ITead's "Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus" (model "ZBDongle-P") based on Texas Instruments CC2652P +20dBm radio SoC/MCU

tmb123 · November 16, 2023, 8:21pm

So I have the one with EFR32MG21 chip when I flash the router firmware all is fine but when I try the coordinator firmware [from here]it remains red
going nuts!!!

mundschenk-at · November 17, 2023, 6:52am

Wrong topic.

smartin · December 10, 2023, 11:22am

Beeing a Late-Adaptor i recently got myself two (as i want to have a Fallback System, see below) Dongle Plus. Haven’t switched to productive Usage yet, as i want to avoid any Downtime.
Now, i have some General Questions before, any Operation Experience appreciated!

In Order to control my Network with both sticks alternating (of course not concurrent), i know i have to Copying the ieee address of an adapter | Zigbee2MQTT
I tend to use cc2538-bsl for flashing, as i can run it straight through Homeassistant, and don’t need to open up the Devices.

Will it be necessary to run both sticks on the same firmware, or rather optional? Having different FW i could face possible related Issues as well
If i understand correctly, after Setting IEEE Adress, reflashing FW is mandatory. The Command for Setting the Adress with cc2538-bsl includes a reflashing/upgrade of the Firmware, so no need to flash a second time again, have i got that right?
my first stick is on 20210708, while the second is brand new, so presumably on a new FW. What FW would you recommend for a most-stable productional Environment? From what i understood reading several:
- Z-Stack_3.x.0_coordinator_20230507 seems to have stability issues from what i read
- Z-Stack_3.x.0_coordinator_20221226 should be more stable, but still having some (less) Issues.
- Older Firmware i can’t find, are they just too unstable, or why aren’t they listed?

Happy to hear what your Experience, Opions and Recomendations are!

JJW.AU · December 18, 2023, 11:30am

Ok it’s been driving me nuts.
Situation:
I have two Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 -P dongles. Originally I had them both as coordinators and used the ‘migration’ flashing proceedure to help test the newer firmware. I since re-flashed the second one to a Router/Repeater instead of a Coordinator but the IEEE address has stuck cloned as the same as my main Coordinator. So I think this is creating some confusion in HA when I try to ‘manage’ the repeater vs coordinator and I want to change the IEEE of my router to something different but having no luck.

So to try changing the IEEE I’ve tried:

Flash Programmer 2 - no luck, shows as if it has updated but upon read-back it shows the old IEEE
CC2538-bsl - no luck, shows as if it has updated but upon read-back it shows the old IEEE
Zigstar - no luck, shows as if it has updated but upon read-back it shows the old IEEE

I’m using a Windows 10 machine.
So has anyone actually ever got this working a second time? Obviously mine worked the first time as it cloned the IEEE from my other dongle. But seems like it is stuck. I saw a one-off comment somewhere else on the internet that Silicon Labs chips only have a write-once IEEE ability and then it’s permanent. Can anyone confirm if this impacts the Sonoff Dongle-P?

Hedda · January 9, 2024, 2:58pm

FYI, there is experimental " 20231111/20231112" firmware builds available that those with issues might want to test and give feedback on → Z-Stack_3.x.0 coordinator 20231111/20231112 feedback · Koenkk/Z-Stack-firmware · Discussion #483 · GitHub

“First start by testing 20231112, if that doesn’t work try 20231111. If 20231112 works fine, there is no need to try `20231111” Compared to 20230922/20230923 these contain the improvements based on this TI topic → SIMPLELINK-CC13X2-26X2-SDK: Firmware not stable since SDK 6.20.00.29 - Zigbee & Thread forum - Zigbee & Thread - TI E2E support forums

PS: Always remember to do a Zigbee network backup to file before upgrading firmware.

starschild86 · January 30, 2024, 8:28pm

hi all! i have checked this evening and i currently have the firmware 20210708 on my Sonoff_Zigbee_3.0_USB_Dongle_Plus. i use zigbe2mqtt.
what would be the benefits to update? will the procedure make me loose access to my current network configuration?

thanks a lot,
Nicola

khvej8 · January 30, 2024, 8:32pm

You FW is old. A lot of users were on 20221226 for a long time. Currently many use 20230922 and a new might come soon due to NWK problems. If you have no issues at all, then maybe wait for the new one…

You will not loose current linked devices.

jerrm · January 30, 2024, 10:42pm

I mostly agree with @khvej8.

With zigbee I take the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” stance.

If you are having issues, try 20221226, or wait for the next update. The May/23 release has issues for some folks.

rikardopc · February 10, 2024, 4:52pm

Would you be able to elaborate more on this?

I found this code
SERIAL_PORT_CFG = {‘name’: “COM” + name,
on the uartlog.py and removed “COM” but the script still does not work for me?

How do you specify the port name in linux? Is it dev/ttyUSB0? USB0? 0? I tried all of those and none of them work.

wmaker · February 11, 2024, 5:12pm

You’re asking about cc2538-bsl on linux right? Here is the command as I used it:
$python3 cc2538-bsl.py --bootloader-sonoff-usb -e -w -v CC1352P2_CC2652P_launchpad_coordinator_20221226.hex

and it auto-picked /dev/tty/USB0 which in my case was correct. If you already have another USB device there, the docs say you can use the -p option to select the serial device file yourself.

rikardopc · February 11, 2024, 11:16pm

No. I was talking about the step prior to this. How to use the python scrypt to enter BSL? There is a python script, uartLog.py, that enter BSL on windows without disassembling the Sonoff stick. @sshaikh managed to make it work on Linux, but I can’t seem to follow his advice to make it work. See quote below.

wmaker · February 12, 2024, 5:07pm

If you are trying to get this to work on Windows, yeah I don’t know much about that.

Hedda · February 12, 2024, 6:13pm

That is what the above mentioned sonoff specific parameter does in JelmerT’s cc2538-bsl script:

”For ITead SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus: For the CC2652P based “SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus” (model “ZBDongle-P”) adapter from ITead you need to invoke toggle to activate bootloader with --bootloader-sonoff-usb if you do not want to open its enclosure to manually start the bootloader with the boot button on the PCB.”

github.com

JelmerT/cc2538-bsl/blob/master/README.md

TI CC13xx/CC2538/CC26xx Serial Boot Loader [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/JelmerT/cc2538-bsl.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/JelmerT/cc2538-bsl)
==========================================

This folder contains a python script that communicates with the boot loader of the Texas Instruments CC2538, CC26xx and CC13xx SoCs (System on Chips).
It can be used to erase, program, verify and read the flash of those SoCs with a simple USB to serial converter.

### Requirements

To run this script you need a Python interpreter, Linux and Mac users should be fine, Windows users have a look here: [Python Download][python].

Alternatively, Docker can be used to run this script as a one-liner without the need to install dependencies, see [git-developer/ti-cc-tool](https://github.com/git-developer/ti-cc-tool) for details.

To communicate with the uart port of the SoC you need a usb to serial converter:
* If you use the SmartRF06 board with an Evaluation Module (EM) mounted on it you can use the on-board ftdi chip. Make sure the "Enable UART" jumper is set on the board. You can have a look [here][contiki cc2538dk] for more info on drivers for this chip on different operating systems.
* If you use a different platform, there are many cheap USB to UART converters available, but make sure you use one with 3.3v voltage levels.

### Dependencies

This script uses the pyserial package to communicate with the serial port and chip (https://pypi.org/project/pyserial/). You can install it by running `pip install pyserial`.

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rikardopc · February 13, 2024, 2:09pm

Awesome. Thanks! Here’s what did for me, if it helps anyone else.

sudo python3 cc2538-bsl.py --bootloader-sonoff-usb CC1352P2_CC2652P_launchpad_coordinator_20230507.hex

timnolte · February 14, 2024, 2:41am

I’ve got a new dongle on order and it was listed as having Z-Stack pre-flashed. Do I need to consider doing any flashing as mentioned in this thread before I start using it or go ahead and set things up with what it was flashed with?

Hedda · February 14, 2024, 11:52am

It is not an absolute must but yes it is generally recommended to upgrade the firmware before you start using it the very first time (since they still ship them with a very old firmware with many known bugs that have been fixed in newer versions), …however also note the tip that it then also generally recommended to update again and again later if and when you have issues with any devices as future versions can contain bug fixes for issues with devices that have not yet been released yet, (so after the initial firmware update you can follow the rule “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it”) see:

https://github.com/Koenkk/Z-Stack-firmware

and

https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/guide/adapters/#flashing-cc1352-cc2652-cc2538-based-adapters

PS: Other than upgrading Zigbee Coordinator firmware the very first time, another tip is that the “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it" rule also applies to other Zigbee devices too (for example the IKEA Trådfri Zigbee devices having problems with latest firmware so better not to upgrade firmware if not having any issues).

timnolte · February 14, 2024, 11:58pm

@Hedda thanks. I was able to easily use the ti-cc-tool Docker image to flash the latest Z-Stack. I got it plugged into my Raspberry Pi on and extension and got my entire Zigbee network migrated over to it with almost no effort.