FYI, Everything Smart Home channel on YouTube posted a guide about ZHA backup and migrations.
He explain why backups are important and shortly how to migrate to ITead’s Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus from another Zigbee dongle/stick/adapter using a hacked Sonoff ZBBridge as an example:
I just realised I may have missed a step when flashing the Sonoff stick, did you copy over your original IEEE mac address onto the new stick? It says optional in the Z2M instructions.
I’ve tried Z-Stack_3.x.0 20211114 on this adapter and I had a hard time getting connections to my Zigbee devices. I am on ZHA though, not sure if that makes a difference. I had to fall back to CC1352P2_CC2652P_launchpad_coordinator_20210708. Hopefully someone else can try and perhaps it was just user error.
FYI, there are known issues with connection and joining using Zigbee router devices from some brands.
If possible start by upgrade the firmware on all your Zigbee devices that acts as Zigbee routers (usually mains-powered devices), and when troubleshooting see if Zigbee end-devices (usually battery-powered devices) with connection issues are connected to Zigbee Zigbee router(s) of the same type and brand or the same manufacturer. The issue could be that one or more of your Zigbee router devices is not properly routing all messages that should be routed through it.
Best practices for avoiding pairing difficulties and connection issues
If possible try to pair your Zigbee devices in their intended final location, (and not pair it next to the Zigbee coordinator and then need to move it after).
Pairing a Zigbee device next to the Zigbee coordinator and then moving it later can result in dropped/lost connections or other issues.
If the device you want to add is not brand new and as such never paired before then you always have to make sure to first manually reset the device to its factory default settings before you will be able to add/pair it.
Some battery-operated Zigbee devices are known to have problems with pairing if they have Low battery voltage.
Some people have reported replacing the battery on their newly received Xiaomi/Aqara devices solved pairing issues.
Check that you have enough Zigbee router devices (also known as Zigbee signal repeaters or range extenders) and if you do not have any, invest and add some mains-powered devices that will work as Zigbee routers and make sure that you upgrade the firmware on those devices if possible.
Aim to start out with mains-powered devices before adding battery-operated devices as a “weak” Zigbee network mesh (e.g., the device is too far from the Zigbee coordinator or a Zigbee router) may prevent some devices from being paired. Zigbee router devices are also needed to increase the maximum of devices that can be connected to your Zigbee mesh network.
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, (again make sure that try to upgrade to the latest firmware on any and all Zigbee router devices).
Be patient as the pairing of some Zigbee devices may require multiple attempts and you may sometimes need to try again and again.
Some devices, like example those from Xiaomi/Aqara, are known to not be 100% compliant with the standard Zigbee specifications and may therefore require many paring attempts over 10-20 minutes or longer.
Recently I had the opportunity to test the new Zigbee usb dongle from Sonoff (https://itead.cc/product/sonoff-zigbee-3-0-usb-dongle-plus/). Two main reasons to do this: a remarkable solid build device at an attractive price based on TI CC2652P + CP2102N chipset.
The usb dongle comes with a good quality usb extension cable. This is no luxury since the dongle is quite ‘fat’ and will block the adjacent usb ports easily. Placing the dongle away from for example a raspberry pi will also reduce any interference.
How powerful is this device? I am going to try pair a couple of zigbee units at 15 m from the dongle and with a few concrete walls and ceilings in between the dongle and the zigbee units.
Two devices on main-power: Muller light switch and a Ikea TRADFRI bulb E27. Both paired immediately.
Of course after having paired one, I disconnected it since these devices also act as a router.
Next was the TRADFRI motion sensor E1745, battery powered. I had to try two times but even the E1745 got paired with no issues. This device was paired with the Muller light and Ikea bulb disconnected.
Very well documented review, I still have mine in the drawer though. I got it during the first batch and took just 4days to arrive in the uk after dispatch.
@Doublet , Do you recommend the sonoff 3.0 dongle plus? I am currently using CC2531 but I am having occasional device dropping . I have the sonoff dongle but want to know if it is reliable before I start the tedious pairing.
I had similar issues with the CC2531, especially if you are expanding your network with more than 20 Zigbee devices. The chipset in the Sonoff is lot more powerfull.
I’m still confused by the specification of this device. It states its pre flashed with Z-Stack_3.0.x and supports 20 direct devices up to a maximum of 40 per mesh? However Z2M shows this firmware as Z-Stack_3.x.0 which should support 100-200 devices. Itead/sonoff have failed to answer this question.
Works well. There’s an update sitting in the develop branch that adds support for those new aqara sensors but I didn’t have much luck getting it to work.
I believe even though the dongle is advertised at +20dBm, it is still operating at +5dBm since the firmware needs to support running at that value. So not sure if the LQI comparisons would be accurate without having +20dBm
I guess not so much new but the version is different from MCCGQ12LM to MCCGQ14LM for the door sensors for example. And they’re different enough that it warrants some change firmware wise.
Great if more people report this issue to ITead as they need to make and release a script that writes a “description” to the CP2102N EEPROM so will no longer discovered using Silabs default description.
Hopefully, they will at least fix this in the next batch (or the next batch after that) so discovery will work.
