anyone struggling to get the dongle recognised in windows? I have installed TI smart RF program flasher as was as individual drivers but no matter what I try I get never the software to see the USB dongle.
thanks
You need Silabs CP210x drivers https://www.silabs.com/developers/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers
Unlike most other Texas Instruments adapters this uses a Silicon Labs CP2102N USB-to-UART chip.
Yeah have a huge network across five, long, narrow floors. Putting the a router on each floor and switching to channel 25 has made my network pretty solid. I think the extra juice in the router firmware would be enough to “put me over the top.”
Also I strongly suggest anyone with a network of any complexity uses Zigbee MQTT. The difference for me as been and night day compare to ZHA.
I have about 50 devices using a HUSBZB stick and ZHA. I ordered this Sonoff stick and am also contemplating switching to zigbee2mqtt when it arrives and I install it. The reason I am considering switching is because I get quite frequent device dropouts, usually Aqara door and motion sensors, despite having lots of repeater devices scattered around. I know that I will have to repair devices which will be a major pain so I am just wondering what your thoughts are and if it is really worth switching?
thanks
I’d say this depends on the reason for your dropoffs. Xiaomi/Aqara devices are notoriously picky about what routers/“repeaters” they use, as they are not quite standard Zigbee and will “fall off” your network if routed through many kinds of repeaters. Only a few have been tested an known to work reliably with these devices, though there are likely more. The Hubitat forum probably has the best discussion of this issue, though you can find more in lots of places:
To add to the list in that first post, I know someone later on found the CC2531 flashed as a router to work well, and I’d guess that any of the TI devices (CC2652x, etc.) using the same or similar router firmware would also work, though I’m not sure I’ve seen that confirmed. The big issue is that lots of mains-powered Zigbee devices that are also repeaters may not work well with these devices, and in general, you don’t have control over how Zigbee devices route, so you may eventually run into trouble if you have one that doesn’t work well.
So…whether it’s worth it or will really solve your problem depends on your network as a whole, but my suspicion is that it has more to do with that than it does to what software you’re using for the coordinator/hub. (One thing I’ve seen some people do, including in the above thread, is keep them only on their own, known-Xiaomi-friendly network…so that’s an option. You could do one network on ZHA and the other on Z2M–I don’t think HASS lets you have two of the same integration/component.)
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thanks! that did the trick, it was driving me mad!
+1 Xiaomi / Aqara devices (and also Tuya devices) will give you trouble in all and any Zigbee solution.
Jeedom devs also recently posted a great blog article explaining why those Xiaomi / Aqara devices are so troublesome (and why good Zigbee solutions is hard/complicated to implement for developers):
https://blog.jeedom.com/6107-parlons-zigbee/
Tip! Here are two links to more general tips to get a more stable Zigbee network no matter the solution:
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#best-practices-for-avoiding-pairing-difficulties
https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant.io/pull/18864 → https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant.io/pull/18864/commits/b21c49589d898d60a1a235afa7b9c148d013cfee
CC2530 and CC2531 based dongles flashed with Zigbee router firmware does work well as routers for devices using the older Zigbee Home Automation 1.2 protocol but not as well for all Zigbee 3.0 devices.
https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/advanced/zigbee/05_create_a_cc2530_router.html#what-do-i-need
There is no ‘official’ Zigbee 3.0 router firmware for CC2530 and CC2531 based chips, (there are some unofficial floating around though but it should be noted that is based on an older version of Z-Stack).
Better to buy additional CC2652P/CC2652R/CC2652RB or CC1352P dongles and flash to router(s):
https://github.com/Koenkk/Z-Stack-firmware/tree/master/router/Z-Stack_3.x.0/bin
https://www.tubeszb.com/product/cc_router/4?cp=true&sa=false&sbp=false&q=false&category_id=3
Correct, (at least out-of-the-box unless you copy them and modify their names but is a pain to maintain)
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Thanks for all of the advice. I have actually read, researched and implemented a lot of the above recommendations. One additional thing that I have observed is that once Aqara sensors pair with a repeater device they generally remain stable until one of two things happen. 1) Power goes out for more than a few hours. 2) I add more repeater devices to the mesh. I think that possibly, in both cases, the route between the original repeater device and the coordinator changes and that is what causes the Aqara sensors to drop off. I have observed this correlation many times.
In my observations the aqara sensors stickt to the router to which they have paired to - even if you add more routers.
- This is a known behavior with aqara sensors - when they do not have connectivity to the router they reset by themself and have to be repaired.
Additionally I had issues with routers from ledvance. Once I removed them and kept my routers online my sensors kept stable.
Maybe you add Sonoff-Sticks as routers - I have flashed two sticks with router firmware and most devices now connect to them.
Note that some Zigbee devices are not fully compatible with all brands of Zigbee router devices. Xiaomi/Aqara devices are for example known not to work with Zigbee router devices from Centralite, General Electrics, Iris, Ledvance/OSRAM, LIGHTIFY/Sylvania, Orvibo, PEQ, Securifi, and SmartThings/Samsung. Better results can usually be achieved by using mains-powered devices IKEA and Nue/3A Home or dedicated DIY routing devices based on Texas Instruments CC253x/CC26x2 and XBee Series 2/3 Zigbee radios.
I was using an HUSBZB-1 and moved to the Sonoff Plus 3.0 (2 of them coordinator and router) I did not have frequent dropouts, but occasional I would say… I also have a handful of lights that the wife and kids occasionally switch off which I know doesn’t help… but either way moving to the new Sonoff and Z2M was a big improvement and worth the effort in my opinion. Device response time seems to have significantly improved and random disconnects are non-existent (unless of course someone has recently powered stuff off… but it is immediately available again when powered back on)
This will stop that problem
Oh that’s cool never seen those… the electrical in those rooms needs to be redone so I was kind of just waiting with the intention of changing to a smart switch at that time, but I may look into that for the meantime. Thanks
I am helping a friend dealing with a fairly complex zigbee system, I think we might just be at 200! bulbs… quite a large house too so LQI isn’t spectacular from the basement to the first floor (one floor up from ground floor). However we are at liberty to move the device around to experiment a little.
However, to the point, I don’t expect this to doable on a single Sonoff coordinator, however we where trying to see how far it would go. With the newest firmware (20211217) with higher antenna gain we are getting issues at ~40 bulbs, Zigbee2MQTT doesn’t seem to be able to add more…
(These are all brand new Ikea Trådfri bulbs, haven’t checked firmware yet, I might be wrong, but it seems to be that Ikea just released Zigbee 3.0 for all their bulbs.*)
I want to use the Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus as a router in Home assistant. . My coordinator is a Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle (https://itead.cc/product/zigbee-3-0-usb-dongle). *I have HA running on RPI 4.
I flashed the router firmware following the guide - https://sonoff.tech/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/SONOFF-Zigbee-3.0-USB-dongle-plus-firmware-flashing-.pdf. After flashing, when I try to add the router using ZHA in Home Assistant, the device is was not discovered after several attempts. I got two of these (Dongle Plus) devices and both of them wouldn’t discover in ZHA. Any idea what’s going on?
Edit: After several repeated attempts, I was able to connect!
Might be a stupid question, but…
Do I need aditional hardware (except my xiaomi zigbee temperatur sensors) to flash and run the sonoff zigbee dongle? - My old broken Texas Instruments CC2531 needed aditional hardware to be flashed…
And I only found wndows descriptions. Is there one for Mac or Linux Users?
This would also help:
Lutron Aurora Smart Bulb Dimmer (Z3-1BRL) Zigbee compatibility (blakadder.com)
Installing the Aurora smart bulb dimmer with Philips Hue smart lighting - YouTube
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$2.71 vs $40
$1 each when I bought mine in April
Hard to argue with the price! I’ve really kicked around this problem and there are a few options:
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Remote flavors with line/load directly connected (or with backup sonoff in box relay): RGB Genie makes a great lutron style five button switch that feels like it belongs in a normal house. Combine with a Sonoff (or similar) in wall on-off switch if you need an extra router or want to power cycle finicky bulbes without hitting your breaker.
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Mains powered remotes: there are a few of these floating around, they are pretty cool but not human friendly. There’s a few flavor of these with the glass panels, some allowing for multiple group or scene control.
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Zigbee switch/dimmer, with line/load connected: probably the cleanest solution if your network is strong, but pricey. You install a zigbee switch, bypass it for the purpose of powering the lights, then bind it to the smart light bulb group. It works great in normal rooms but not great in long rooms or in staircases where you tend to get a ton of popcorning.
My solution is to “hack” an IKEA Tradfri-Button. I soldered two wires on the micro switch and connected them to a momentary switch. The light are separated from the switch and therefore the bulbs have continously power.
Works like a charm and I can use the same switches as on the other non smart lights.
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