From Fulfillment & Logistics | Crowd Supply
“Crowd Supply pre-pays VAT (GST) and pre-clears customs for all packages shipped to all EU countries, the UK, Switzerland, and Australia. This means the package is delivered directly to the backer’s door without the need for them to deal with a customs house. Crowd Supply, via our parent company Mouser Electronics, is properly registered in each country for which we collect VAT and we remit collected VAT accordingly.”
I think this is a good thing for us in EU because then we dont get extra delay and fees of local customs handling.
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Not too sure what to think of this. Not a big fan of the case. Thermal issues aside, I just don’t like the aesthetics. The acrylic plastic makes it look really cheap. The case for the Blue looked much better. I don’t like the built-in radio without U.FL. The NVMe is nice, but you can get that too with a CM4 baseboard over PCIe (and lots of other stuff, like more GPIO).
With shipping and VAT it comes to $200 for me in the UK.
I’m struggling to decide on the best way forward, I think it will cost me less to get a Pi4 and an SSD. I already have a ZWave stick and a Conbee 2. Quick research shows the Conbee 2 radio can also be flashed to run OpenThread so it will probably be able to support Matter in the future.
Thanks for the information. Couldn’t find this on their site. So it is only the taxes/VAT that have to be paid extra on top of the shipping fee. Good to know.
True but you’re also helping Nabu Casa financially and thus the further development of Home Assistant.
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How do you propose they handle the multiple regions of Z-waze radios? Provide a different SKU of Amber for each region?
If you have Z-wave, you already have a stick to use, so use that. If you don’t use Z-Wave, then starting out with Zigbee is a better option as the chip on board the Amber will be updated to support the new ‘Matter’ protocol, making it infinity more useful in the future.
This is an excellent idea.
They will write an HA OS image for the Amber to use, so to follow your suggestion they would need to include drivers for every single possible known Zigbee device available now, and then into the future, troubleshoot and so on. Not viable.
I don’t believe all of the radios you have listed, if any, can be updated to work with Matter, which is part of the reason this particular radio has been chosen.
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Have an inward facing USB2.0 port that a dongle can be plugged into. The certification disappears and the box remains tidy and professional. Latest 700 series dongles are multi region switchable, need to consider Z-Wave Long Range too.
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Then we are back to talking about dongles, not fixed modules. To be fair, the Amber isn’t the prettiest looking thing, i.e. like the Blue is, so I can’t imagine having a dongle on the rear USB affects the visual appeal when you already have cables sticking out.
I wasn’t aware of that as I don’t use Z-Wave. Good to know.
Apparently, Silabs EFRMG21 multiprotocol support could include Zigbee and Thread at the same time.
UG103.16 and UG305 multiprotocol docs say it is possible but have no Silicon Labs provided firmware.
"Zigbee and Thread are one example of suitable protocols for a concurrent multiprotocol implementation (not yet implemented in Silicon Labs stacks).”
“The device cannot be required to receive Zigbee and Thread packets simultaneously. However, because of MAC retries, this should not be a limitation in most use cases. The combined duty cycle of the Zigbee and Thread traffic to/from the device must not exceed what would normally be tolerated by a single Zigbee or Thread device.”
“A programmable multiprotocol implementation requires a chip with the infrastructure to support more than one protocol. Applications are developed in different protocols, such as Zigbee and Thread. Each chip is programmed with a single application in manufacturing. The customer achieves cost savings by being able to use a single chip for multiple applications and purposes.”
“Dynamic Multiprotocol makes use of the EFR32 hardware and the RAIL software as its building blocks. Zigbee, Bluetooth, and/or any other standards-based or proprietary protocols can then be built on top of these foundational layers, using Micrium to manage execution of code between different protocols.”
Those listed is already supported by zigpy + its radio libraries (which ZHA integration depends on), see:
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha/ (and https://github.com/zigpy/zigpy zigbee library).
That is, all those Zigbee radio adapters + many more are already supported by Home Assistant’s ZHA.
Also, it is highly unlikley that they will make a dedicated Home Assistant OS specifically just for Amber, that is not how these Linux distrubutions works. Amber hardware is CM4 so really just a Raspberry Pi 4.
Not all but later chips from Silicon Labs, Texas Instruments, and NXP (ZiGate) do already support both.
https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip/tree/master/third_party
Z-Wave 700 controller radios already support switching RF region, only downside is the physical antenna hardware is not optimized tuned for a specific region so will not get the same performance as if used different antennas for each region. That could however be solved with an antenna that use external antenna via SMA connector as then you can just replace the antenna for optimized performance. That could however be solved with an antenna that use external antenna via SMA connector as then you can just replace the antenna for optimized performance.
Silabs reference UZB-7 USB stick hardware is only one worldwide part, only downside is the physical antenna hardware is not optimized tuned for a specific region so will not get the same performance as if used different antennas for each region.
https://github.com/zwave-js/node-zwave-js/discussions/2544
Silabs even manufacture Z-Wave 700 controller pre-certified SiP modules; ZGM130S and ZGM230S.
https://www.silabs.com/wireless/z-wave/700-series-modules
https://www.silabs.com/wireless/fg23-zg23
Manufacturers can choose to design radio modules with physical antennas that are tuned to only one specific RF region but the reference module doesn’t and region switching was recently added to Z-Wave JS.
Hi, I dont see any info about this: how many devices can manage the built in zigbee of the amber?
The short answer is to don’t worry about that. Just make sure you also add mains-powered devices too, as you should in theory only run into limitations in the real world if use only battery-operated devices.
Silicon Labs MGM210P module contains an EFR32MG21 SoC (one of the most powerful Zigbee chips).
Depending configuration of Zigbee Coordinator firmware use you can connect at least 32 child devices (devices directly connected to the Zigbee Coordinator without going through a Zigbee router device) however since Zigbee relies on mesh networking you can have hundreds of Zigbee devices controlled by this Zigbee Coordinator as long as you also add many Zigbee Router devices on your Zigbee network. Zigbee routers are usually any Zigbee device that has a permanent mains-powered. Zigbee network mesh is always created automatically by default so it usually “just works”, but a tip is to read these recommendations before getting started with Zigbee:
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#using-router-devices
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#best-practices-for-avoiding-pairing-difficulties
If however the long-term plan is that this Silabs EFR32 radio module will run both a Zigbee stack and Thread stack (OpenThread) for wireless Matter devices at the same time then you might run into performance issues if have way too many Thread based Matter devices and Zigbee devices, especially if you only have few Thread router devices and Zigbee router devices, as Thread mesh networking technology also relies on routers to off-load some of the work from the Thread Leader Border Router.
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This is what I got from @agners via email
Hi Herbert,
Thanks for your question. I checked with Jens: yes the remaining pins of the Raspberry Pi GPIO headers are enough to use the HM-MOD-RPI-PCB. There is one caveat though: There is a reset pin, which is not covered. Jens thinks the module should still work by using Software reset, but it will need some more testing… Also interference: From what I’ve heard on Raspberry Pi 4 USB 3.0 can inferere a lot. We don’t have USB 3.0, and our initial EMI testing looked like Amber did emit on low levels really, but these things are hard to tell until you actually test them.
But otherwise, the important communication pins are there, arranged in a compatible manner, and the header is oriented such that the module should fit inside the case.
Best regards,
Stefan
Sure thing, but the shipping + UK VAT + surcharge to collect the VAT does not go to them. It’s $50-60 down the drain… 
I don’t know if they have IOSS ? Does not seem to.
Locating the Zigbee (or Z-Wave) stick away from the enclosure is not just an interference issue. Remember, these things are radios and they have antennas used to transmit and receive signals to the various devices they want to communicate with. Antennas generally work better when they’re not surrounded by other metallic/electrical components that screw up the black art that is antenna design. You really want these devices to be in free space so that the radios and their antennas can function well.
Luckily, the Home Assistant devs are also aware that Zigbee uses a radio and has an antenna. 
They tested an external antenna against the internal antenna (a ceramic one on the chip) and found no significant improvement. The external antenna would also be subject to additional certification. So, this was probably the best option given what we know, which they explain starting around minute 13 in the video.
Of note, you could still bring your own radios if you want — the Amber board has USB ports. But in that case, you again might just want to bring your own hardware instead…
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And they’re also not antenna designers. Which is, as Louis rightfully said, a kind of black art. I haven’t watched the video, but when you say they didn’t find any significant improvement of an external antenna over the ceramic one, how did they test this ? RF anechoic chamber with professional VNA equipment ? Did they outsource the test to a professional RF testing lab ? Or was it just a empiric test with results only valid within the specific environment the test was performed in and that can be completely different when you move the setup to someplace else ?
It’s always a good idea to provide for an external antenna if your RF device is soldered on, unless you know exactly what you’re doing.
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They aren’t antenna designers, but they didn’t design the antenna: SiLabs did—it’s part of their chip—and it’s safe to say that they have some experience in that area. In any case, yes, it sounds like their results were just based on data they could measure in their personal environments (RSSI in and around one of their residences; perhaps more observations that they didn’t share). Still better than just doing it and hoping for the best, IMHO.
This would certainly also not be the only “hub” with an internal radio; most commercial ones do too, and unlike with most of those, you still have the option to use an external radio—or, again, just bring your own hardware in the first place. Most people do not have problems with these hubs/bridges/gateways, and a good Zigbee network really needs repeaters anyway, so this is particularly non-concerning for me. I understand your preferences or needs may vary; one of the good things about an open platform like this is that you have lots of hardware options.
Interestingly, it looks like there is a place a connector could be soldered to for an external antenna on the board in their video (or maybe that’s some kind of connector itself…uFL? don’t really have a close enough shot for me to tell). However, that board is just an engineering sample, so it might not survive into final manufacturing.
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I know that is what was stated in the release video but where are the test results? More importantly, how was the testing done? For example: did they just compare the internal antenna against a USB stick plugged directly into the back of the Amber? I’m certain that much better signal results would come from the USB stick on an extension cable with the radio mounted up away from the Amber / router / ethernet switch / whatever else is in that general area (eg: my HA server is in a 19" rack inside a cupboard, but the Zigbee and Zwave radios are mounted up external to the rack).
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