@chinhhut Auto-BSL (automatic BSL mode) activation/usage is explained on Electrolama’s website and cc2538-bsl readme, but note ITead/Sonoff do not implement it in standard Texas Instruments way:
Regardless I would not try flashing a firmware image meant for a other adapter/board/device myself as you risk bricking it because is not only the chip that matters but the GPIO (general purpose input and output) ports/pads/pins that have been mapped for the firmware software designed for that specific circuit board that is inside each product.
That is, as the chip has multiple GPIO ports/pads/pins that could be used for many different things it is up to the developer of each circuit board to choose what port/pad/pin will be physically traced to which function and then define that by mapping the same in the firmware for that device.
There is no standard for what function GPIO pins should be mapped to, (but most do use same pads).
If you successfully flash a firmware image that did not use the same mappings then you have technically “bricked” it, in this case meaning that you can no longer flash it again via USB using the ROM Bootloader (BSL), so you must then “unbrick” it by buying/getting a cJTAG ( c/JTAG) adapter like J-Link to flash it manually via the developer pins, see → https://electrolama.com/radio-docs/advanced/flash-jtag/
Okay I am at my wits end with this dongle. I was able to flash it with firmware just fine, but I am still seeing it listed when doing lsusb as a “Silicon Labs CP210x UART Bridge” so I must have one of the early ones shipped from what I’ve read?
There’s supposedly a tool to do this, but I can’t find it anywhere, and the link i did find takes me to the sonoff site where it says the account has been “deactivated.”
So I have no clue what to do here. This is the last thing not working on my Pi, just sucks because I have a ton of sensors I’ve been waiting to test out. Any help where to source this tool would be outstanding.
As this product is still being sold I suggest you contact the official Sonoff/Itead and ask them to republish the script and tool needed to rename the USB product description on the CP2102 EEPROM.
However you should note that it only nice to have feature of USB automatic discovery which not a need to have feature, so the adapter should still be full functional, you will only need to select the device serial port and radio type manually when installing the ZHA integration.
Just installed the Python Z-Stack-firmware flashing method for the Coordinator Release (20230507) for the Sonoff ZBDongle-Plus (V1) on my macOS Monterey with this great and easy to follow tutorial made by Dennis van Dalen.
Just for anyone on ZHA who was curious like me and wants to check the version of firmware on the dongle. Just download the JSON backup and you have it at the bottom.
Just to update all, after updating the firmware to the latest version, I see far less timeout errors in logs for ZHA, just the occasional. I used to get a lot of 1byte errors, but none so far for a week.
I still have the same battery devices going unavailable but they still do work, they wake up after being pressed. There is one motion sensor though that does not. All routers are up however and stable. I replaced a bunch of Osram bulbs with IKEA bulbs, they were shit routers and the IKEA bulbs improved quite a bit the responsiveness of the network.
Just looking at the logs though, from a ZHA perspective it seems quite clean, just 3 timeouts, I am assuming those were the devices that became unavailable. Basically before my log used to be full of ZHA messages.
Thanks Hedda, your writeup is indeed my gospel for Zigbee. I have done almost all the items there:-
Moved my zigbee channel to 11 (Wifi channels 1,2,3 are free in my home, all my neighbours are on wifi 11)
USB powered cable to extend the dongle to the middle of the house
Have 2 Sonoff Dongle Plus acting as routers
I am pretty much happy with the setup so far, it is rock solid, I have 140 devices on the network so it is fairly large. 50 of them are routers, the rest end devices.
It is always the same 3 end devices that go offline, might be that they arent binding correctly, 1 is a sonoff contact sensor, 1 ikea switch and 1 aqara motion sensor. I have other same devices in the network but they are rock solid. Funny thing is that even though they are unavailable, they still work if triggered.
Hi, I have been a smartthings user for 7 years switching to home assistant. New to the community. Can you please let me know if I should buy a sonoff E or P dongle. Also looking for a z-wave dongle as I have a few z-wave devices too. Thanks
At this community we assume you are able to use the search function. This thread is specifically for the p version. Advice on what to buy can be found on lots and lots of other threads.
TLDR
Both can be used for ZHA, E is never and there pairing issues reported, not so much for P but E is the same chip as Home Assistant is using natively in the yellow and the new skynet connect dongle
Z2MQTT only option is P for stability, E is experimental
But use the search for more detailed info, I have both dongles but havent tested the E (dreading the repairing so leaving it when the wife is out for a while )yet but might move to it soon as I am predominantly ZHA user and would be good to have a native HA dongle.
Just a follow on from this comment, I finally rollback to the 221226 release. Even though the 20230507 release seemed snappier in the beginning, but after a few days, everything seemed very slow. I had a bunch of lights not changing state in HA, started to be annoying as I had to press battery buttons multiple times for it to respond as it didnt have the correct state in HA.
As mentioned, if ever going to use Zigbee2MQTT/Z2M then using a ZNP radio like the CC2652 based ZBDongle-P is the only recommended way to go today, (because EZSP radios like the ZBDongle-E support is still missing a couple of key features Zigbee2MQTT/Z2M to be in feature parity with ZNP).
ZBDongle-E can be reflashed to support Thread (for Matter support) or even Multi-PAN RPC for running Zigbee and Thread at the same time, but personally I recommend only using one protocol per dongle, so the best will be to use two separate radio dongles for Zigbee and Thread regardless of radio type used.
)yet but might move to it soon as I am predominantly ZHA user and would be good to have a native HA dongle.