I found out too late that the Sonoff Zigbee Bridge is near useless in a wifi environment, so am looking for a replacement Zigbee hub/coordinator. I’m running HA v 2021.10.3 in a Docker container on a Lubuntu 18.04 ESXi VM. Hardware is a Dell Optiplex. The Dell server is in a room full of technology - wifi router, a bunch of home automation hubs, another PC, etc. So it would be difficult to isolate a USB stick from interference. All of the Zigbee sensors that I want to connect to it are in different rooms on the same floor of the house. The closest is about 6 feet from the Dell server. The furthest is about 40 feet away.
Any views on whether the Conbee II would be a good choice, in terms of both reliability and ease of configuration? (I’m not a HA or Linux ninja)
All the USB zigbee coordinators suffer from the same interference issues. What you should do is to put the stick on an extension cord as far away from the wifi router, USB 3 ports etc. Then also change the zigbee channel to one far away from the ones that your wifi uses.
The ConBee is an excellent device, I have been using it for more than 5 years now without any issues.
What you could also do is out the ConBee on a separate Pi in a different room and connect it to Home Assistant over the network.