Thanks Robban and fresnoboy. Should I understand ‘in parallel’ to mean with two coordinators connected so deconz can keep running on one, and z2m on the other?
I only have one conbee2 stick at present so what I’m wondering is if there are any downsides to using my current HA install with all its automations and dashboards present, installing z2m add on and broker, and starting into pairing devices? Do I need to uninstall the deconz add on beforehand? Anything else that can avoid issues?
To make running them in parallel work, you will need TWO zigbee interfaces, the conbee for Deconz and another one for Z2M. You cannot run both in parallel with only one zigbee coordinator. I highly recommend getting the sonoff 3.0 zigbee stick, as it works very well, is supported by z2m and HZA, and has high power output and the latest chipset, and its very inexpensive.
I pulled the trigger on an order for that interface just 5 minutes before I read your response: I figured even if I can use the conbee for z2m on its own, having a spare interface can’t hurt in case ‘life’.
So I’ll wait for it to arrive before I tinker, and I’ll do it in parallel as you suggest. The alternative was to do this at night when my gf won’t curse at me for lights not working, but nice self-loving option to get good nights of sleep and wait until the sonoff arrives!
Thanks again for your advice, ad for the thread as a whole. Much appreciated.
It’s a great interface, and BTW, you can flash it as a Zigbee router if you want as well. Nice for helping extend the zigbee network in case some devices have issues with the signal.
BTW, I think z2m selects channel 25 by default. That is a good choice, but someone mentioned ZHA chooses 15 by default, which is bad because you get interference from 2 WiFi channels, not just one like channel 25. So before you start adding devices on the new interface, verify the channel is the one you want to use.
PS If anyone is planning on running z2m on their conbee, please make sure the firmware is up to date as per the issues referenced in this thread: Switched from DeConz to Zigbee2MQTT and am having a hell of a time - #17 by rockets
Minor correction: z2m default channel is 11 (reference), which is not good either.
Also minor, sonoff has ~ 3 flavours of zigbee dongles by now, and I believe @fresnoboy is talking about the “ZBDongle-P” flavour, not the “E” flavour. a quick comparison here.
ITead actually sell/sold 4 variant if you also count their CC2531 USB dongle too → https://itead.cc/product/cc2531-usb-dongle/
All correct. I used the ZBDongle-P model, and it continues to work well. I admit I am confused about why the channel defaults are set to frequencies in the “shoulders” of two wifi channels instead of 25 that only suffers with one. But in any case, starting a transition to a new zigbee network should always be done with 25 unless there is only sparse 2.4 GHz Wifi in the location. I have lots of AP’s in my house, and the zigbee network at channel 25 is still very robust and noticeably faster in responsiveness to zwave which doesn’t have interference issues…
The reason is that some older Zigbee devices did not support Zigbee channels 11, 24, 25, or 26 so for compatibity no generic Zigbee gateway implementation can use one of those Zigbee channels as default as not all devices would be able to connect. Zigbee channels 15 and 20 are the most dwvice compatible channels, but yes they do not take overlapping WiFi channels into account.
https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha/#defining-zigbee-channel-to-use
The general recommendation is to only use channels 15, 20, or 25 in order to avoid interoperability problems with Zigbee devices that are limited to only being compatible with the ZLL (Zigbee Light Link) channels as well as lessen the chance of Wi-Fi networks interfering too much with the Zigbee network. Note that especially using Zigbee channels 11, 24, 25, or 26 on your Zigbee Coordinator could mean it will probably not be accessible to older devices as those Zigbee channels are commonly only supported by relatively modern Zigbee hardware devices with newer Zigbee firmware.
I also went from conbee to the sonoff CC2652P.
I have to use channel 11 since one off my device (niko) only works with channel 11. (I change my wifi channels in stead)
So, I kept the conbee, and added the sonoff. Both on channel 11. This doesn’t seem to be a problem.
Then, I removed (deleted) the device from conbee. For most devices, this sets the device to pairing mode also. Because of that, I instantly could pair it with the sonof (Zigbee2mqtt).
This way, the process went smooth… Remove device from conbee, add to sonoff,…again and again…
This way, it was also simple to remember the names of the device.
I have to say, sonoff, although cheaper than conbee, works very good.
I was happy with conbee, and the guys working on the software did their best.
But, Z2M seems to me more versatile, more used, has more supported devices… and the sonoff has newer hardware too.
How did you guys let the devices keep their ids ? So the history of some wil stay.
I wil migrate from conbee II / deconz to sonoff dongle-p /z2mqtt.
Is it possible to let te devices keep their history?
Regards,
No. That’s why I migrated early after discovering the shortcomings of Conbee & DeConz for me.
With zigbee2mqtt those aquara sensors are more stable/reliable?
Do you have a med term experience now after few months?
Thanks
For me the combination of sonoff zigbee 3.0 usb dongle and zigbee2mqtt works great. More stable than anything I’ve tried before. Plus I really like to be able to make backups (also the zigbee stick / network setup). That means if I ever want to migrate the network (to an other stick or setup) I can.
Thanks for the reply. Are you using dongle “E”” or “P”? Did you flash with which firmware?
About the backup, do you use the backup function within z2m or copy the container folder manually?
AFAIK I just have the “normal” -e type. My zigbee2mqtt run’s in a LXC container and the dongle’s configuration is backed up to the local (virtual) file-system that get’s snap-shot every day. That way if all burns down… I can still get the network up and running again with a new dongle and backup.
Thank you for the answer.
I have a QNAP that runs docker containers, can i reach same setup? I know that LXC container get deprecated support on QNAP container station’s.
How you automate backup snapshot? I had couple of power failures in the past and restoring is a total priority.
Regards
proxmox has scheduled (snapshot) backups out of the box. So that’s easy 
You could do more or less the same with qnap (and docker). I’m pretty sure, although I myself switched from QNAP to Synology.
Ok clear, two question:
Why isnt the zigbee2mqtt folder backup enough? I did a teat and restoring from backup on another hassio worked. Why need to have a promox snapshot?
What the advantage synology vs qnap?
Thanks
The chip content get’s backed-up to the folder and the folder get’s snapshot. That way the backup of the zigbee chip is stored in an other (safer) place. If for whatever reason the zigbee2mqtt container get’s destroyed I can rebuild it. If the zigbee stick craps out I can restore it.
You don’t need al the fail-safe’s but I get the sort-of for free, so I use them. It’s the same with my Hass config. All files go into git, but I also snapshot the whole machine.