Husbzb-1 users: Anyone seen any benefit to updating the firmware?

This might be one of those: If it’s not broken don’t fix it type of things but this has kind of been itching at me for a while. I know there is a firmware update for the GoControl husbzb-1 Z-wave & Zigbee controller and I see a few posts of walk throughs to update it. Anyone seen any benefits? or maybe drawbacks?

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  1. I did the zigbee update on this stick using docker, only had to rename my zigbee devices, but they remained connected. I performed it in place on my debian 11 supervised homeassistant rpi4. I had to use the docker build command to setup the container since the repository seems to default to amd64. You must stop all the homeassistant and supervisor containers. I really see no difference in performance after updating the zigbee firmware. but I only have older devices.

The sequence of command I used to flash on rpi4, you may need to edit your device path for your build.

git clone https://github.com/walthowd/husbzb-firmware
cd husbzb-firmware
docker build . -t husbzb-firmware
docker run --rm --device=/dev/ttyUSB1:/dev/ttyUSB1 -it husbzb-firmware bash
./ncp.py flash -p /dev/ttyUSB1 -f ncp-uart-sw-6.7.8.ebl
  1. I had a bad experience with the zwave update and had to buy a new HUSBZB-1 stick, I will not be attempting this again! I used the TP28 pad as others have reportedly done successfully and the upgrade seemed to complete in the software. However, the zwave side of the stick is no longer recognized in the PC Controller software or zwavejs2mqtt, so I seem to have bricked the zwave side of the stick. I am able to reflash the firmware and it seems to complete the process each time, but zwave never gives ACK command to PC or RPI4. If you try this, have a very steady hand or good soldering skills (I simply held a wire to TP28 and the usb connector ground, so you might consider alternative method).
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I found the 6.7.8 update to be essential to get my stick to work with my Vbox installation. I just used Ubuntu in vbox with docker to do the flash.

After the flash, I could finally get my zigbee devices to stay connected. All has been well since.

Agreed, I updated the ZigBee side as well and you will not see any performance improvements. The only thing I would say you need to upgrade for is if devices are not connecting as expected or if you want to use zigbee2mqtt edge with the husbzb.

I had similar problems following the zwave update, but then I found this post, and reflashing with the “S2 Key Pair” options unchecked seems to get it working with the new firmware (Version 6.10 firmware from SDK v6_84_00). The device was recognized in the PC Controller software; and I was able to Reset the controller and then add (and then remove) an S2 node using the PC Controller software, and then add the upgraded HUSBZB-1 as a secondary controller on my zwave Network.