To summarize what I mentioned above, personally, I like recommend these type of setups in general:
If want to use Home Assistant’s ZHA integration then it is today highly recommended to use a Zigbee Coordinator USB adapter based Silicon Labs EFR32MG21/EFR32MG13, Texas Instruments CC2652/CC1352, or ConBee II (dresden-elektronik), in that specific order if stability is your highest requirement. ZHA also support other Zigbee Coordinator adapters but they are either older or not supported as well. See https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#recommended-zigbee-radio-adapters-and-modules
If want to use Zigbee2MQTT instead then it is today highly recommended to use a Zigbee Coordinator USB adapter based on Texas Instruments CC2652P/CC1352P or ConBee 2 if stability is your highest requirement. Zigbee2MQTT also support other Zigbee Coordinator adapters but they are either older or not supported as well (e.g. “experimental”). See https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/guide/adapters/#recommended
I personally recommend using a single dedicated radio USB adapter for each separate wireless protocol as it both decreases complexity and at least on paper should offer better performance.
So a tip is to use a single dedicated Home Assistant SkyConnect USB dongle for Thread (and Matter over Thread) and then buy another separate single dedicated Home Assistant SkyConnect USB dongle (or other Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 based USB adapter) with ZHA or alternatively a separate single dedicated Texas Instruments CC2652P USB adapter instead if using Zigbee2MQTT.
If not absolutely necessary try to avoid internally connected Zigbee Coordinator adapters that are mounted inside the computer case since that will increase interference and decrease reception.
Better would be to buy and use a single-board computer (SBC) with Linux OS to run Zigbee2MQTT, such as example an Raspberry Pi or Hardkernel ODROID and use that as a dedicated appliance for just for that purpose. You should then also be able to squeeze in for example ZWaveJSMQTT (ZWave JS MQTT) on the same computer with a Z-Wave 700 USB dongle like the Aeotec Z-Stick 7.
Thanks Hedda - a lot of those are what i would like to do but (for my current arrangement) can’t because hyperv wont take a USB pass through. In theory i can’t plug any USB’s into my machine.
I think the Z2MQTT solution is an option though if it comes to it - thanks for the input, i am looking at a few options and that is defintitely one i hadn’t though of.
Since discussing different Zigbee2MQTT setups any further and deeper here would be way too much off-topic for this thread I recommend that you ask for advice in Zigbee2MQTT support channnels (https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt/discussions, though a quick suggestion would again be for you to consider looking more into if a better setup option for Zigbee2MQTT might be to instead buy and use a single-board computer (SBC) with Linux OS to run Zigbee2MQTT (such as example a Raspberry Pi or Hardkernel ODROID) and use that as a dedicated appliance for Zigbee2MQTT (and maybe also other smaller IoT applications such as the Mosquitto MQTT Broker). Anyway, Zigbee2MQTT has a very small footprint so it would really be overkill to run it on a PC with Windows OS. And if you want to run several different application that all have small footprints on the same single-board computer with Linux, then suggest run either the Zigbee2MQTT image in a Docker container with Docker Compose or in a virtual machine on Pimox/Proxmox (Pimox V7) virtualization hypervisor (virtual machine manager) or even a combination of the two (with the Zigbee2MQTT image for Docker on Linux running inside a virtual machine under Pimox/Proxmox):
My current setup was using Phoscon+Conbee II, so I took a backup of my conbee II with zigpy tool to get Open ZigBee Coordinator Backup Format since I did not want to repair every zigbee device I own.
Added ZHA choose my new SkyConnect and restored my backup, found lots of devices and renamed them as my old entities from Phoscon, eveything looking fine. So I thought.
Now to my problem I cant add any Ikea light bulbs or TRÅDFRI Control outlets, my first time using ZHA is there anything that I need to know? I can pair Hue bulbs and other Aqara smart plugs without problem, even several meters away from the SkyConnect. My old Conbee II is unplugged so that one does not interfere. Does not matter if I am 1 cm from the SkyConnect, tried multiple USB ports and currently using usb2.0. Anyone got any tips?
Some Zigbee Coordinator dongles do have better range than others when distant devices communicate diretctly to the Zigbee Coordinator and not going through the closest Zigbee Router device, but that should not matter as is not how Zigbee it meant to work, instead you are suppose to extend your Zigbee network by adding many Zigbee Router devices that that use mesh networking that take care of the total coverage. That is, the actual range between the Zigbee Coordinator and devices that connect to it directly should not matter as it should rwally only need to talk to the closest Zigbee Router devices, as all you should need to do is add more Zigbee Router devices (and maybe re-pair devices that have range issues if they do not automatically connect to a closer Zigbee Router device).
So if distant devices connect directly with the Zigbee Coordinator then something is wrong and you should probably try re-pairing that device to a closer Zigbee Router, but first add more Zigbee Router devices if needed. Personally I recommend buying a few IKEA Trådfri Signal Router devices (or reflash Sonoff Zigbee dongles with Zigbee Router firmware) and add them spread out in your house to act as the backbone of your Zigbee network with them creating the core of the mesh network.
Zigbee technology uses mesh networking (a type of network topology/architecture), which means that most mains-powered devices are a “Zigbee Router” that can act as a signal repeater and range extended by transmitting data over long distances by passing data messages through the Zigbee network mesh of intermediate devices to reach more distant Zigbee devices. Thus the key to a great and healthy Zigbee network is to add/have many “Zigbee Router” devices relatively close to each other in order to achieve good coverage and range. So you more or less just need to add/have several mains-powered Zigbee devices in the network that act as “Zigbee Router” devices.
Add more and decrease the distance between Zigbee devices in Zigbee network mesh to get better range and coverage:
Zigbee uses mesh networking and depends on having many “Zigbee Router” devices to extend range and coverage:
Recommendation is to add additional mains-powered Zigbee devices known to be good Zigbee Router devices.
Add more Zigbee Router devices and reduce their distances to extend network mesh coverage and range.
Note that not all mains-powered devices have firmware that makes them act as a Zigbee Router device.
Some brands/models of Zigbee Router devices are known to only work well with the same brand of devices.
The only specific other tip I have for that is to make sure do a factory reset of the devices, but if does not help then it is probably best if you open an new issue for the ZHA integration in the Home Assistant’s core repository and provide diagnostics / debug logs in that issue.
I am not aware of any current limitations related to computer hardware, no matter if running it in a virtual machine or not, though it is recommended to run in a Home Assistant Operation System installation to easily be able to use the Silicon Labs multiprotocol add-on for firmware updates in the future and such. Regardless of which adapter you buy be sure to use a USB extension cable and follow these guidelines-> Guide for Zigbee interference avoidance and network range/coverage optimization
@agners I just updated to 7.1.4.0 (I have a notification on the nabucasa silabs fw repo). In general, after a scan of the release notes, I am guessing these updates are somewhat safe to do (or atleast as safe as any firmware update) now that things seem to be stabilizing a bit?
I just received the skyconnect , I hope that I can migrate the Zigbee devices that are already connect to Sonoff-usb-dongle E version, which have been working fine.
My HA session is running on UTM on my M1 Mac Mini, again, it has been working fine.
Once I have the skyconnect, I plugged that into the same USB external cable with the Sonoff dongle removed.
However, I cannot get the integration to work as the Skyconnect device is not detected
Just wondering anyone here has detection issue or is it more relateed to UTM issue?
Not clear by your question exactly what you want to migrate from or what you want to migrate to? For startars, are you today using the ZHA integration, Zigbee2MQTT, or something else?
To clarify one thing first; it is not supported to migrate from Zigbee2MQTT to the ZHA integration, or vice versa. If you want to move from Zigbee2MQTT to the ZHA integration then the currently is no other migration path than to remove each device from Zigbee2MQTT, then factory reset each device following the manufacturer’s instructions for that, and only then join/pair the device to the ZHA integration, i.ei. doing it all from scratch. And the same thing goes if want to move from the ZHA integration to Zigbee2MQTT.
If you want yo migrate from another Zigbee Coordinator that already uses the ZHA integration to a other Zigbee Coordinator inside ZHA then you can do so, (recommend first download backup from ZHA). Do not remove you original Zigbee Coordinator yet, instead start the ”MIGRATE RADIO” available under ”Network Settings” and follow the instructions. There are many step-by-step guides available on YouTube as well as written articles specifically about radio migration inside ZHA.