle larger Zigbee networks in real-world usage?
- Is anyone here running 100+ Zigbee devices on Homey successfully?
- Would this be realistic on a Homey Bridge, or is Homey Pro basically required?
- How stable is the Zigbee mesh over time?
- Any issues with routing, latency, devices randomly disconnecting, or repairing?

I don’t mind rebuilding automations, but I do care a lot about long-term stability and maintainability.

Would love to hear experiences from people who migrated from Home Assistant with larger Zigbee setups.

Thanks!