Hi everyone, I’ve been struggling to get my Zigbee USB dongle recognized by Home Assistant. I’ve tried almost everything I can think of, but HA still doesn’t detect the device at all. I would really appreciate some help.
System Setup
- Host machine: Mini PC running Windows 11 Pro
- Zigbee dongle: Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus / P version
- Home Assistant: Running inside VirtualBox (imported HA OS VDI/OVA)
- USB passthrough: Enabled in VirtualBox
- Windows Device Manager shows the dongle as:
Silicon Labs CP210x USB to UART Bridge
So the dongle is definitely detected by Windows.
The actual problem
Inside Home Assistant → Settings → Hardware
The Zigbee dongle never shows up.
In VirtualBox:
- USB filter added (Vendor ID + Product ID)
- Device shows as “Active”
- But it never appears inside HA
HA behaves like no USB device is connected at all.
Things I’ve already tried
1. Reinstalled Windows 11
No improvement.
2. Reinstalled VirtualBox + Extension Pack
No difference.
3. Reinstalled Home Assistant OS image (VDI/OVA)
Still not detected.
4. Tried multiple USB filters
- Full VID/PID
- VID only
- Empty filter
Nothing works.
5. Tried different USB ports
Still invisible inside HA.
6. Tried different USB cables & port types
Same result.
Important system information
Running systeminfo in Windows shows:
- A hypervisor has been detected
- Virtualization-based security: Running
- Secure Launch: Enabled
- SMM Firmware Measurement: Enabled
Even after disabling Memory Integrity, Windows still forces VBS = Running.
This means Windows is still running its own hypervisor layer, which is known to break VirtualBox USB passthrough.
My current suspicion
This issue might be caused by:
1. VBS (Virtualization-Based Security) blocking VirtualBox USB passthrough
Even when Hyper-V is “disabled”, Windows 11 still runs its own hypervisor when VBS/Secure Launch are active.
2. BIOS Secure Launch / SMM protection enabling VBS at boot
These options are on by default on many modern systems.
3. VirtualBox may not fully support USB passthrough under Secure Launch / VBS environments
My questions for the community
- Can VirtualBox reliably pass through USB devices (like Zigbee dongles) when Windows VBS / Secure Launch is enabled?
- Do I need to disable Secure Launch / SMM Protection / DMA Protection in BIOS to make this work?
- Is there a better way to run Home Assistant on Windows 11 that fully supports Zigbee USB adapters?
For example:
- Hyper-V (but no USB passthrough)
- WSL2 + HA
- Running HA OS on the bare metal
- Using a dedicated device (Raspberry Pi / mini PC with Linux)
- Are there any additional debugging steps I should try inside VirtualBox or HA?
Thanks so much for any advice — I’ve spent days trying to solve this and still can’t get the dongle recognized inside Home Assistant.