If you’re just starting to build your first smart home setup, this one is for you regardless of which ecosystem you’ll be using to manage your Zigbee devices. Being quite far into my journey with local smart home hardware integrations, I have amassed a small and humble, yet well-thought-out collection of more than 30 smart Zigbee devices in my apartment. Let me share with you the ones I found the most useful when I was just starting out!
Note: Some of the product pages linked below might also list Wi-Fi and Bluetooth versions of the devices shown. Make sure that you’re picking the Zigbee version if you decide to get one!
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Which Types of Smart Devices Are Best When Starting Out?
When you are first setting up your smart home, perhaps running a Home Assistant VM on a Raspberry Pi, or on an old thin client just like me, you might already be curious about all the interesting things you can do with your newly setup system. Through my testing, and throughout my own journey with Zigbee-based smart home setup in my apartment, I’ve compiled a list of the best basic devices you can start building your setup with.
When it comes to Zigbee devices, there are tons of different options available on the market, ranging from expensive proprietary ecosystems like Philips Hue to budget-friendly generic white-label products from Amazon & AliExpress.
The most popular, and objectively most useful and interesting basic Zigbee devices you can get when starting out include:
- Bulbs and Light Strips: The simplest entry point when it comes to pretty much any smart home setup. Controlling lights in your home or apartment should be one of the first things to set up if you think seriously about building a full-fledged smart home system.
- Smart Plugs: These are essential for controlling “dumb” appliances and including them in your automations, as well as for monitoring their energy use. They also, much like most bulbs, act as routers to strengthen and extend the range of your Zigbee mesh network.
- Wireless Switches (2 and 4-gang): These are great for handling lights and triggering automations. Unlike hardwired switches, these can be taped to walls, desks, or furniture and easily moved if your setup changes.
- Single Buttons: Great for simple toggle actions, like a dedicated “Good Night” button on a nightstand. Battery powered buttons like these can last you even for 1-2 years with moderate use.
- Temperature & Humidity Sensors: Great for passive monitoring of your home’s climate, having one in every room is always a good idea. There are also versions of these with built-in displays, as you will see in a while.
- Window/Door Contact Sensors: Often used in utility automations. For example, for automatically turning off your air purifier or AC when a window is opened. Can also be used creatively, for instance to detect whenever your mailbox is being opened.
- Motion Sensors: The standard solution for presence detection to automate lighting in hallways and bathrooms. Quite obviously pairs well with smart bulbs and LED strips.
I run all of the devices listed below primarily using Zigbee2MQTT (Z2M), but I have tested all of them with ZHA (Zigbee Home Automation) as well before I made the switch.
Note: To use any of these, you first need a Zigbee coordinator to bridge these devices to your server. If you don’t have one, that is your step zero.
A Zigbee Coordinator Dongle – If You Don’t Own One Already
Before you buy a single bulb or sensor, you need a coordinator. I personally use and recommend the ZB-GW04, which you can still get for around $10-15 total. In my testing, this dongle handles a network of 30+ devices without any connection drops or other issues.
It works out of the box with ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT, and is still the base of my smart home setup after a few years have passed since I’ve bought it. You can learn much more about this one here: ZB-GW04 EFR32MG21 Zigbee Dongle – Hardware Review & Connection Guide.
8 Best Zigbee Devices To Start Out With – All Tested
1. Zigbee Smart Plugs
- Energy monitoring.
- Acts as an automatic extension of your Zigbee network.
- Budget-friendly and available in both US and EU variants.
- Generic white-label build with inconsistent branding between listings.
- Quite bulky, can block neighboring outlets in some cases.
Whether you need to make your “dumb” night light smart and trigger it from your smart home server, or see when your washing machine is finished by monitoring its power usage patterns, you need a smart plug like this one. I would even argue that when starting out it’s beneficial to get at least a few smart plugs in advance, as these have much more uses than that.
For all of these purposes, I always use the generic Tuya 20A Zigbee Smart Plugs. They are cheap, reliable, come in both US and EU variants, and haven’t failed me once over the course of the last few years. Of course, as already mentioned, all of the mains-powered Zigbee devices such as smart plugs also automatically act as routers, extending the signal range for every other device in your house.
2. Zigbee Scene Switch Remotes
- 12 automation triggers in one remote (4 buttons × 3 actions).
- A must have in pretty much any smart home setup.
- Nice tactile “click” on each button, and a practical wall-mount included.
- Uses a LR23A battery, which is quite non-standard.
- The long press is a little bit too long for my liking (about 3 seconds).
Controlling smart lights with your phone isn’t really viable in the long term. You obviously need physical buttons. The TS0044_1 remote is a 4-button battery-powered remote control that I have reviewed recently, and now I happily own two of these devices connected to my Home Assistant setup.
It allows for three actions per button: single press, double press, and long press. That is 12 potential triggers in one small device. All of the buttons have a nice click to them, and there is also a neat wall mount included with the remote.
Overall, it’s one of the best early purchases you can make, and that’s exactly why I’m sharing it with you here. You can see my full hands-on review of this one here: Tuya TS0044_1 Zigbee Remote From Aliexpress – My Review
3. Smart Zigbee Bulbs
- Excellent value vs. premium ecosystems for whole-home basics.
- Tunable white light temperature + RGB for scenes, automations, and mood lighting.
- Color accuracy typically won’t match premium bulbs like Hue.
- Different listings may vary in brightness/firmware depending on seller, the usual when it comes to cheaper hardware like this.
Smart plugs aren’t the only things you’ll want to control using a remote control or a wireless button. Of course as I’ve already said, smart lights are in most cases the most important part of the early-phases of all smart home setups.
While Philips Hue and other adjacent branded smart light solutions are definitely worth looking into, they are also pretty expensive for what they are. For general lighting in my apartment, I use a few sets of standard Tuya Zigbee RGBCW Bulbs from AliExpress, as well as ThirdReality bulbs from Amazon, both linked above.
These generic bulbs can easily connect directly to Home Assistant without a proprietary hub. The color reproduction of course, isn’t as perfect as a ~$30 Hue bulb, but for what they cost, they are excellent for lighting with white temperature adjustment, and for custom color scenes.
4. LED Strips With Zigbee Controllers
- RGBCCT COB strip with dedicated white/warm white LEDs.
- Great “plug-and-play” kit option with a Zigbee controller + PSU in one package.
- Controller doesn’t support multi-LED light effects.
When we’re already talking about light solutions, how about a simple plug-and-play high quality LED strip? For under-cabinet lighting or full on side lighting in your bedroom, you’ll want to take a look at these. After trying out a few different all-in-one sets from AliExpress I settled on using the Lonsonho/eWeLight Zigbee LED light strips and controllers, and they are one of the best affordable LED lighting solutions I came across recently.
The key here is getting an RGBCCT COB strip with dedicated LEDs for Red, Green, Blue, Cool White, and Warm White, and high LED density. In case of the set mentioned here, it comes with a Zigbee controller already in the box. These allow you to integrate high-density LED strips into Home Assistant just like any other regular light entity.
If you want to use an all-in-one solution just like I did here (it looks fantastic both on photos and in person), you can grab one of these all-in-one sets which include an RGBCCT COB LED strip of your chosen length with a 6-pin connector already soldered on, a compatible Zigbee controller, and a power supply. These are really worth looking into!
5. Smart USB Switches
- Super simple way to automate “dumb” USB-powered gadgets.
- Much cleaner than using a full smart plug + USB power brick.
- Output power limits vary, so check listing specs for your device draw.
- Not a data hub, it will work for power switching only.
This is a neat niche device type that I use surprisingly often. A smart USB switch is essentially a pass-through USB-A or USB-C adapter with a Zigbee radio inside, which allows you to switch the USB power output on or off on command, much like with a regular smart plug.
You can use these to control “dumb” USB-powered devices, like desk fans, decorative neon LED signs. etc. I, myself, use one to be able to remotely turn on a Bluetooth audio receiver connected to my room speaker set using a button near my bed.
There are many more interesting things you can do with these, such as cutting the power to your Google Home devices, if you don’t want them to listen in on you when you don’t need them to, and you don’t want to flip the physical switch on them.
6. Temperature & Humidity Sensors
- Easily accessible room temperature monitoring.
- Great starter sensor for HVAC, dehumidifier, and comfort automations.
- Models with built-in displays typically drain batteries faster than screen-less sensors.
These temperature & humidity displays are pretty much one of the simplest smart home devices you can get. Pop in some batteries, pair them with your Zigbee network, and you’re done. Having one in each of your rooms is pretty much a no-brainer if you’re planning out your full-fledged smart home setup. And there are also neat options with built-in displays!
The Tuya TS0201/ZY-ZTH02 is a temperature and humidity sensor that features a built-in LCD screen, and it’s found its place in my bathroom, sitting snugly on the wall for over a year now. While the battery drain on those is a little bit higher than on the display-less variants, they will, in most cases be able to last for a few months before you’ll have to replace their button cells.
Check out my full review of this one here: Tuya TS0201/ZY-ZTH02 Zigbee temperature & humidity display sensor
7. Zigbee Motion Sensors
- Best “next step” after installing your smart bulbs for hands-free lighting.
- Fast detection (often under ~1 second) for practical automations.
- Lightweight and easy to mount with tape anywhere you need it.
- Figuring out the right placement and sensitivity values can sometimes be quite unobvious.
Light automations that don’t require manual input are not only effective, but also very convenient in compatible interiors. Zigbee motion sensors are a logical next step after replacing your regular bulbs with smart ones, and you can get simple human motion detectors with adjustable sensitivity like the one linked above, for just a few dollars.
These are small and lightweight even with the batteries inserted, can be stuck anywhere with double-sided tape, and detect movement reasonably fast (usually under 1 second). For example, I use one to turn off the lights in my bathroom when no people are inside for more than two minutes. Their sensitivity can be easily adjusted so that the light doesn’t go out on you while you’re sitting nearly still in the room, which is pretty great.
8. Zigbee 2 & 4-Gang Wall Switches
- No-wall-damage way to add smart wall switches and scene control.
- Three press modes per button, lots of automation shortcuts.
- Has a very nice and soft click to each of its buttons.
- Battery-powered (will need occasional replacement).
If you want to make your wall switches smart without damaging your walls, or if you want to trigger scenes from the wall, the wall-mounted wireless Zigbee buttons like the Tuya ZG-101ZS (TS0044) are a solid choice. A model that I like even more is this MOES 4-Gang Tuya ZigBee switch, which I have conveniently fixed over my bed, as you can see on the image below.
With 4 buttons, each of which supports short, long, and hold button press modes, you get 12 different action triggers, much like with the remote we took a quick look at in the very beginning. Of course, they also come in 1, 2 and 3-gang variants, so you can easily make them compatible with your light/automation setup. And to add to all this, it has a very pleasant click on all of the four buttons.
My Experience With These Devices – ZHA & Zigbee2MQTT
As I’ve already mentioned, I currently run all the devices listed above via Zigbee2MQTT (Z2M), but I started my journey using ZHA (Zigbee Home Automation) which comes built-in with Home Assistant. All of the devices mentioned here will work with ZHA without any trouble, however some of them might expose more triggers when paired with Z2M.
If you are a complete beginner, ZHA is very easy to set up, just because it requires almost no configuration from your side, and is essentially a default option in a base HA installation. However, I eventually migrated to Zigbee2MQTT because it supports a wider range of devices and offers more granular control over device settings and mentioned triggers (like specific update intervals or “power-on behavior” for bulbs).
Regardless of which integration you choose, the hardware listed here is a standard, reliable, and affordable way to begin your journey with Zigbee-based devices regardless of what software ecosystem you’re using to manage them. You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on brand-name sensors to get a great quality smart home setup up and running. Start with a good coordinator and a few smart plugs, and build from there. With that said, that’s all. Until next time!
Check out also: How To Setup Stream Deck With Home Assistant – A Quick Tutorial