Thanks going to try that.
Do you have a good tutorial for installing in a lxe?
if you run it in an lxc (I assume you meant lxc not lxe?) container, you’ll probably suffer the same issues when you restart the Proxmox host. I have it on a separate Pi, which is in a more optimal position than the NUC. I also run a Z-Wave stick on the same Pi.
Correct lxc.
Position of the nuc is fine. Never need to restart proxmox. Zwave is running on Fibaro with more then 120 device’s. I use the Fibaro as a basic hub it’s working perfect.
After some testing find out that the startup time of my system is to fast for conbee initialization (2-3 second) and almost never will zigbee work after a reboot.
Workaround:
After reboot just restart HA from the web interface. Conbee devices are than directly available.
Restarting of conbee addon will not solve the problem. Looks like after first timeout HA will not check availability.
Any tips how this problem can be solved without restating of HA?
Update: with the latest version 0.114 is my conbee problem solved. HA will auto connect to conbee after a reboot.
Coming back to this thread because a lot of folks here helped me get set up initially - but I’m stumped on how to trouble shoot a problem I’m having now.
I just got my first smart light bulb (aqara zigbee) from AliExpress. I have a bunch of other zigbee devices integrated via Deconz (on a standalone Pi3B), and the bulb paired immediately to the gateway (Conbee II), and shows up in HA after a restart…but the bulb will not come on. I paired it with a button in the Phoscon app, and the state changes within Phoscon, but the physical bulb does not come on.
I don’t know if this is related, but after encountering this issue, I VNC’d into the Pi3B, and tried to open the Deconz app (for the first time in 3-4 months) and nothing happens - program doesn’t launch, so I can’t see my zigbee network…but the rest of the network is functioning fine, so I don’t think this is related.
I’ve put the bulb in a few different lamps, no luck. Is the bulb default in the “off” setting and Phoscon app/HA isn’t actually switching it, or…do I maybe have a bad bulb?
Edit: This is the specific bulb. I think I screwed up - it says its voltage rating 220 - 240V bulb. But who knows with Ali Express product descriptions. With incandescent I think it would still work at (half?) power, but maybe not LEDs?
Thanks @KennethLavrsen for the extremely helpful post! Two questions:
I think I need a couple of these devices so that my outlying devices can be reached, however I don’t need smart bulbs or sockets at the moment. Do you have any suggestions regarding the cheapest way to implement a few repeaters? Do know if any zigbee smart socket will work as a repeater even if nothing is plugged into it, and/or is a ‘repeater only’ device the best option?
The cheapest way is to buy a USB dongle on ebay from China (3 USD) and program it with repeater software. But that is pretty geeky and requires that you have all the stuff to program it. But it is the cheapest.
But besides this - I would buy smart-socket. They just say a click when you turn them on and off but other than that - just work as repeaters. Avoid old Osram smart sockets. I only had problems with them.
IKEA makes cheap smart sockets. They actually also make a small repeater device.
For most stable firmware - a Philips Hue smart socket is best but not the lowest cost.
One day that smart socket will become useful and can turn something on and off.
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Thanks very much Kenneth, that’s very helpful. I shall buy some smart sockets.
Hi Kenneth, thanks again for your help a few weeks ago.
I have bought a couple of Meross smart plugs (https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08D69M19G) but I can’t figure out how to get them into my Zigbee network. I’d be very grateful for any hints you can give me or guidance on how to work it through. I’m sure I’m missing something.
This is what I have & what I’ve done:
- ConBee USB stick with deCONZ running on a Pi in our loft and integrated into HA.
- Four Aqara temperature/humidity/etc multi-sensors. They were all working fine when close to the ConBee but they have since been relocated around the house. I can see 3 of them in Phoscon (and HA) but the 4th is unreachable, presumably because it’s too far away.
- I’ve set up one of the Meross smart plugs and put it roughly in between the outlying sensor and the ConBee.
- I tried doing ‘Add switch’ in PhosCon, but I can’t see what to press on the Meross to get it to detect it. I tried long-pressing the button on it within the 3 minutes but it didn’t work.
- It doesn’t appear in deCONZ, so the outlying sensor still doesn’t work.
How do I get the Meross plug to behave as a ZigBee repeater/router for the 4th sensor? Is there a process (other than setting it up with it’s own app) that I need to go through? Am I right in assuming I should be able to see it in the deCONZ network diagram?
The plugs you link to are WiFi and not Zigbee. They can never be paired with any Zigbee hub or work as Zigbee repeater.
These will work.
That is the Philips Hue smartplug. It works both with Bluetooth and Zigbee and they are the ones I use (in the Schuko EU version naturally)
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Thanks so much Kenneth. I was sort-of coming to that conclusion myself.
I do wish there was a way to tell from the manufacturer’s description of these things what protocols etc they use/support. All they do is witter on about ‘Alexa compatible’ etc…
I’ll order the one you suggest 
Hello everyone,
first of all a big thanks for the extensive guide.
Unfortunately however I have the known issue of not being able to access the phoscon WebUI of my deconz home assistant integration.
When opening the web UI for the deconz plugin I can still access the Virtual deconz UI however when I want to go to the phoscon UI it says that “the website under http://myip:8123/api/hassio_ingress/oIWAUi3-h2GaDnk3kcaUD7SFPLmJqhRkVqSXzqW5TTk/pwa/index.html is having problems or it may have been permanently moved to a new web address”.
What can I do to solve this?
I updated both the deconz integration to version 6.8.0 and home assistant core to core-2021.3.4. I am running home assistant supervised on my debian 10 server.
Thank you @KennethLavrsen for the guide.
Running HA on a Raspberry Pi 4 and the Deconz add-on/Conbee 2 has always been very flaky : everytime I restart HA, it’s like playing Russian roulette and I never know whether I’ll get back access to my Zigbee switches 
Not sure if it’s because I unplugged/replugged my router yesterday or because of the recent upgrade of the deconz add-on to 6.9.0 or of the upgrades/restarts of HA itself but I have lost access to my Aqara/Ikea switches once again, sigh.
I have plenty of errors in the HA logs (/config/logs)
and the deconz logs (/hassio/addon/core_deconz/logs)
00:12:59:257 APS request version 1
00:12:59:501 device state timeout (handled)
00:12:59:531 device disconnected reason: 1, index: 0
00:12:59:581 void zmMaster::handleStateIdle(zmMaster::MasterEvent) not connected goto OFF state
00:12:59:582 device state timeout (handled)
00:12:59:756 wait reconnect 15 seconds
00:12:59:797 0x842E14FFFE196145 error APSDE-DATA.confirm: 0xA7 on task
00:13:00:257 failed to reconnect to network try=1
00:13:00:757 wait reconnect 14 seconds
00:13:01:757 wait reconnect 13 seconds
00:13:02:756 wait reconnect 12 seconds
00:13:03:757 wait reconnect 11 seconds
00:13:04:757 wait reconnect 10 seconds
00:13:05:257 failed to reconnect to network try=2
00:13:05:757 wait reconnect 9 seconds
00:13:06:757 wait reconnect 8 seconds
00:13:07:756 wait reconnect 7 seconds
00:13:08:757 wait reconnect 6 seconds
00:13:09:757 wait reconnect 5 seconds
00:13:10:257 failed to reconnect to network try=3
00:13:10:757 wait reconnect 4 seconds
00:13:11:757 wait reconnect 3 seconds
00:13:12:757 wait reconnect 2 seconds
00:13:13:756 wait reconnect 1 seconds
00:13:13:803 dev /dev/ttyAMA0
00:13:13:804 COM: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-dresden_elektronik_ingenieurtechnik_GmbH_ConBee_II_DE2254892-if00 / serialno: DE2254892, ConBee II
00:13:15:257 failed to reconnect to network try=4
00:13:15:909 device state timeout ignored in state 2
In /hassio/addon/core_deconz/config , I have device :
/dev/serial/by-id/usb-dresden_elektronik_ingenieurtechnik_GmbH_ConBee_II_DE2254892-if00
I can’t figure out what those error messages mean and what broke since it was working (rather) fine a couple restarts ago #frustrating 
Any tips I missed from the guide would be highly appreciated, thank you !
[EDIT - the day after] Woke up this morning to discover that my wireless switches work again.
I don’t know what happened overnight ?! The random behavior of the Conbee stick is very confusing.
I still have the same warnings/errors on the log page though…
@KennethLavrsen - thank you for the Guide. Great work.
Moving to the next level, can you (or someone you know) explain why some devices are recognized and pair only partly (using Phoscon/deConz), while others don’t pair at all? My understanding so far, is that somehow, it all depend on a set of mappings or definitions held in one - or both these files:
button_maps.json
general.xml
But understanding the inner working of these files, takes a nerd + a wizard.
Think of the possibilities if deConz just passed everything onwards to HA in a native JSON format, and that it would be up to us to decipher this using templates. Why do we need Phoscon at all?
The industry is rolling out new devices daily, and we, the users, depend on either pure luck or help from nerdy individuals to get these devices working because someone has to fill in the mapping and config in those two mentioned files (and perhaps more)!
(A “nerd” in my book is a positive term indicating someone with expertise and experience way beyond and above the rest of us) 
I am not in the Deconz dev team so I cannot address your question.
But you say we do not need Phoscon at all.
You need to appreciate that Deconz is a product that Dresden Elektronik sells as a stand alone product. You use Phoscon to pair devices, setup remotes to work with devices, and define simple rules. And you can use 3rd party apps like Hue Essentials on IOS to setup thing like you do with Philips Hue. Deconz is a Philips Hue clone without being locked in to supporting few devices that are not lights.
And then there is the rest API which is open source which projects like Home Assistant and OpenHab and other smaller projects use to access Deconz.
Coming next release devices will be specified in separate description files, meaning it will be a lot easier to provide new device support than before where everything was put into a dozen places of the c++ code which is the rest plugin. That will also start providing device capabilities based on those same files, so it will allow me to support all devices in device triggers at once.
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That is indeed good news!
The struggle I’ve had up to now has almost led med to consider abandoning deconz and instead move to ZigBee2MQTT which lots of users claim is much more widely compatible and adoptable to “unknown” devices.
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The deCONZ team has spent a lot of time over the last year to get it more modular and flexible because they where of the same view that everything was too complex adding new device to support long term
So, what is your professional (and objective) opinion if asked to value deconz vs Z2M ?
What are the benefits of one vs the other?