Up to this point my home has run entirely on Hue. It works well, but it has its short comings.

Installation

I went with the Docker deployment. Almost everything I have runs on Docker. Means I don't have to mess with build settings or getting environment setup just right.

Getting Phoscon up and running was straightforward. Was able to discover the usb device and connect to it.

So I migrated a light from Hue to Conbee. I delete the light from Hue, and search using Phoscon web ui. Nothing.

Fast forward a few hours. Turns out I need to delete the Hue light, while the hue light is on (duh).

Hit search again, and the light shows up in phoscon right away.

Some disambiguation.

Zigbee is the radio standard that Hue and many other Smart things run on. Other standards include ZWave, WiFi, bluetooth, and other proprietary standards.

Dresden Elektronik is the company that manufactures the Conbee II as well as the deConz and Phoscon applications.

deConz is the backend REST API that runs the ConBee II. deConz provides a websocket, meaning you can get push notifications immediately when there's an update. This is the primary reason for moving off of the Hue hub. It takes too long to get feedback from a motion sensor, or switch when the only way to get notified of a state change is via Polling.

Phoscon is the Application interface created by Dresden Elektronik to interface with deConz.

Can you run deConz without Phoscon? Maybe not, as I'm not sure how you'd get the Authentication token.

Default ports are 80 for REST API and 443 for Websocket. Corresponds to the HTTP and HTTPS endpoints respectively. I can update this with env vars, but unsure how Home Assistant will react to changing these. Will examine later.

Integrating with Home Assistant

There's two (maybe more) choices when adding a Zigbee radio to home assistant: Deconz, which is the Dresden Elektronik integration specific to the conbee (though it can run other radios), and ZHA which is the Home Assistant integration that runs the radio directly.

If you use ZHA you don't need deConz or phoscon running. Instead you will need to give Home Assistant access to your USB (assuming you're running in Docker or other virtualized container).

Network Maps

I've seen people post network maps of their zigbee network. I only just learned of this, but I need this feature like a fish needs water. Is this available in ZHA? That will be a very clear deciding factor.

After some digging, it seems VNC Viewer connects to deConz via remote_ip:5900. Download, and install was straightforward. App boots on the first try. Much praise to System76 for building a rock solid laptop.

Updated docker-compose file to add the environment variable DECONZVNCMODE=1 to enable the vnc endpoint. It defaults to port 5900: A decent port. Better make it explicit in docker-compose.yaml so I can easily find it in the future. Really wish I had a DNS solution for my local network that worked.

After docker restart, it's working. Back to VNC; It wants a password. I tried the Phoscon password, but unsurprisingly didn't work. Back to documentation; Default password is 'changeme'. I take the suggestion to heart.

Restart the server, and success. I couldn't be more thrillled.