I just added this dongle to HA and my Zigbee works fine with it. While I do not currently have any Thread devices, I do have the Thread integration. However this integration has no "service" linked to it. What should I do if I want Tread to work on HA ?
Buy another dongle & run Thread separately on that. HA no longer officially supports multiprotocol since it was deemed too unstable by them.
You can try to run it since Sonoff say it's good enough, but if you run into issues don't say you weren't warned.
1 Like
Do you recommend any Thread dongle ?
I don't use Thread, sorry. However HA make the ZBT-2 dongle if you want to show them some support.
I ordered a second Sonoff Zigbee/Thread dongle. Will HA assign the second one to Thread automatically or do I need somehow/somewhere to specify ?
I received the second MG24 dongle and I lbelieve that I flashed to the dongle to open thread but it does not appear as such in HA. When I try again on the Sonoff page the dongle shows as 'paired' but when I click on connect, nothing happens.
I need some help to set it as Thread.
I succesfully added a Ikea Thread plug. Interestingly it appears in the Matter Integration, not in the Thread or Openthread Integrations.
You do not need a dongle or any extra hardware attached to the HA server to use Thread. All you need is a Border Router somewhere in the house near enough to your Thread Device. An Apple HomePod or an Arqara M100 hub, or a dozen other devices, can act as border routers.
Unlike Zigbee, Thread devices connect to routers and then the routers put the data on WiFi or Ethernet and then HA is connected to the Ethernet.
So OK, you do need more equipment to use Thread, but that equipment is connected to the network. I know some people use a USB dongle for Thread, but that dongle connects to a router that runs on the same PC as the HA server, it places the data on the network where HA gets it.
Also while Zigbee uses only one Zigbee controller, Thread works best if you have more than one Border Router. Only one is doing the job but the others are providing a redundant backup
1 Like
Home Assistant (HA) does not use the Thread Dongle. HA talks to the Open Thread Border Router (OTBR) integration, and then the OTBR in turn talks to the dongle. So you would set up the dongle up within the OTBR integration. The OTBR add-on runs on a Docker container, which conceptually is almost as if it were running on another computer.
1 Like