I’ll also chip in here, since I have the same situation.
I want to have flexibility in the location of the coordinator, but I also like how the ZBT-2 is designed and made. So if and when it will be available as a PoE version, I will surely buy it immediately. But unfortunately before that I can not use it, since I don’t want to place it with my Synology NAS (where HA lives) nor do I want to use it’s USB ports for it.
i’m successfully using a ZBT2 using Thread on my Home Assistant Green. i’m curious to know the signal strength or quality on my respective Matter over Thread devices - is there somewhere on Home Assistant I can find this information?
I know many don´t like USB extenders, but it works well for me. I have the ZBT-2 and a bluetooth adapter connected to my HA (running on a mini PC) this way. If you have Cat 5 Cable (or better) to a good place you could try. These are cheap and worth a try: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004603772182.html
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FYI, ESPHome 2025.12.0 releasee added a new USB CDC-ACM Interface component that enables USB virtual serial port functionality and is bridge-ready (designed to connect USB serial interfaces to UART or other serial interfaces). That initially support up to 2 independent CDC-ACM interfaces per device:
That means could now in theory develop an ESPHome-based solution using an ESP32 development board with Ethernet PHY (even one supporting Power-over-Ethernet / PoE (like Waveshare ESP32-S3-ETH board) as Serial-over-IP proxy for any UART-over-USB adapter, including the ZBT-2 (or other Zigbee Coordinator USB dongles and Thread Border Router USB adapters).
USB CDC-ACM Support
The new usb_cdc_acm component enables USB virtual serial port functionality on ESP32-S2 and ESP32-S3 devices (#11687).
Key Features:
- Multi-interface support - Up to 2 independent CDC-ACM interfaces per device.
- Configurable buffers - Adjustable RX/TX ring buffer sizes.
- Line state callbacks - Notifications for DTR, RTS, baud rate, and other line coding changes.
- Bridge-ready - Designed to connect USB serial interfaces to UART or other serial interfaces.
Note that it is currently limited to 2 CDC-ACM interfaces per ESP32, and is at this time only compatible with ESP32-S2 and ESP32-S3, but that means that you could in theory develop a solution that uses a single development board with two USB-ports to connect both one ZBT-2 and one ZWA-2, (or two ZBT-2 adapters).
That is, you could develop a generic ESPHome-based universal USB-to-Ethernet Bridge, a USB to Serial-over-IP (Serial-over-LAN) proxy appliance compatible with standard Z-Wave Controller and Zigbee Coordinator USB adapters. See dicusssion about that idea here → Make an ESPHome-based universal USB-to-Ethernet Bridge, a USB to Serial-over-IP (Serial-over-LAN) proxy appliance compatible with standard Z-Wave Controller and Zigbee Coordinator USB adapters · tube0013/tube_gateways · Discussion #239 · GitHub
PS: The concept is that this could in practice work the same as ESPHome’s Z-Wave Proxy component but bridge any UART serial communicatuon traffic to and from an UART-USB-bridge adapter via a TCP socket in Home Assistant OS.
Architecture: Home Assistant ↔ LAN ↔ ESP32 with ESPHome proxy ↔ USB-UART-dongle
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Is this correct? Most ZBT-2 devices come with:
Multiprotocol firmware (Thread + Zigbee)
or
Router firmware
But Zigbee2MQTT needs:
EZSP / NCP Coordinator firmware ONLY
Right now the radio responds to USB but doesn’t speak EZSP, which produces:
Failed to start EZSP layer with status=HOST_FATAL_ERROR
ASH Adapter reset loop
can anyone assist?
Multiprotocol has been abandonned as unreliable.
Flash the zigbee firmware for use with Z2M.
In Z2M, use ember for ZBT2 as “adapter”:
serial:
port: /dev/ttyUSB0
adapter: ember
baudrate: 460800
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Are you sure that you bought the official Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2 adapter? Home Assistant have only provided firmware images for Silicon Labs EmberZNet Zigbee NCP (i.e. EZSP/ember) and OpenThread RCP (only for Thread Border Router) for ZBT2. Read the FAQ and docs + see there is a link there to install those official firmware images via web browser using toolbox from the Open Home Foundation:
Note! Be aware that the ember adapter in Zigbee2MQTT configurarion what supports the EZSP protocol/API.
Not quite happy with my ZBT-2, first with the provided USB cable it wouldn’t discover the ZBT-2. After changing cable which is one of the troubleshooting solutions (pretty weird if a cable is in the package) and with a new 3 euro cable it did work straight away.
After a day the ZBT-2 went missing from the installation. Reinstalled it and working again. The next day it’s gone again.
Bit of a bummer imo with a 50 euro device not shopping from AliExpress but from a genuine HA reseller.
Have you reached out to support? Sounds like a faulty device or miss configuration.
My new zbt-2 is unresponsive (I did open a ticket, no answer yet). The web tool does give me a log that is interesting but nothing in there that stands out. It will not upload any version of firmware I’ve downloaded in advance or picking from the web tool. Trying to do a factory reset per the docs is unproductive (no flashy flashy). This isn’t my typical experience with Nabu hardware for sure.
I’ve added this to a powered usb 2.0 hub with the other radios (zwave, bt, sonos zb) which works way better than the ethernet based hub I had some time ago. I can see the usb device in ha just fine but it doesn’t respond. Hopefully NC will have a solution soon.
I’m actually excited to move from the sonos dongle to the zbt - my house is spread out and I’m sure the better antenna setup will help solve some reach issues I’m experiencing.
Not yet because I don’t know where to go.
Nabu casa website
You can create a ticket on this website
Did they bundle a faulty cable or poor quality one in the deal, or is there a genuine one in the box as it comes from Nabu Casa?
There’s a decent feeling and looking cable in the box, it comes with the ZBT-2. Therefore I expect it to be working.
My cheapo cable from a local store did work.
I recently bought two ZBT-2 and have zero issues with the supplied cable. Don’t have a hub in between though, they are directly connected to my Home Assistant OS Host machine.
I think the power usage is higher than the ZBT-1 was, I had those on a USB2 hub before. But didn’t need a hub anymore with the ZBT-2 as I have a network connected UPS now.
I am using one ZBT-2 with ZHA and one with Z2M.
Same here, ZBT-2 with out of the box usb wire, connected with RPi5 usb2 connector, working flawlessly
Any word on a POE solution yet? Similar to ZWA-2 would be great.
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But how? I can’t even get mine to turn on… No identifiable entity to enable. Etc… 
