Normally, you must connect the dongle to your non-Home assistant computer, upgrade the firmware and connect it back into Home assistant device.
This might be bothering process. If not, stop reading here.
Why to upgrade the firmware of Zigbee dongle?
In the new firmware the internal memory buffer for Zigbee stack is increased. With small buffer any hickup of poorly reachable leaf device causes retransmission and error correction avalanche. That’s so called “Zigbee storm”. You can see many ZIGBEE_MAX_MESSAGE_LIMIT_REACHED errors in home-assistant.log to confirm this.
How to:
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In Home assistant web-UI open Settings → Devices & services → Zigbee home automation → 3 dots → Disable → confirm.
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In Home assistant web-UI open Settings → Add-ons → Add-on store → Type in “Suarch” field “Silicon Labs Flasher” → Install it.
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In Home assistant web-UI open Settings → Add-ons → Open “Silicon Labs Flasher” → Configuration →
a) select /dev/serial/by-id/usb-ITead_Sonoff_Zigbee_3.0_USB_Dongle_Plusxxx device.
b) ensure 115000 baud rate and Hardware flow control enabled.
c) in hidden configurations set the firmware link to upgrade: https://github.com/darkxst/silabs-firmware-builder/raw/refs/heads/main/firmware_builds/zbdonglee/ncp-uart-hw-v7.4.5.0-zbdonglee-115200.gbl
d) Click “Save”
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In Home assistant web-UI open Settings → Add-ons → Open “Silicon Labs Flasher” → Info → Start. Ensure “Start on boot” and “Autoupdate” are disabled.
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In Home assistant web-UI open Settings → Add-ons → Open “Silicon Labs Flasher” → Log → Search for
INFO: universal-silabs-flasher-up script exited with code 0This means the firmware upgrade finished. If not, check what you missed in the steps above. -
In Home assistant web-UI open Settings → Add-ons → Open “Silicon Labs Flasher” → Info → Stop.
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In Home assistant web-UI open Settings → Devices & services → Zigbee home automation → Enable. Wait… long.
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Enter any Zigbee device and click “Generic Zigbee Coordinator (EZSP)” → This will bring you to the Device info with
Firmware: 7.4.5.0 build 0.