Zigbee Compatible Devices

Zigbee is widely used for battery-powered sensors (motion, contact, temperature, leak, vibration), smart bulbs (Philips Hue, Innr, Ikea Tradfri), smart switches and dimmers, smart plugs, door locks, and smart blinds. Many low-cost smart home brands (Aqara, Sonoff, Tuya/Lonsonho, Ikea, Innr) standardise on Zigbee for the lower cost and battery life advantages over Wi-Fi.

You need a Zigbee coordinator: a USB radio plus software that bridges Zigbee to your platform. Common combos are Home Assistant + SkyConnect (or Sonoff dongle) + Zigbee2MQTT or ZHA. You can also use a vendor hub like the Hue Bridge or Aqara M2, though those are usually limited to that vendor's devices unless you use a workaround.

Mostly yes, but not always. Zigbee uses standard "clusters" for things like on/off, brightness, colour temperature, etc. Devices that stick to standard clusters work everywhere. Many vendors add proprietary attributes (Tuya is the worst offender) which need device-specific converters. This is where Zigbee2MQTT shines, since the community maintains converters for thousands of devices.

Not directly. Zigbee devices need to be exposed through a hub that integrates with those ecosystems. The Hue Bridge exposes Hue Zigbee bulbs to Apple Home and Google Home; Aqara M2 exposes Aqara devices to Apple Home; Home Assistant or SmartThings can bridge any Zigbee device to any ecosystem with the right configuration.

Zigbee and Z-Wave are both low-power mesh protocols, similar in capabilities. Z-Wave uses a sub-1GHz frequency (so less Wi-Fi interference) but devices are more expensive. Zigbee is cheaper and more widely available but operates on the crowded 2.4 GHz band. Matter is a newer application-layer standard that runs over Wi-Fi or Thread (not Zigbee). Matter is converging the ecosystem, but Zigbee's installed base remains huge.