Extend zigbee network with zigbee2mqtt via ethernet

Configuration Zigbee
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1

Hi there,

I have setup a zigbee network with zigbee2mqtt and mosquitto on a raspberry pi5 and with a Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 Dongle Plus. Then I noticed that some devices are dropping from the network, those are the devices that are the furthest away from the coordinator.

I have a wifi router in the room where these devices are. The wifi router itself has an ethernet connection to the same lan as the coordinator is in. I got myself a 2nd Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 Dongle Plus and put it on an old raspberry pi. I placed it close to the router and connected it via lan. My plan now is to forward the mqtt network via ethernet and to have the dongle as a second entry point to the zigbee network.
The reception at the pis location is not good that is why I want to forward the mqtt traffic via lan. I cant really use a bulb here. Is forwarding mqtt traffic via lan even possible? I tried zigbee2mqtt, it lets me connect to mosquitto on the first pi. But the network looks like before I can’t see any device connecting to the network and I dont see the 2nd dongle in the map in zigbee2mqtt menu.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding something here and it is not possible to forward traffic over lan.

2

So you will have 2 Zigbee networks , one from your first dongle, one from the new dongle. Be sure to use another topic on your second Zigbee2MQTT configuration, e.g.

mqtt:
  base_topic: zigbee2mqtt2

and another panid.

advanced:
  pan_id: 6754
  channel: 25

but connect both Zigbee2MQTT instances to the same mqtt broker (mosquitto)

3

I changed the mqtt topic and I found this
https://community.home-assistant.io/t/2-instances-of-zigbee2mqtt-in-hass-os/518470/13

which led me to installing zigbee2mqtt proxy. I now see a device in the proxy pane. When I started z2m on the new pi there wehere some placeholders for key generation and the like. So I have the following content now

homeassistant: false
frontend: true
mqtt:
  base_topic: zigbee2mqttwz
  server: mqtt://192.168.66.201
  user: mosquitto
  password: <password>
serial:
  port: >-
    /dev/serial/by-id/usb-ITead_Sonoff_Zigbee_3.0_USB_Dongle_Plus_640f11dd8cdbed11808aef2d62c613ac-if00-port0
advanced:
  network_key:
  <some generated keys>
  pan_id: 36179
  ext_pan_id:
   <some generated ids>
  log_output:
    - console
  homeassistant_legacy_entity_attributes: false
  legacy_api: false
  legacy_availability_payload: false
device_options:
  legacy: false
devices:
  '0xa4c13850757f1173':
    friendly_name: Wohnzimmer-Steckdose
    homeassistant:
      name: Wohnzimmer-Steckdose
    legacy: false
    optimistic: true
permit_join: true

As of writing this, I changed homeassistant to true which then also allowed me to use the entities.