The best Zigbee Coordinator hardware radio adapter to buy (updated in December 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, (like for example ITead’s Sonoff ZBDongle-P , flashed with the latest stable community build of TI’s Z-Stack Zigbee Coordinator NCP firmware). (The only downside with using CC2652-based USB radio adapters is that there are currently no built-in features to upgrade Z-Stack Zigbee Coordinator firmware so that has to be done using third-party add-ons and external tools).
Update: Zigbee2MQTT now have has full support for Silcon Labs EFR32MG2x (EFR32MG21) and newer Silabs EmberZNet based adapters via their new ”ember” adapter driver as long as it has been updated to EmberZNet 7.4.x.x Zigbee NCP firmware or later.
If you are however sure that you will only be using Home Assistant’s ZHA integration (built-in Zigbee gateway implementation) (and not Zigbee2MQTT) then the better option is to instead buy the official Home Assistant SkyConnect / Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1 (USB radio dongle from Nabu Casa) o get an excellent user experience and super easy lifecycle maintenance. Most other Silicon Labs EFR32MG2x (EFR32MG21 or newer) based radio USB dongle with Silabs EmberZNet Zigbee NCP firmware (not RCP firmware) will also give you a similar ease-of-use user experince when sticking to the Home Assistant’s ZHA integration (built-in Zigbee gateway implementation) (and not Zigbee2MQTT).
Obviously if if instead plan on using deCONZ/Phoscon then your only real choice today is the new ConBee III / ConBee 3 USB adapter from Dresden-Elektronik, (which does also work with the ZHA integration and Zigbee2MQTT but is not recommended as it does not quite have full feature paritry or the same support as the modern Texas Instruments and Silicon Labs based adapters, which has backup and migration support that is not available for deCONZ based adapters).
The reasons for buying those specific Zigbee Coordinator hardware radio adapters are:
If you’re using Home Assistant Operating System (HASS), Supervised, or Container, it’s recommended to use an external USB radio dongle (i.e. USB stick format) rather than an internal GPIO module, because not only do you get better reception with an external USB radio dongle, but passing a serial module through Docker can sometimes be more complicated than passing a USB adapter through, (at least if not using the Silicon Labs based EFR32MG21 radio module that if built-into the Home Assistant Yellow appliance).
Tip; in a few edge cases it might be worth looking at a network-attached Zigbee Coordinator adapter (also referred to as Zigbee LAN adapters) like the Zigbee-to-Ethernet/USB Serial Coordinator solutions from TubeZB, and similar products from ZigStar, SMLIGHT, or cod.m as another alternative way to workaround the problem of relocating a Zigbee Coordinator radio adapter to a remote location for better reception, but please understand and respect that I personally think that using a such network-attached Zigbee Coordinator adapter should a solution should only ever be the exception when there is no other solutions and not the go-to rule, as please note that all those are proxy-servers uses Serial-over-IP tunneling which adds a little more complexity than simply using a very long USB extension cable (which I personally recommend using instead). I therefore personally believe that in most use bases it will be both easier and better to just use a very long shielded USB extension cable and a tip there is that you can easily achieve up to around 30 meters by using inexpensive “USB Ethernet RJ45 Extender Adapter” converters which easily and practically convert any single CAT5e/CAT6 shielded Ethernet cable with RJ-45 connectors into a very long passive USB extension cable (as it does not use LAN or IP but only converts an RJ45 Ethernet cable to a dumb USB extension cable). With such a solution you can use any Zigbee Coordinator USB dongle and easily replace the USB dongle later too (which should make for a less expensive solution in the long run). See example → https://www.amazon.com/Male-RJ45-Female-Extension-Adapter/dp/B083W3D65G Note! An additional caution warning about using Zigbee Coordinator network adapters over Wi-Fi/WAN/VPN. Be aware that using a Zigbee Coordinator via a Serial-Proxy-Server (also known as Serial-to-IP bridge or Ser2Net remote adapter) over a Wi-Fi, WAN, or VPN connection is not recommended. Serial protocols used by the Zigbee Coordinator do not have enough robustness, resilience, or fault tolerance to handle packet loss and latency delays that can occur over unstable connections. A Zigbee Coordinator requires a stable local connection to its serial port interface with no drops in communication between it and the Zigbee gateway application running on the host computer.
While most Zigbee Coordinator adapter hardware of different radio types should work great if using Home Assistant’s ZHA integration (and setup according to best practises), it should be noted that currently only Texas Instruments CC2652 and CC1352 based Zigbee Coordinator adapter hardware radio types are commended if using Zigbee2MQTT (which is due to the adapter code for other radio types in Zigbee2MQTT not yet offering feature parity with the adapter code for Texas Instruments based adapters, and most notable full backup + restore functionality is not available in Zigbee2MQTT and therefore it list support for other adapters as “experimental”).
Also note that support for commissioning Zigbee 3.0 devices via “Install Code” or “QR Code” via has so far only been implemented for ‘ezsp’ (Silicon Labs EmberZNet) or ‘znp’ (Texas Instruments Z-Stack) radio type in Home Assistant’s ZHA integration and Zigbee2MQTT. Other radio types like deconz (ConBee/RaspBee) and ZiGate are still missing “InstallCode” support in their respective radio libraries and manufacturer’s firmware commands/APIs or their serial interface documentation (i.e. ConBee/RaspBee and ZiGate have not added support for it to their firmware and/or not published API documentation).
The best dedicated Zigbee Router (repeaters/extender) devices to buy
Zigbee Router (repeaters/extender) product purchase recommendation summary:
To get the “best-of-the” Zigbee Router devices today it is recommended to buy a few Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 based USB radio dongles with an external antenna (like for example ITead’s Sonoff ZBDongle-E (based on Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 radio SoC) and convert/repurpose them by flashing over USB with a Zigbee Router firmware image, after than you can simply power them via USB-changers and pair to have them work as stand-alone dedicated Zigbee Router devices. An alternative is ITead’s Sonoff ZBDongle-P (based on Texas Instruments CC2652P radio SoC) which also can be reflashed with Zigbee Router firmware and repurposed as a stand-alone dedicated Zigbee signal repeater and range extender devices.
For all-in-one dedicated Zigbee Router products that work very well out-of-the-box, it is recommended to buy a few of IKEA’s Trådfri Signal Repeater devices and/or Aeotec’s Range Extender Zi products. Both of those devices are based on Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 radio SoC, and many people have reported that Silabs EFR32MG21 based products with slightly better as dedicated Zigbee Router devices than TI CC2652 based producs.
The reasons for buying and using those specific products as Zigbee Router devices are:
Having a few “great” Zigbee Routers (a.k.a. Zigbee signal repeaters / Zigbee range extenders) with better radios and antennas for better reception can affect in Zigbee network mesh range and coverage performance positively as communication signals in Zigbee do not have to be resent. Acting as a stable backbone in your Zigbee network mesh. Also, adding at least a few "know good"dedicated Zigbee Router devices between the Zigbee Coordinator and any devices having issues will normally make a huge difference.
You have to understand and remember that each Zigbee device by itself has very limited coverage, short range and their weak signals have poor wall penetration, so to workaround this a Zigbee network relies on mesh networking (a type of network topology/technology/architecture), which means that a Zigbee network heavily depends on having a swarm of mains-powered devices are a “Zigbee Router” that are always-on so they can act as a signal repeater and range extended by transmitting data over long distances by passing data messages through the Zigbee network mesh of intermediate devices to reach more distant Zigbee devices.
So while having a Zigbee Coordinator with good radio and antenna away from any EMF sources can have similar benefits, Zigbee signals have such poor range and bad wall penetration power so having many good Zigbee Router devices is a must.