Communicate Matter/MQTT/etc. over USB

Hardware
1

Hi,

I am about to create a custom device using ESPHome, zigbee_home, HomeSpan or similar. I realised that my device will be very close to my Home Assistant machine, so I was wondering whether I could connect the ESP board over USB and forego wireless communication entirely, for better reliability.

Is it possible for any of the Smart Home protocols to communicate over USB serial with one of the firmwares for embedded development boards? If so, how do I set it up on the hardware side and and how do I make Home Assistant recognise the device?

I have previously worked with wired Industrial Protocols like CANopen and Profinet. Those tend to use ethernet cables which does seem more fitting, but there should be nothing stopping the Application Layer protocol to be transmitted over USB, right?

Thanks!

2

If you want more reliable connection for Esphome, use Ethernet.

3

Esphome requires command, control, and data exchange to use one of three methods (web, mqtt, or native api), all of which are IP protocols. To my knowledge esphome doesn’t have the drivers to support IP over a USB serial UART. You can however transmit log messages over the USB serial port.

4

Many ESPHome boards will have UART over USB, but what can be easily set up at the HA end I do not know.
Command line commands can be used to send data to the device, but you need a daemon/services to listen for incoming data.