ZHA Coordinator migration CC2531 to Conbee II

[cvester]

I’m trying to go from a CC2531 to a Conbee II because I was told the Conbee should be able to handle more devices .

Now I tried to go the manual way and remove the ZHA integration and add it again choosing the Conbee usb. Right away it finds all my old devices:

But as you can see on my before and after pictures its not going well… I’m not keeping any of my old names or id’s

Before:

After:

I’m also not able to add/reconnect any devices… It just keep searching even though the device is getting reset right infront of the conbee (and yes I have attached the conbee with an extension cord)

Another little weird detail is this - cant delete it…:

Clearly not the real coordinator:

What can I do ?

[francisp (Francis)]

@cvester

The command line tools bundled with zigpy-znp do not depend in any way on Home Assistant
and will work with any Texas Instruments radio previously used with ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT.

a CC2531 is a TI radio, but a Conbee II is not. Why do you expect it to work with non-TI radio ?

[cvester]

I just tried it … I really dont know anything about it.
I edited the post to keep the focus on the real problem
ZHA: CC2531 → Conbee II … How…

[cvester]

The zha map looks like this:

[cvester]

I have now tried to remove the zigbee.db and restart HA.

Now I only have the coordinator , as expected:

But I still cannot add new devices …

I tried with three different zigbee devices
2 different usb extension cables and two different usb ports on the PI .

[cvester]

apparently I had an error in my mariadb so I had to reinstall mariadb and now I’m able to search for devices using the conbee …

[Richi_Bowzer]

I am a noob to home assistant so please dont take my experiance with conbee II as gospal, but I ended up uninstalling deconz because it did not find anything it was fine in vnc (but being a noob I could not work it out quick enough) so I started from scratch with just ZHA and added all devices through that.

[cvester]

Hi @Richi_Bowzer , I am right now fully on my way re-adding all my devices from scratch like you did

[Richi_Bowzer]

he he, as I said I am a noob, but everything seemed to add well apart from the £6.99 door sensors, got them added eventually (had to restart after each one otherwise it would just sit in discovery).

[cvester]

As said here: ZHA: Migrate existing network to new coordinator? - #12 by tube0013

I only think there’s the long manual road when going from a TI to a conbee .

[mike1627]

What a difference a couple years makes. I just upgraded my CC2531 to a Conbee II and it was painless process. ZHA has a migrate radio feature now and it literally backed up my configuration and then imported it to the Conbee. Nothing needed to be reconfigured and everything works well.

[cvester]

Dont remind me how painful it was

[Hedda]

@mike1627

What a difference a couple years makes. I just upgraded my CC2531 to a Conbee II and it was painless process

But today the Conbee 2 is old, it does not support Zigbee 3.0 and no longer get firmware updates so all devices need to work in backwards compatible mode (which is less secure. So it is already time for you to upgrade again now! See:

Zigbee buyer's guide

The best Zigbee Coordinator hardware radio adapter to buy in June 2024 Zigbee Coordinator product purchase recommendation summary: If you today want a Zigbee Coordinator that can work great with either Home Assistant’s ZHA integration (built-in Zigbee gateway implementation) or Zigbee2MQTT (third-party Zigbee gateway application that can run stand-alone) then currently the best purchase recommendation is to buy a Texas Instrument CC2652P based USB radio adapter dongle with external antenna, (l…

[mike1627]

@cvester

Dont remind me how painful it was

[mike1627]

@Hedda

But today the Conbee 2 is old, it does not support Zigbee 3.0 and no longer get firmware updates so all devices need to work in backwards compatible mode (which is less secure. So it is already time for you to upgrade again now!

I appreciate the advice but I already had a Conbee 2 that I was using with DeCONZ. I think my issues were that I was running ZHA and DeCONZ at the same time. Even though everything was using different zigbee channels, I think there was too much interference between ZHA, deCONZ and Phillips Hue causing devices to constantly dropping offline as a result. I don’t have a single Zigbee 3.0 device so I’m not too worried about upgrading right now. Running everything under ZHA with the Conbee 2 coordinator seems much more reliable.

[Hedda]

@mike1627

I already had a Conbee 2 that I was using with DeCONZ.

Recommend migrate again a newer (non-Conbee) CC2652P or EFRMG21-based Zigbee Coordinator adapter for Zigbee and then repurpose the ConBee II adapter for Thread (i.e. Matter over Thread devices), see → OpenThread Border Router (OTBR) RPC firmware for R21 based ConBee II and RaspBee II and https://smarthomescene.com/guides/how-to-convert-your-conbee-ii-stick-into-a-thread-border-router/

@mike1627

I think my issues were that I was running ZHA and DeCONZ at the same time. Even though everything was using different zigbee channels, I think there was too much interference between ZHA, deCONZ and Phillips Hue causing devices to constantly dropping offline as a result.

Regardless, read and try following all the tips from this guide as taking actions in advance will save you a headache later → Zigbee networks: how to guide for avoiding interference + optimize using Zigbee Router devices (repeaters/extenders) to get a stable mesh network with best possible range and coverage