Configuring conbee2 with windows>virtualbox>hass

Configuration Zigbee
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I recently bought a Aqara Motion Sensor and a Conbee2 stick and was having trouble getting it configured with VirtualBox and Windows. I couldn’t find any direct guides but pieced together enough to get it working. Thought I’d share in case anyone else hits the same issue.

  • Update virtual box to the latest
  • Download and install the VirtualBox Extension Pack from their website
  • Open Windows Control Panel, and go to Devices and Printers
  • Find the USB Device that is the Conbee (some plugging/unplugging can be helpful here)
  • Find it’s COM#, COM1, COM2, etc (mine was COM3)
  • Go into the VirtualBox config for your HASS instance, go to Serial Ports, check to enable, set Port Number to COM3 (I couldn’t get COM1 or COM2 to work), Mode to Host Device, and Path to COM# (whatever you found above)
  • Start up the virtual box node
  • Go to Config > Integrations in HASS and setup ZHA, the serial port should load but it’s probably /dev/ttyS2
  • Setup your Aqara, etc sensors by hitting configure under the ZHA integration and then clicking “Add device” in the bottom right. My Aqara motion sensor needed a 5s tap on it’s reset button to start flashing and register

Hopefully this saves someone the 2 hours I spent :slight_smile:

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Just in case anyone else is still having an issue with this, I had the same issue and the above solution wouldn’t work for me.

Same setup - I’ve got HA running on Windows 10 (on an HP ProDesk 600 G6) via VirtualBox, the Conbee II came up as a COM4 on PORTS>COM&LPT and nothing I did would get it to connect. When trying the above solution I couldn’t get it to connect, kept getting “Failed to open host device” no matter what path or COM port I put in. Spent way too much time trying various things.

Then I was taking a wee break for a much needed coffee, and the USB tab from VirtualBox config for my HASS instance was on the screen and I thought to myself “why isn’t the Conbee showing up on that list?”. I mean, it should.

Thinking, haha, this is stupid, I clicked on the wee icon for “Adds new USB filter…” and the damn Conbee was sitting right there. Selected it, restarted the virtual box node, went to HASS, added the ZHA integration through configure and I didn’t need to do anything other than select the Conbee which was autodetected.

I felt really stupid, but at least it’s solved - and maybe I can save someone else from wasting an hour and feeling dumb!

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