I am looking to get my first Zigbee coordinator and want it to connect using POE.
I am looking at the SMLIGHT SLZB-06 and see they do an M version which is based on the EFR32MG21 Zigbee chip or the older one based on the CC2652P chip.
Is there any advantages/disadvantages with one chop over the other?
Thanks
For Zigbee2MQTT get the TI chip. For ZHA it doesn’t matter much.
The SI Labs chip can be used with multiprotocol support to share with Thread (with either ZHA or z2m).
I’ve had good success with the Texas Instruments based chips for my coordinators and routers. I am currently using two of the CC2652P’s with two zigbee2mqtt docker instances.
I understand the EFR32 devices are the ones that support this ‘multi protocol’ function to allow you to run, for example, both Matter Thread and ZHA on the same dongle ( think there is ‘experemental’ support for zigbee2mqtt as well). I’ve never tried this nor warmed up to it. While it costs you a bit more to have two dongles, just seems better to keep things separate. As, I seem to read on these forums that the firmware for this dongle is kind of bleeding edge, with from my reading a lot more ‘gotchas’ than the non multi protocol firmwares. Again, not something you want for your production zigbee coordinator. Maybe the non multi protocol firmware would be a better route. I understand that the EFR32 chips may have some unique feature that the CC2652 may not have.
Back on my experience with the CC2652 as coordinators, do a lot of research on the firmware versions available, this applies to the EFR32 as well. I am using a 20211217 firmware with very good success non stop since 2021. Sometimes newer is not always better. You just want solid for your coordinator dongle, don’t mess around here, this is why perhaps a older proven firmware is better, as well as not messing with this whole multi protocol thing may be wise.
You choice of zigbee system, Zigbee2MQTT or ZHA may also influence your choice. If you read my posts on zigbee, you will see I am Zigbee2MQTT fan. And I have run both systems as well as a number of others to come to this choice.
The whole connecting the coordinator via network adds another dimension. Not that that is a bad thing, just another column for your decision process to see if one of the two seems to have better record in this method of connecting. I ran a wifi connected EFR32 device connected to ZHA instance for a number of years, totally not recommended to connect via WiFi by many of the gurus here, that said, I had no issues with the connection via wifi and zha for years. Perhaps, more a statement on wifi stability than whether ethernet is the only route, my wifi was very good during the period of this setup.
Good hunting!
Thanks David; I don’t want to bleed anywhere - especially over the edge 
Think I will go for the non (M) version to start with.
Hope you have good success, I added a few more blabs in my original post about network connecting the coordinator.
There are a number of smart folks on this forum regarding zigbee, I recommend finding them and following their writing and first hand experiences.
If you go down the zigbee2mqtt route, the github forums and bug reports for this system very valuable. Lots of real world first hand experiences and knowledge there.
Those are interesting looking devices, regardless of the zigbee chip choice. I would be a bit careful of the ‘automatic firmware update’ feature, back to my comments and experiments with coordinator firmware.
Looking forward to hearing your experiences!
Happy Home Automating into 2024!
Thanks David; I hope the auto-updates can be disabled but it is a good point to check before ordering.
Happy Automating 2024 to you as well.