Sonoff E Plus Stick - Flashing

Configuration Zigbee
1

After some advice on here, Ive just purchased two of these;

The aim being to flash them with Router firmware and extend my zigbee network into another building.

However, when following various guides online, and specifically youtube, I cant get it completed.

I can plug the dongle into my laptop, and it shows up in device manager (windows 10). Initially it showed up with a yellow warning, so I downloaded the CP210x USB to UART Bridge VCP Drivers from Silicon Labs. It now shows up on COM5

I then installed 3 python scripts;

Backup Dongle
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
pip install wheel pyserial intelhex python-magic
pip install zigpy-znp

All good. However, when I then try to backup the dongle, which I guess is the first form of communication, it all falls over and I just get a timeout error;

python -m zigpy_znp.tools.nvram_read COM5 -o nvram_backup.json

results in

raise TimeoutError from exc_val

TimeoutError

Things I have done to test;

I found this online tool, which doesnt flash with the router firmware I want to use, but I thought would be usefulf to test if any communication could happen;

It came back with an error and couldnt connect to the dongle.

As I bought two, Ive also tried everything with both dongles, so I assume I can rule-out broken hardware. The two dongles show up on different com ports (one com6 one com5), and Ive tried adjusting the script accordingly.

I also read that there can be issues with the latest version of the vcp drivers, so I completly uninstalled, and downgraded to an older version. The outcome was the same.

Does anyone know how I might be able to flash thee with the router firmware?

Thanks guys.

2

Hi @hamd01 SONOFF has released an online tool SONOFF Dongle Quick Flasher to flash firmware (even 3rd party firmware or custom firmware) to SONOFF ZBDongle-E and ZBDongle-P. The tool supports flashing router firmware on those two products. You can try it out. If you have any issues using that tool, you can reply on this post, and SONOFF’s staff will follow up to support you.

1 Like
3

That is incredible! All the searching I did last night and I never came caross that tool.

Ill give it a try once I’m home. fingers are crossed!

4

Brilliant, that worked fine and ive been able to flash it with the router firmware.

Do I now need to add the roter to home assistant, or will it automatically extend the zigbee network? Ive not had any new devices popup in home assistant so far and ive left the router plugged in for 20 minutes or so.

5

After flashing the Router firmware, you MUST add the Dongle to HA to extend your Zigbee network.

To do this:

  1. Enter ZHA (Zigbee Home Automation) in Home Assistant.
  2. Click “Add Device” (as shown in the image below).

Once successfully added, the Dongle will appear as a light with a device name similar to “Dongle_E”.

add a zigbee device

6

When you power on ZBDongle-E (flashed with Router firmware) using USB power source (not necessarily the computer that HA is running on), it will automatically goes into pairing mode, then you can use ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT to add it just like adding other zigbee devices. For adding devices to Zigbee2MQTT, please refer to Allowing devices to join | Zigbee2MQTT, for adding devices to ZHA, please refer to Zigbee Home Automation - Home Assistant.

By the way, you should already have a Zigbee Coordinator (aka. Zigbee Dongle with NCP firmware) that works with ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT.

7

Thanks for all the help guys…honestly im starting to lose the will to live. I really appreciate the help though.

After flashing with success, and then plugging it into a power socket, I go into home assistant…no signs of the device at all

See video below;

https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/video/38792348?key=ad94bca8b6d45314044e6fdeb3cd6b7b

I only bought these two because I cant add zigbee devices in my out-building, so i was going to position one in the porch and one in the outbuilding.

Ive now tried plugging the sonoff router right next to my HA server…still doesnt find it.

Any ideas what I should try next guys?

I should mention…I do have around 21 zigbee devices on the network which are working fine…so I dont think there is an issue with zigbee being totally broken in HA.

8

I’m almost sure your issue is caused by your new router not being in pairing mode when you try to pair it.

I believe there was a post just yesterday where the solution was to open the casing on the newly flashed router and to hold down the boot button to get in pairing mode.

Will edit this post if I manage to find it, but do run a search on how to get it into pairing mode in case I don’t

Edit: here you go. All thanks go to @francisp Sonoff zbdongle E as zigbee router

1 Like
9

I was also under the impression the “E” dongle (unlike the “P”) requires a button press for paring, but have no first hand experience so may well be wrong,

10

So one now has paired (i didnt open it up). But after i move it to my hallway…it wont respond. I already have a porch light, slightly further away and that connects fine.

My out building is only 6 meters from the porch light, but i just cant get anything zigbee to respond out there…even another hue light that is just 6 meters of fresh air and two pieces of glass away.

I was jus hoping that poping a zigbee router in the hall and one in the outbuilding would be an easy fix…but im a good 8 hours into messing with it now and im gonna have to give up.

Thanks guys for all the help, these are going in the box back to amazon.

11

Cheer up, my friend! Your solution looks perfectly sound to me. The issue might actually be with the Zigbee coordinator - it could be experiencing electromagnetic interference that’s reducing its communication range.

12

Thank you. I think Im gonig to have a look at one of these and see if I have more luck

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