Zigbee universality

[Harshil (Harshil Gumasana)]

I am just getting to learn about smart home automation, I’m set to move into my new house in a year or so, and being kind of a tech geek I have a home backbone of hardwired cat7a cable, I live in Kenya and my only option is to order the smartthings hub from either the US or UK,for this reason I am planing to use all zigbee devices so that incase I have to change my hub later the devices will still be supported, I do understand the drawbacks of zigbee in terms of its range and interference with WiFi but in my situation in makes sense. I would love any input suggestions and warning before I get started with the project, thank you

[Mike_Maxwell]

Zigbee is one frequency across the globe, though the us devices have a slightly higher RF power, maybe @JDRoberts knows the specifics on the power output differences.

[JDRoberts]

@Mike_Maxwell

Zigbee is one frequency across the globe, though the us devices have a slightly higher RF power, maybe @JDRoberts knows the specifics on the power output differences.

The zigbee details are in the following thread.

FAQ: SmartThings international function

Hello all. I am fairly new to the HA field, and I have been extensively researching and settled upon smartthings as my number 1 choice for a smart hub. However, I live in the Caribbean and I am just curious about one thing in particular. I realise thst there are US, UK and other z-wave frequencies etc. so my question is : if I buy a US version of the smarthub and all US accessories (sensors etc), will it work even though I am outside of the US? I know that buying UK “Things” won’t work with a US hub, so I’m just curious. Do I need to be literally in the US or can I just buy all US components and expect the system to function as advertised. EDIT : Also where I am from, we have the same specs as the US (110-120 v 50-60 hz).

In addition to the power level issue, it’s important to understand that the zigbee standard allows for different profiles, including manufacturer proprietary profiles, and those profiles cannot all talk to each other.

Zigbee is a very low power protocol, and so it is popular in China, and there are many inexpensive devices available from there – – but most of them use a different profile than SmartThings and cannot be made to work with it.

So if you want SmartThings compatibility you need to look for devices that use the zigbee home automation profile (ZHA 1.2). You may still need custom code to get the integration to work, but at least it should be possible.