I have no direct experience with this new device mentioned in OP (SLZB-07) but I have been using their model SLZB-06 device since July (about 6 months now) and it has been operating flawlessly (as far as I can tell) and I am very happy with it. I am currently up to 37 Zigbee devices, and adding more all the time.
Of course I took care to do my homework and followed all the recommendations about Wi-Fi and channels, building out a backbone of router devices before adding end devices, etc. I think most people who claim Zigbee is unreliable are probably not doing these things.
Anyway, they seem to make nice hardware which is reasonably priced, so I thought I would share my experience.
you mean flashing from CLI?
I’m asking because the device (SLZB-07) don’t show up when I press on “Connect” on either of the 3 options you have on the web flasher.
I’m guessing you filter by device id?
They have different pros and cons that makes me personally choose and recommend the Sonoff ZBDongle-E (or Sonoff ZBDongle-P) for Zigbee:
Sonoff ZBDongle-E comes with unlocked bootloader, has a metal enclosure that works as EMF shielding, which the others do not. Sonoff ZBDongle-E also ship with a unique USB product description written to the USB to Serial bridge/converter chip so it can be automatically detected via USB Discovery.
SkyConnect purchase sponsor the Home Assistant developers. There is also an official addon for upgrading firmware inside Home Assistant. But it does not have an external antenna, and the board has no EMF shielding. It does however feature unique USB product description written to the USB to Serial bridge/converter chip so it can be automatically detected via USB Discovery.
SMLIGHT SLZB-07 comes with a locked bootloader which is means that you can only flash it with their firmware unless you first unlock it, fortunate they allow users to unlock the bootloader if and when their web flasher is working (which it currently is not) but they they remove that then users who have not already unlocked it are screwed. The board also has no EMF shielding. In addition, SMLIGHT SLZB-07 does not ship with a unique USB product description written to the USB to Serial bridge/converter chip so it can be automatically detected via USB Discovery.
SMLIGHT could relativly easily fix these issues by not shipping a locked bootloader (just like everyone else), add some EFM shielding to board (i.e, a grounded metal cover), and feature unique USB product description written to the USB to Serial bridge/converter chip so it can be automatically detected via USB Discovery.
Thanks for the detailed reply.
EMF Shielding is indeed an issue I didn’t think of.
Re. locked bootloader on the slzb07, I don’t think it’s a big issue since it’s possible to unlock it via @darkxst web flasher.
I do wish they had a unique ID instead of a generic cp210x, I wonder if they can fix it for current owners via firmware update…
They all use the exact same chip?
Btw, I don’t like the idea of supporting the development of Home Assistant via inferior hardware, SkyConnect seems very cheap shipping without an antenna especially for its high cost.
I support Home Assistant development via my Nabu Casa subscription.
Bottom line, I think that assuming they all use the exact same chip, and based on your input as well, the Sonoff will be top priority, followed by SLZB07 and SkyConnect being last
They can fix it is they are using CP210x, and that is what Itead did after they also missed doing so for the first batch of Sonoff ZBDongle-P they shipped, (they released a script that wrote their custom USB product description string to it that they shipped with later batches), see:
If you install router firmware, its required to switch back to normal firmware. Also if you flash wrong firmware or the firmware gets corrupted while flashing etc, it allows you to recover.
Can you clearify what exactly do you mean by “open source router firmware”?
“OpenThread Border Router” (OTBR) is the “ot-rcp” builds there, but as there is no OpenThread NCP builds yet you are going to need to use the OpenThread Deamon, see → تصميم معالجات معالِجة | OpenThread
FYI, there are no open-source Zigbee stacks, so no open-source “Zigbee Router”.
I meant ZigBee router.
I want to flash some of my spare dongles (both slzb07 and sonoff dongle e) as routers, but I thought that like the ncp firmwares, there are router firmwares being built by the community.
I guess that’s not the case.
There are a few community image builds compiled with Silicon Labs EmberZNet Zigbee SDK that work with many EFR32MG21 based adapters (as long as they are pin comatible), but just to clarify; they are not technically “open source” (as still depend on the propriatory Silicon Labs EmberZNet Zigbee stack ), see → Router firmware with latest ezsp · Issue #15 · darkxst/silabs-firmware-builder · GitHub
If that ITead’s EmberZNet 6.10.3 Zigbee Router firmware works then that is currently good enough for a dedicated Zigbee Router.
FYI, most commercial Zigbee products that you can buy do not use that new firmware on their devices, instead they use and older and well-tested version that has proven over the year to be stable, and EmberZNet Zigbee 6.10.3 has proven that.
