HA Green and SLZB-06 via USB

Configuration Zigbee
1

Today installed the HA Green with a backup from my former HA server. Everything worked fine. All my device, integrations, automations etc. are now in HA Green.

No zigbee devices, because I want to switch from ZHA (that I used on my old server) to z2m on HA Green.

I use a Skyconnect stick on my old HA and wanted to use the SLZB-06 on HA Green in USB mode.

I connected the SLZB to my router updated the firmware and set it to coordinator and usb mode. It is plugged in one of the two USB ports on the HA Green.

Via network HA Green shows ZHA and SMLight integration for the SLZB. But since I want USB connection and z2m this does not help.

The problem is z2m does not recognize the stick. Log says: “z2m: Error: USB adapter discovery error (No valid USB adapter found). Specify valid ‘adapter’ and ‘port’ in your configuration.”

But the Green does not list the SLZB anywhere in its hardware. System/Hardware shows usb1-usb6 but no attached device. Terminal with “ha hardware info” shows no device either.

2

I found in the ZLB-06 manual that it likely requires an additional driver to function in USB mode on the HA Green:

DRIVERS for USB/UART converter! SLZB-06/06M uses CP2102 as an USB/UART chip. If your system does not recognize the device, you have to install the drivers.

That’s unfortunate. Selling it with a “USB connection mode” in this case feels somewhat misleading.

3

I’m now using the SLZB-6 as an Ethernet device, and it works perfectly in Z2M. However, I originally wanted to use it via USB to avoid needing two network cables for both the HA Green and the SLZB and because USB should have lower latency, but HA Green + SLZB seems to respond at least as fast as ZHA+Skyconnect and z2m is better anyway.

4

Same chipset as the Sonoff, and that one is recognised ?

5

The CP2102 is a common USB-to-serial chipset that is supported out-of-the-box by most modern OS’s. Apparently HAOS doesn’t, but is that the fault of the SLZB?

6

I’m not saying the SLZB-06 is a bad device, but the marketing is misleading. The webpage features the HA logo and includes sentences like:

Do not know if USB, LAN, or WiFi is better to use? The SLZB-06 supports all of them.

The fact that it doesn’t work with HA Green in USB mode is definitely worth mentioning. Unlike other USB-Zigbee-Coordinators, which really seems to work out of the box with any OS, the SLZB-06 does not.

7

Why doesn’t the HA Green marketing say that it doesn’t support the SLZB-06? :man_shrugging:t3:

Also, it doesn’t work with z2m on the Green.

And as already pointed out: devices that use the exact same USB-to-serial chip do work on the Green. So there’s probably something else going on. Are you using an extension cord between the Green and the SLZB? If not: you should. If so: are you 100% sure it’s okay?

1 Like
8

And did you enable USB in the web-interface of the SLZB-06 ?

9

Yes i set the stick to USB mode and I tried several USB extension coords. But whatever I tried the Green did not recognize the device via USB.

10

Why doesn’t the HA Green marketing say that it doesn’t support the SLZB-06?

The difference is that SLZB states on its webpage that it supports HA, and I believe HA Green is a device that many HA users rely on.

I tested my “old” SkyConnect stick, and HA Green instantly recognized the new USB device, displaying it as “ttyUSB0” on the hardware page. However, the SLZB was never detected, it received power via USB but was not recognized as a device. This suggests that at least the SkyConnect stick, and supposedly the Sonoff sticks, are compatible with HA Green, whereas the SLZB is not or my SLZB-06 unit is faulty.

My SLZB-06 does work over Ethernet, but this required an additional cable and likely introduces latency compared to a direct USB connection, but it works fast and reliably, at least in the few days I’ve used it so far.

11

Just because it says it supports HA doesn’t mean that HA has a USB driver set up for it. It just means it’s possible to connect it to HA (most likely via ethernet)

So you’re worried about potential latency, but in the same sentence you’re saying there’s absolutely no latency in real world scenarios?

12

I expect a device that advertises support for Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and USB to actually work with Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and USB, without hidden limitations. I don’t expect to find fine print in the manual stating that USB only works under specific conditions.

The issue is that an advertised feature is not functioning as expected. If the stick’s Wi-Fi only worked with a specific type of router, that would be similarly unreasonable.

Anyway, I’m not too upset about the situation. I’ll probably switch to a dedicated USB device in the future and use the SLZB-06 as a router instead. Its was just wasted time, because first I searched for a way to get the USB mode working (that part consumed most of my time, when I switched to HA Green) and I need to repair all zigbee devices when I buy another coordinator.

Even if I had read the manual before buying the SLZB and read the sentence about the drivers, I wouldn’t have expected the USB mode to be incompatible with such a common device like Home Assistant Green.

So this thread is just a heads-up for anyone considering this device specifically for its USB mode, like I did, it might not work as expected. Anyone who buys it for the ethernet/Wlan connection will probably be satisfied.

13

Clearly you are, because you keep going on about it.

You seem to be convinced that your issue is with the SLZB requiring a driver on the HA Green, which doesn’t make sense because the SkyConnect uses the same USB-to-serial chip (as others have explained already).