I recently upgraded my ZWave to the new ZWA-2 from an Aeotec Gen5 with amazing results and decided it was time to fix my weak Zigbee. Due to limited Dongle placement and the size of my house the Dongle-P occasionally had issues even with repeaters in the network. I was headed for a SMLIGHT because of the remote placement ability then saw the Dongle Max. Having had pretty good luck with my Dongle P and due to a much lower cost figured why not. One of my best decisions this thing is great!
I’m running zigbee2MQTT so your mileage may vary… There are a couple published migrations from zstack adapters that just didn’t work. This is how I did it. The new adapter is very easy to setup. BACKUP your zigbee2MQTT first!!!
1: I setup the Dongle to use Wifi with a static IP and turned off Wifi access point capability.
2: I then cloned the IEEE address from the old Dongle P to the Dongle Max.
3: I shutdown zigbee2MQTT and unplugged the Dongle P.
4: Using the native editor in HA I went to the zigbee2mqtt folder and deleted coordinator.backup.json file.
5: I then edited configuration.yaml and inserted the new adapter info for my Wifi adapter… the Dongle actually gives you the info on it’s configuration page.
port: tcp://Dongle-M.local:6638
baudrate: 115200
adapter: ember
rtscts: false
6: Started zigbee2MQTT and it was alive!!
Devices took a little while, 10 to 15 minutes for some, to be responsive again. Turning lights power off and back on got them to reconnect immediately. Push buttons came back by pushing the button, door and window sensors by opening the doors etc. but nothing needed to be removed and added back in everything connected to the new Dongle.
I was able to move the new Dongle to a central location needing only a USB power adapter. I had some very low lqi’s one as low as 7. Now the lowest signal is at 104. I thought I would use the Dongle P as a router but it isn’t necessary. I see definite response speed increase across all devices and nothing has dropped out as before. I am very much impressed and very much recommend the new Dongle Max. Found mine on eBay just over $40 including shipping and had it in 3 business days.
EDIT: What finally worked for me may not work for others so I highly recommend checking out the link posted below to SONOFF’s published migration methods before attempting anything. Without reading through and understanding them I wouldn’t have had success.
Thanks for your review! I’m very interested in moving from a USB Sonoff Dongle Plus (zstack) to a PoE Sonoff Dongle Max, not so much for the LQI, but mainly to have a Zigbee adapter/controller that’s independent of my HA server. I’m using Zigbee2MQTT with ~50 devices.
Could you explain the part about the IEEE address and cloning? I’m not really sure what kind of address that is, I don’t see any related setting in the Zigbee2MQTT add-on in Home Assistant and I wonder why it’s necessary to clone it?
Also, why is it necessary to delete coordinator.backup.json? It sounds like a file you’d want to keep in case something goes wrong? How did you prepare a rollback in case things don’t work as expected?
Also, how did you make sure to use the same channel, and do you also need to set the PAN ID manually? With the new Windfront UI in Z2M, I’m a bit lost about where to find things like PAN ID, and I’ve only set up Zigbee once before, a few years ago.
Because the TI chipset and the SiLabs chipset use a different backup format, so if you try to restore then coordinator.backup.json from the Dongle P to the Dongle Max you have problems.
Also want to add that I have been running the new Dongle Max for long enough to say it really is a step up from anything I’ve had starting with a Nortek, Conbee II then a Sonoff Dongle P. My device connections are rock solid, no dropouts and response has been virtually instant for everything. I am quite impressed with it.
Sonoff has migration steps and I found useful information there. It didn’t quite work for me for whatever reason but it showed me what to look for and I did it the way I briefly noted in my first post.
@MarVin and @francisp Thanks, this is very helpful, it seems the transition might actually be quite easy. In the new Z2M UI I didn’t see any mention of IEEE, so I was wondering about the significance of the 0x00124b0… shown under Settings → About. Part of me assumed that network devices on Zigbee and Thread would use a MAC address as their identifier, so the IEEE address felt unfamiliar. I also hadn’t thought about the option of connecting the dongle to my computer and using an external tool to access settings that aren’t exposed through the Home Assistant configuration.
I tried your tutorial before but couldn’t complete the migration, as Z2M kept throwing errors.
Maybe the latest version of Z2M has been updated now, so I will follow your tutorial and try again. If the migration succeeds, I will update this post and revise the existing tutorial for the Dongle-M. Thank you very much.
Not sure which dongle you are migrating from but please check out the link to SONOFF’s migration methods that I posted above and read through them. Though I had to do things a bit differently to get them to work for me does not mean that it will work for everyone.
This here worked for me Zigbee Coordinator Migration - SONOFF Dongle – I had to use the guide titled “Migrating from a Z-Stack Coordinator to Dongle-M (Unofficial Recommendation)”, as my Sonoff Dongle-P was still zstack. I had to update the serial settings not only by editing configuration.yaml but also in the addon settings in Home Assistant. I assume HA caches these settings while running and only re-reads them from the file when restarting.
That’s the one that failed for me, tons of errors on two attempts so I went to my modified version. In the end it was still an easy migration. I’m sure everyone will be interested in your thoughts on the new M Dongle after you have run it awhile. I noticed an immediate improvement in performance and it’s now 10 days of rock solid device connectivity.
@MarVin Can’t really judge the dongle’s quality yet. After more than 24 hours, only one device is connected.
I’ve got 10 Aqara plugs around the house forming a solid mesh, but just one of them links to the Sonoff dongle. So if that plug goes down, the whole Zigbee network dies. I expected the dongle to connect to more than one router by now.
I’ll probably try unplugging all routers and reconnecting them one by one, starting with the ones closest to the controller. The tricky part is that my house layout makes it a bit of a guessing game which ones have the best link.
I migrated from a Sonoff Dongle P using zstack and cloned the IEEE.
I unplugged all routers (mostly Aqara plugs and one Aeotec Range Extender) for 15 minutes. Then I plugged them back in one by one, about one minute apart, starting on the same floor as the coordinator and moving from closest to furthest. I kept all Hue lamps, which also act as routers, disconnected during this process. After that, I plugged in the routers on the other floors, starting with the Aeotec Range Extender. Fifteen minutes later, I powered the Hue lamps back on.
Now the network is more stable. The coordinator is connected to three routers instead of just one. It is still not as dense as expected, and some plugs use suboptimal routes. I will let the mesh run for a day or two and check again.
Beside some lights I have several powered devices that are routers. According to the map none of my devices have connected to the coordinator they are all connected to a router which in turn is connected to the coordinator. When I look at device locations though with the exception of one device there is a router closer to them than the coordinator so it seems to make sense. Previously battery devices were connecting to whatever they could which caused some weak links
I think it’s normal that end devices don’t connect directly to the coordinator. But if only one router connects to the coordinator, it becomes a bottleneck and weakens the mesh. For stability, each router should have at least two routing options (other routers or the coordinator).
I’m wondering: is the coordinator supposed to maintain multiple links, or is it passive and the routers simply choose suboptimal parents (e.g. distant routers over a nearby coordinator)?
i have a sonoff dongle e, which is ezsp and i think the m is ember, using zigbee2mqtt, im looking to plug the m into my network via ethernet and make it the new co-ordinator, i guess i follow the unoficial version of the instructions on Zigbee Coordinator Migration - SONOFF Dongle ? anyone done the migration from the dongle e to m?
I’ve followed “Migrating from a Z-Stack Coordinator to Dongle-M (Unofficial Recommendation)” and it worked – but as noted above, I had to update the serial settings not only by editing configuration.yaml but also in the addon settings in Home Assistant.
