HI everybody, I’ve been trying to run the onboard radio on my Yellow in multiprotocol mode but it seems to be really problematic. I keep having zigbee things drop off the network and real issues getting things to reconnect after updates. So I figured the easiest way to deal with it would be to have separate radios for each tech, which is fine with me.
I happen to have a Sonoff Zigbee stick with the same SiLabs chipset, plus it has a nice antenna. So I thought I’d move my Zigbee devices to that, and configure the internal radio for Thread only, but it doesn’t seem like there’s an easy option in the configuration for thread only - only Zigbee or multiprotocol.
I’m definitely not afraid of the CLI or anything. Is there a way I can affect this change manually?
In case anyone like me is trying to find a solution to this, I was able to find it, and it’s actually quite easy. The answers were all in the docs, just took a while to find. Note: Where I was coming from was that I had tried multiprotocol support, had issues with it, and had switched back to Zigbee only using the onboard radio, but that orphaned the very few Thread devices I had. This was my solution to get everything running again using a Zigbee coordinator I had. I’m guessing this is probably point and click with a Skyconnect.
Install the Zigbee device and do the migration according to the migration instructions in the docs.
Then, just install the OpenThread border router add-in manually, point it at the Yellow device /dev/ttyAMA1 and make sure the “Install firmware” box is checked, and that’s the whole magic. You’ll need to set up the Thread and Matter services, if you don’t have them already; if you, like me, were trying multiprotocol support but found it too crashy, they will be installed already, but if not, ther’es plenty of info about setting those up.
Thanks for sharing this! Just so I’m crystal clear, did this result in zigbee being switched off on the built in radio?
I recently installed the SMLIGHT SLZB-06 as an external zigbee coordinator and want to turn off the built in radio to avoid any potential issues with having two coordinators.
I understand that the built in radio can operate in (i) zigbee only, (ii) thread only or (iii) both/multi-protocol and from your explanation I’m inferring that by installing the OpenThread border router you ended up in mode (ii) thread only but am just checking for sake of clarity. Thanks!