Home Assistant + Zigbee2mqtt + Conbee III poltergeist

Configuration Zigbee
1

I am having random problems with this setup

  • RaspBerry Pi 5 (8GB)

  • ConBee III

  • Home Assistant OS ( Core 2024.9.1 / Supervisor 2024.08.0 /OS 13.1 / Frontend 20240906.0)

  • MQTT Integration

  • Mosquitto broker addon 6.4.1

  • Zigbee2MQTT addon 1.40.1-1

  • Zigbee on channel 11 and wifi 2.4 on channel 6

My problem is that suddenly everything stops working. Aqara’s temperature and humidity sensors stop updating values ​​to the cards(last seen hours ago…). Automations stop running…

I also have problems pairing devices. For example, the Tuya Fingerbot plus is detected well but it does not correctly obtain its values ​​(battery, functionalities or states… they are not in exposes/status section or are null) and if I try to execute an entity it does not work (the interface returns a timeout).

On the other hand, I do not know if it is normal, from the list of devices I cannot delete a device without activating the force button

The device map tab does strange things to me, devices that are paired with mqtt are not linked to any coordinator or router (I have a plug-in router). Also if I disconnect the router and leave the coordinator alone (conbee III) the map takes a long time to generate or it directly emits a timeout.

I thought it was a problem with the latest version of the HA core or the latest version of the zigbee2Mqtt addon, but I’m not sure anymore.

is it a problem with the zigbee2mqtt-conbee binomial?

Thanks a lot and sorry for this large question

2

Start by reading and try following all the best practice tips in this guide before troubleshooting any deeper (including using a long USB extension cable tpo a USB 2.0 port as well add having/adding many good Zigbee Router devices):

ConBee can not generally be recommended for Zigbee2MQTT or ZHA (instead only if use DeCONZ or if happen to own it before migrating), see → Zigbee buyer's guide - #2 by Hedda

Of couse also see Zigbee2MQTT documentation which indirectly say same thing (with various important features not being supported by ConBee but are supported if using ZStack or EmberZNet):

3

Over years I noticed such statements but never supported by something objective.
I’m operating Conbee2 stick with Z2M (on rpi4) for 3 years without any issues

4

Maybe you have not used all fatures, but you can follow links in latest Zigbee2MQTT documentation:

ATTENTION

Various features are not supported by this adapter, in case you depend on these features, consider a different adapter.

Previously those “limitations” with the ConBee/RaspBee firmware and deCONZ Serial Protocol is was only indirectly mentioned in Zigee2MQTT’s FAQ and in troubleshooting section of the ZHA docs:

While you can ignore or workaround some of those but sucks not having a backup or install code support and then needing them, so those two are why I think ConBee should not be recommended to new users:

Note that the “no backups” is a Zigbee2MQTT issue (due to lack of deconz developers in the Z2M project) but the lack of install code support affect both ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT is there is no support from dresden-elektronik as of yet:

While I can only speak for myself, think I can still say that as it stands right now many of us who are a part of the overall ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT communities can no longer not with good conscience recommend ConBee II or ConBee III to new end-users that want to begin using ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT. Hence my recommendation in that Zigbee buyers guide:

It also seems to be that Zigbee2MQTT’s zigbee-herdsman project (the Zigbee library that Z2M depends on) currently only has one lead developer who is focusing on the “zstack” driver (Texas Instruments Z-Stack ZNP adapters) and another lead developer who is focusing on “ember” driver (Silicon Labs EmberZNet Serial Protocol adapters), but it currently has no developers that are focusing on their “deconz” driver (Dresden-Elektronik’s deCONZ adapters like ConBee and RaspBee) so it only gets minor break-fix patches or generic patches that applies to all their drivers and not major new features like backups for deconz adapters:

1 Like
5

Thank you for the very detailed answer.
Indeed, with this knowledge is questionable to advise such a device.

6

Thanks a lot for all responses.

Its strange that can not remove devices from zigbee2mqtt addon panel without force, no? Always the UI returns timeout

I have noticed that the conbee III coordinator has a fairly old firmware version (0x264e0900)

Also I have noticed that had connected de usb cable to USB3 port. Is the length of the cable a problem?(3m)

I have tried to update via Windows flasher but windows 7 not recognizes the usb device. Is this normal? Is there any way to flash from Home Assistant or MacOS?