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Greece, Athens
1 Level
737 Review
46 Karma

Review on Enhance Your Smart Home with Phoscon RaspBee II: The Ultimate Solution for Seamless Connectivity by Shrikant Ojo

Revainrating 3 out of 5

Okay, but consider ConBee

RaspBee works very well on my Raspberry Pi 4B running deCONZ in a container. However, I would recommend buying ConBee for several reasons. :- Not every Linux distribution, even with Raspberry Pi-customized variants, works well with the Pi's GPIO interface. For example, I've found that Debian 10 arm64 doesn't work. Configuration is more straightforward, especially on distros where raspbi-config isn't available (i.e. most) you'll need to modify both config.txt and cmdline.txt (many install instructions assume you're using Raspbian, and skip this step!) . - Debugging is easier. You can use ConBee with almost anything with USB. With RaspBee you need another Pi if it doesn't work. The keys to getting this working on non-Raspbian distributions are as follows: 1. Modify config.txt to add the appropriate dtoverlay for your Pi to include the UART the device resides on. For instructions on how to do this, refer to the Pi's official documentation entitled "UART Configuration".2. Edit cmdline.txt to make sure "console=serial0" or similar is missing ("console=tty0" etc. is fine). This ensures that the operating system does not present a GPIO/serial login wrapper that prevents proper use of the serial hardware. The USB dongle flaps in the wind, but if you're looking for an easier setup and broader compatibility, choose ConBee instead.

Pros
  • High range via signal booster
Cons
  • Not bad, but...