Proposal: Don't enable legacy mode by default

[klada]

For quite some time now there have been a few converters out there which create a so-called "legacy payload" (see src/lib/legacy.ts).

Even new installs have to deal with those legacy payloads. We have the option to disable legacy per device to get "non-legacy" payloads. According to the description of the legacy exposes definition it's even recommended to set legacy to false (see this):

| Set to false to disable the legacy integration (highly recommended)

Now the question is: if it's highly recommended to disable the legacy integration, why is it still active by default? Maybe the time has finally come to change the default value of legacy from true to false.

Pro arguments:

• New installs will use new-style payloads by default
• We have some issues with legacy payloads in ioBroker, which uses zigbee-herdsman-converters. Unfortunately ioBroker apparently cannot disable legacy on a per-device basis.
• The term "legacy" refers to something that we should get rid of at some point. So it's not good to keep this stuff enabled by default.
• When only changing the default value, existing setups which rely on legacy payloads just need to set the legacy attribute and are done

Con arguments:

• This needs to be communicated clearly in the release notes. It may break automations (but fortunately the fix is easy, as legacy-mode could still be enabled explicitly per-device when needed)

[Koenkk]

Its already disabled by default for new installs

[klada]

@Koenkk I think you are referring to this commit in zigbee2mqtt, right?

There is one issue with this. If legacy is not set (neither to true nor to false) then zigbee-herdsman-converters assumes legacy=true. This is what I am referring to.

The thing is that other tools such as ioBroker are using zigbee-herdsman-converters as well and will keep using the legacy converters forever if the defaults in zigbee-herdsman-converters don't change. I'll ask if they can disable legacy mode in their environment as well to work around an issue they are having with the Busch-Jaeger devices.

But nevertheless any tool relying on the converters will need to explicitly do this. Maybe it's still a consideration to change the default at some point.

[lattice0]

Sorry but what is legacy option?

[Koenkk]

@klada the default will not be changed, instead the legacy converters will be removed at a certain point. But this is a breaking change so not soon.

[klada]

@klada the default will not be changed, instead the legacy converters will be removed at a certain point. But this is a breaking change so not soon.

Thanks for the clarification. I'll close this issue then and forward the info to the ioBroker developers.