This video has so much value in it, it is made of gold! Although I never had any issues with my Zigbee network, it is plain to see how much work goes into your vids. Congratulations on the hard work.
My big takeaway is to add the battery operated Zigbee devices where they will actually reside. I have been adding them at my HA computer and then putting them where they belong. I get a lot of dropouts. Especially Hue devices that were reliable with the Hue hub. Great video.
"Make sure you install enough router devices like light bulbs and smart switches" 👍 Also make sure to give the system some time to figure out how to connect to new devices. I figured this out when installing zigbee in our company building: 80 x 15 meters, partially 2 floors and a lot of steel. I have been playing with adding smart plugs to different outlets to see how to improve unstable device access. When adding a new device (end device or router) it sometimes takes a while to figure out the best way to reach that device. So after adding a device, I now wait a few hours before checking if that device is working okay.
I had 2 problems with zigbee dongle in different times. And I have checked your video and find exact problem and solution. I sincerely congratulate you on the quality of your work.
Good video for discussion, may be my experience helps others too :). Half a year ago I started with HA and Zigbee. In the beginning I used the Philps Hue integration in HA. Actually I didn't like that because of the extra bridge device and depended app management and cloud dependence and in the future you want more things to be connected. Issues I had => Some light bulbs worked great and other did not always connect and loose connection (I did not know why). I thougt may be try it with a Zigbee stick. So I bought the Sonoff stick to connect my all Hue lamps. I tried to flash it, but I was not able do it.. and I gave up. Later on I bought the Conbee stick and tried to connect it with HA and it was a success. I used your video, thanks for that. But I was not happy with the result: 1. The setup and management was some work and not straight forward. 2. Some bulbs still not have a proper connection (loose connection) I decided to sell the stick and try again with the Sonoff. Luckily I was able with a good instruction to flash the Sonoff stick. The result for setup is more straight forward, more plug and play and you can easily add the Zigbee devices. But.....Some bulbs still loose connection. I had used the USB extension (tried 2 versions and little difference) and put it away from my WIFI radio, but still no result. I opened my Raspary Pi and checked for the cables I connected for interference issue, changed some cables, but still no result. Then I opened the wall-switch of the light and removed the LED dimmer switch and exchanged it for normal ON-OFF switch and all problems are gone! Bottom line, also check your other to be connected hardware! Not only mention the Zigbee Stick issues. I did not find information from Phlips Hue website about this....
Thanks for this great video. I’ve been an Apple Homekitt user almost 10 years now and I’m slowly moving towards HA. It’s a rocky way endeed 😂 I have some issues with my Zigbee network and I think the reason that I have Phillips Hub, Aqara Hub M3 and my electric heaters use their own hub. And of course they are all connected to their own zigbee network 😢 I managed to solve one problem wirh my zigbee connection problems by moving my Aqara hub further away from Phillips Hue hub. That helped some of the problems. Maybe some day I build a Zigbee network that all the devices are on the same network. I hope my kids grow faster that I can build my smarthome 😂
I had a lot of issues with IKEA motion sensors and other wireless buttons. What helped was changing some advanced settingsn - Zigbee channel to 25 - Last seen set on ISO_8601_local - Network_key (sting) set with value GENERATE - PAN_id (string) set with value GENERATE. Almost forgot, Availability (simple) turned on. Restart I had to join all devices to the network again, but now it is still working without issues.🎉
My ZHA network of approximately 20 devices had been working fine for months, but with the recent addition of a new device (a Sonoff MS01 motion sensor) I began having a lot of trouble with devices going offline, and further difficulties when removing and re-pairing them. I was not aware that connecting my dongle (Sonoff Zigbee 3.0-P) directly to the computer's USB port made it susceptible to interference, so thanks for the suggestion in your video to use a USB extension cable. This seems to have resolved my issue and all my devices are back online now. Plus, my Home Assiastant server was located on a shelf close to the floor, and I am sure that using the extension cable to elevate the dongle to the top of the shelf where my server also helped.
Great video thanks! One of the biggest issue i have is that ZigBee does not self heal after loosing connection. Especially the battery powered devices.
Love this video. I feel for all the people that have HA and haven't found your fantastic tutorials. I have the Sonoff Z donlge-p and cannot flash it into a router. I exchanged it for a new one and still the same problem. I did it the 2 main ways shown here and elsewhere. I put it in the right mode, I think as it doesn't not flash or show that you are. It was recognized and selectable but would not flash. COuldn't write or something. Super frustrating. So now it sits in my drawer and I am probably going to buy the dedicated router from Aeotec. WIsh I could just get the bloody thing working as the router/repeater.
@@SmartHomeJunkiehello, I had once a similar issue with flashing another device. In my case it had to do with the type of usb cable. Apparently you have cables only containing wires for charging and not for data.
Great video… really fast paced. On mobile device (iPhone) all of the videos you point to above your right shoulder do no link to those videos? You should also include the link in upper right above left shoulder that looks like a one liner photo n addition to the big picture one. I’m about to setup a second stand alone HA with another P model dongle. Hoping all I need to do is pick a different channel.
Great video, thank you! I have a question about splitting a Zigbee network in Home Assistant. In your video, you explained how to create two separate Zigbee networks by combining Zigbee2MQTT and ZHA. You explained to use two different dongles, each configured to operate on distinct Zigbee channels. However, I'm interested in using only Zigbee2MQTT with two physical dongles, each set up for a separate Zigbee network on different channels. The reason for this is that I have energy meter devices and motion sensors that send updates every second, causing a potential flood on the Zigbee channel. Could you please provide guidance on achieving this configuration using Zigbee2MQTT? Thank you in advance for your help!
You should be able to install Z2M as a docker container - just install 2 containers, exposed to 2 different ports. Not sure, whether you can add the same integration twice (with different configs, pointing to different ports) in HA though.
Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm glad you found the video helpful. It's interesting how different devices can have such varying levels of connectivity. I'm not even sure what police switches are...
I am in the process of switching from the Ikea Integration (which is currently broken) to ZHA on a Home Assistant Yellow. The biggest problem I am having is getting the remotes to bind with the lights in a room. I find sometimes the individual device binding works and sometimes not, and the group binding never works. I'd really like to get all the lights bound so if I ever have an issue with HA the lights will continue to work using the remote switches.
You forgot to explain zigbee channels, how it works and what it means, how to change the channel and that it entails repairing every divice & connection stability in the visuals - some lines are red, green, orange & grey. What devices works best on what channels / frequencies, otherwise good video!
I didn't forget it. I told that you need to set the channels differently if you want to run multiple dongles. It's not the goal of this video to show everything that you can do with Zigbee. Just what the most common mistakes are.
@@SmartHomeJunkie most common mistake in my experience is that most people just plug & play with channel 15 when most devices works best on 20-25. My point being was that it was missed opportunity for you to tell people to look what it says on their devices what channels they run on.
Firstly, many thanks for the video!. I upgraded my Sonoff Dongle plus (Cordinator) to the latest firmware (20230507) and now I can't connect to any Sonoff Dongle Plus based routers. I have tried to flash back to an earlier version, and the router can connect, but the zigbee2mqtt interview still fails and the device is not supported. But my IKEA Tradfri signal repeater works fine.... (Help). On the more positive side, i have setup and Solar Assistant for getting data out from my Solar Cell inverter on a RasberryPI and struggles to setup the MQTT broker in Solar Assistant to bridge to my Home Assistant MQTT broker used by Zigbee2MQTT. (HA can only have one installed MQTT broker? Therefore a bridge)
I was less confused before I started watching this. Now I need to answer all of the “if” questions - “if I want to use ZHA” or “if I want to use “MQTT”, this Sonoff dongle or that one or a Conbee or a Skynet. I’m making names up at this point. I don’t even remember what’s what! Where’s the video where you just tell me what to do? 😅
Great video…. I am trying to find out how to programme a CC2530 for ZHA to become a router. I have spent hours on the web and UA-cam and getting tied up in knots trying figure this out. If you are able to release a video about this and how to do that, I am sure it will get high number of hits as I can’t find anything that shows this..
Great video. Some findings from my side on the performance of 3 different dongles and the difference between ZHA and MQTT. I have 55 Zigbee devices in my home ( 15 battery rest is on mains). I started with ZHA for that was the easiest to implement. Regardless what dongle I used I constant ran into problems. Especially with my light bulb they just were not reliable. I moved over to MQTT and that was already a big plus. With MQTT I also could see much more link details. I had bought the sky connect dongle for it was future proof with matter. The link performance from my various active devices to this dongle however was poor ( between 40 and 100) and I wanted to get it up . I moved over to the sonoff dongle expecting it to have a much better linkage due to its external antenna but.. it was only slightly better compared to the sky connect. The conbee 2 stick was is the dongle that brought it to the level I was hoping for. All links from my mains powered Zigbee devices to the Conbee dongle reply with link quality 255 and it's been very stable for the 2 months its now on MQTT With ZHA I had at least once per week to re-pair a " lost" device. ( that was btw with all my 3 dongles )
I live in a big home with something like 80 zigbee devices with a good coverage with router devices. I don’t know why sometime my network goes offline… I’m trying to investigate.
9:55 great video like always.😊👍 I do have a problem with my remote HA deep and the Sonoff dongle E. Sometimes there is a power failure. When HA reboots it can't find the Sonoff dongle E again. As it is a remote location, I can't travel there just to plug the dongle in and out. Do you have any suggestions how to reconnect the dongle without going to the remote location? Louis
It is missing how to write a quirk. I have now TRVs and also wall switches for zigbee but they dont communicate properly with Home assistant. Pairing and everything works fine. and also partly read out works fine but for the switch entities are missing and same for TRVs and also for the TRVs its bound to wrong endpoints. So I got to learn that now given half of my zigbee devices do not work with zha easily out of the box.
Hello, I have a request for you if you can help me. I installed HA on a generic laptop-x86-64 250Gb storage and 8Gb memory. I got a Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 Dongle plus and 2 Aqara P1 motion sensors. I can't integrate Zigbee2MQTT in HA. I install, I did all the configurations from your tutorials but the add-on does not start. You can help me, I haven't gotten any help from anyone here. Thank you very much. I note that HA is the only one installed on the laptop.
One issue I had was that some devices don't connect to some router devices. In my case the Aqara door/window sensors won't connect to Ikea Light Bulbs. My solution was to add some Hue bulbs here and there.
Thank you very much. I like the clear way you explain. One question. Do you (or someone) know How many devices can we attach to one sonof dongle P? I read somewhere 100 devices and others say 200 devices. Thanks again.
It depends if you upgraded the firmware. But, it shouldn't really matter because you build a mesh network using Zigbee so not all devices will be connected directly to the stick. That is, if you not only use battery powered devices.
Is it ok, to connect zigbee stick to usb3 port using extension cabel ? Can it be an issue ? I have odroid n2+ which have only usb3 ports, maybe this causes zigbee issues.
Thank you for the explanation. Hope you can help with this. Do you know how to export or extract de ices, entities and helpers list? Let's say it would be used in an excel spreadsheet. Thank you.
My issue (and greatest home assistant nightmare) is that when I reboot home assistant I always lose the link with Aqara zigbee devices. The devices seem connected but instead they are just "frozen" in last state. If I reset the devices (single press on aqara button) then everything works fine. I didn't find the issue in your list. Do you have a fix for this?
I am trying to connect zigbee2mqtt from 3 days even dissassembled zha by also i am getting error failed to connect to the adapter (error: srsp - sys - ping after 6000ms)
Is it possible to use the sky connect as a zigbee router /repeater I want to switch to the sonoff zigbee dongle and use the sky connect as the router is that a good idea?
I have aqara D1 wall switch 3 channel paired with zigbee2mqtt. The issue really bothering me is, when i press manually on the switch, the state of device in HA not change at all. However, I have aqara D1 wall switch 2 channel version work perfectly when I manually press, the state of the device change instantly in HA. Pls help me how to solve this. I tried looking everywhere but no answer yet.
My HA server is in a separate building. A USB solution will not work for me. Please show a solution using a Zigbee device attached to ethernet or Wi-Fi.
Thanks for the video. Your original video helped me set up the Zonoff P stick more than a year ago. Just this week, an Aqara Button Switch stopped working. It has a fresh battery, the Map show it's connected to a powered router. I can trigger the automation on the dashboard. Is there a way to see if Home Assistant is receiving a command signal from the button switch? Z-wave has a way to listen for signals in Developer Tools. Is there something like that for Zigbee? Thank you!
My zigbee2mqtt addon stop suddenly every 2-3 days. I must restart it every time manuelly. I checked also the autmatic restart ootio on the addon on homeasisstant. Can you help me?
Hi, any reason why my Sonoff dongle P and Z2M seem to have loads of problems with IKEA bulbs? I've only added 4 so far but they are go offline every few hours, they sometimes come back on their own but most need a power cycle to come back? The rest of my zigbee devices (All passive) like motion and door sensors seem to work just fine without any issues. I'd have thought the bulbs would be fine, whilst the rest would cause problems.. I have several different types of IKEA tradfri bulbs and they all do the same thing... Very oddd
Maybe add in a few bulbs and sockets from a different vendor here and there? My mesh is mostly ikea devices, but with several aqara sensors and Lidl bulbs as well as a few more. It does appear to me that this helps. Once the basic mesh is established, with several routes available between controller and the device in question, things become much more stable.
Hmmm. I do have one Ikea bulb that doesn't respond reliably as well. I always thought it was because of that this bulb might be defective, but now I am puzzled.
Ikea bulbs have always been reliable, but something happened and they went off... The became very slow to respond using a Conbee and ZHA, so I changed over to the Sonoff P and Z2M and now they randomly go unavailable usually requiring a power cycle to bring them back to life. @@SmartHomeJunkie
I started with HA and Sonoff E version. Most of the time it was working but some devices randomly stop working until i reboot HA. After a few months of trying to find te problem it flashed the Somof P version with the latest firmware and repair al my devices and now running so much better. Stick at the same location als de E version with extension cable. Devices are now also respond quicker. So the E version is indeed to unstable for me . I will see what the future will bring for this version. I use a lot of powered devices that are router. So if you have strange problems try using the P version.
Hi Ed, do you have any experience with enabling multi-procotol for the Skyconnect in combination with Zigbee2MQTT? If yes, is it possible to enable multi-protocol without impacting the existing Zigbee network connected to the Skyconnect in Z2M?
ZHA uses Zigbee channel 15 as standard. This can't be changed after the installation. I do not feel like re-installing my whole system to change it. The Hue Bridge uses channel 25 out of the box. This can be changed, in the app. I was thinking: If I set the Hue bridge to channel 15 (the same as ZHA) Will this make use of the mesh and start expanding and enhance each other?
Changing a channel always requires you to pair all your devices again. This counts for ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT as far as I know. You can change the channel in ZHA without any problems if you didn't set up the network already.
I have a large (~50 devices zigbee network). 90% is routers. I paired everything using ZHA newest version and "sonoff dongle e". Zigbee stick is 1 meter from all usb ports, etc, but my network is randomly not stable. 99% of time everything works perfect, but sometimes I try to turn light using zigbee switch and nothing happen, or happen with 2-10 seconds delay, or click event is repeated 10 times. Can you make a video about how to troubleshoot such problems because I'm not the only one who has such issues and a huge headache
I experience this with one lightbulb and two battery operated switches that are connected to it. Only those give issues. I use ZHA with the sky connect for those devices. I have two Zigbee networks in my house. The other one uses the Dongle-E with Zigbee2MQTT.
I have an issue where some of my devices are not possible to link/locate again even if I try to reset it. It is however still in the config file. What might be the issue?
My issue with my sonoff dongle P is that after a few days the stick becomes unresponsive. 100% stable up to that point, then nothing. Only a restart of the Z2M add on gets it up and running again. Frustrating, as it seems there are quite a few with the same issue, but no idea on a solution
Hi Ed. About the issues with drop-out of battery powered devices with ZHA using the Sonoff Zigbee dongle 3.0. I use the Aqara TVOC Sensor. This device is always working when i pair it for the first time but always losing it's connecting within a day or 3. Are you familiar with that, and do you know how to solve it? All other 40+ devices do not have this issue. Another question. I can't get devices which are not paired, paired to another powered devices in their permanent location. I always first have to go to the Sonoff USB dongle and can than bring it over to it's permanent place. Is there a wat to fix this? One last question. Which channel do you use? Thanks in advance for helping out. And thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Do you use the Dongle-E? This might be because it's still experimental. I experienced this behavior with this Dongle in the past as well with Zigbee2MQTT. I use channel 15 on ZHA and channel 11 on Zigbee2MQTT.
@@SmartHomeJunkie Hi. I use the Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB dongle Plus. I know tried to change the channel to 15 instead of 11 (which might solve this issue) and now i have to repair all Aqara devices and all non powered devices. It does only work when i totally remove the device and add them again to ZHA. Strange that changing the channel causes so much issues unfortunately.
@@making-memories-nl It is correct that if you change the channel of the coordinator, you have to pair all devices again because they are paired using the old channel before.
i also have the dongle-e swapped over from conbee ii with deconz, have to say the sonoff has longer range but it is so unreliable all my aquara devices pair fine, work for a hour or 2 and then stop and become unavaliable, think im going back to the conbee ii, that was rock solid and have been using it for 4 years without any issues, not sure if its zha or the sonoff causing issues but deconz was rock solid for me just limited in its function
IKEA Zigbee devices, especially the battery powered ones, are known to randomly bounce between repeaters, especially after a power outage and then a couple of days later their batteries are dead. IKEA devices also refuse to use non-IKEA repeaters and the IKEA repeaters refuse to "extend" non-IKEA zigbee devices. I do love their return policy since of the 9 smart roller blinds (Fytur) I have in my house 7 have been replaced by IKEA under their warranty system. I am a pro at resetting and reconnecting IKEA devices and their repeaters. Sonoff buttons and sensors? Rock solid, Aqara buttons and sensors? Rock solid... IKEA? like a high maintenance girlfriend, look great but always in need of attention. @@SmartHomeJunkie
Did you solve your Zigbee issue using this tutorial? I'd really like to know if you did! And if you have other suggestions, please let me know in the comments as well!
Firstly, many thanks for the video!. I upgraded my Sonoff Dongle plus (Cordinator) to the latest firmware (20230507) and now I can't connect to any Sonoff Dongle Plus based routers. I have tried to flash back to an earlier version, and the router can connect, but the interview still fails and the device is not supported. But my IKEA Tradfri signal repeater works fine.... (Help). On the more positive side, i have setup and Solar Assistant for getting data out from my Solar Cell inverter on a RasberryPI and struggles to setup the MQTT broker in Solar Assistant to bridge to my Home Assistant MQTT broker used by Zigbee2MQTT. (HA can only have one installed MQTT broker? Therefore a bridge)
This video has so much value in it, it is made of gold! Although I never had any issues with my Zigbee network, it is plain to see how much work goes into your vids. Congratulations on the hard work.
Thank you so much for your support. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Been running Zigbee for a bit over a year now. It's been good so far.
My big takeaway is to add the battery operated Zigbee devices where they will actually reside. I have been adding them at my HA computer and then putting them where they belong. I get a lot of dropouts. Especially Hue devices that were reliable with the Hue hub. Great video.
Thanks
"Make sure you install enough router devices like light bulbs and smart switches" 👍 Also make sure to give the system some time to figure out how to connect to new devices.
I figured this out when installing zigbee in our company building: 80 x 15 meters, partially 2 floors and a lot of steel. I have been playing with adding smart plugs to different outlets to see how to improve unstable device access. When adding a new device (end device or router) it sometimes takes a while to figure out the best way to reach that device.
So after adding a device, I now wait a few hours before checking if that device is working okay.
Thanks for this valuable info!
I had 2 problems with zigbee dongle in different times. And I have checked your video and find exact problem and solution. I sincerely congratulate you on the quality of your work.
Thank you so much for this huge compliment! 🙏🏻
Good video for discussion, may be my experience helps others too :).
Half a year ago I started with HA and Zigbee.
In the beginning I used the Philps Hue integration in HA.
Actually I didn't like that because of the extra bridge device and depended app management and cloud dependence and in the future you want more things to be connected.
Issues I had => Some light bulbs worked great and other did not always connect and loose connection (I did not know why).
I thougt may be try it with a Zigbee stick.
So I bought the Sonoff stick to connect my all Hue lamps.
I tried to flash it, but I was not able do it.. and I gave up.
Later on I bought the Conbee stick and tried to connect it with HA and it was a success.
I used your video, thanks for that.
But I was not happy with the result:
1. The setup and management was some work and not straight forward.
2. Some bulbs still not have a proper connection (loose connection)
I decided to sell the stick and try again with the Sonoff.
Luckily I was able with a good instruction to flash the Sonoff stick.
The result for setup is more straight forward, more plug and play and you can easily add the Zigbee devices.
But.....Some bulbs still loose connection.
I had used the USB extension (tried 2 versions and little difference) and put it away from my WIFI radio, but still no result.
I opened my Raspary Pi and checked for the cables I connected for interference issue, changed some cables, but still no result.
Then I opened the wall-switch of the light and removed the LED dimmer switch and exchanged it for normal ON-OFF switch and all problems are gone!
Bottom line, also check your other to be connected hardware!
Not only mention the Zigbee Stick issues.
I did not find information from Phlips Hue website about this....
Thank you for sharing your experience ❤️
Thanks for this great video.
I’ve been an Apple Homekitt user almost 10 years now and I’m slowly moving towards HA. It’s a rocky way endeed 😂
I have some issues with my Zigbee network and I think the reason that I have Phillips Hub, Aqara Hub M3 and my electric heaters use their own hub. And of course they are all connected to their own zigbee network 😢
I managed to solve one problem wirh my zigbee connection problems by moving my Aqara hub further away from Phillips Hue hub. That helped some of the problems.
Maybe some day I build a Zigbee network that all the devices are on the same network. I hope my kids grow faster that I can build my smarthome 😂
I had a lot of issues with IKEA motion sensors and other wireless buttons. What helped was changing some advanced settingsn
- Zigbee channel to 25
- Last seen set on ISO_8601_local
- Network_key (sting) set with value GENERATE
- PAN_id (string) set with value GENERATE.
Almost forgot, Availability (simple) turned on. Restart
I had to join all devices to the network again, but now it is still working without issues.🎉
My ZHA network of approximately 20 devices had been working fine for months, but with the recent addition of a new device (a Sonoff MS01 motion sensor) I began having a lot of trouble with devices going offline, and further difficulties when removing and re-pairing them. I was not aware that connecting my dongle (Sonoff Zigbee 3.0-P) directly to the computer's USB port made it susceptible to interference, so thanks for the suggestion in your video to use a USB extension cable. This seems to have resolved my issue and all my devices are back online now. Plus, my Home Assiastant server was located on a shelf close to the floor, and I am sure that using the extension cable to elevate the dongle to the top of the shelf where my server also helped.
Great video thanks! One of the biggest issue i have is that ZigBee does not self heal after loosing connection. Especially the battery powered devices.
Love this video.
I feel for all the people that have HA and haven't found your fantastic tutorials.
I have the Sonoff Z donlge-p and cannot flash it into a router. I exchanged it for a new one and still the same problem. I did it the 2 main ways shown here and elsewhere. I put it in the right mode, I think as it doesn't not flash or show that you are. It was recognized and selectable but would not flash. COuldn't write or something. Super frustrating.
So now it sits in my drawer and I am probably going to buy the dedicated router from Aeotec. WIsh I could just get the bloody thing working as the router/repeater.
Thank you!
@@SmartHomeJunkiehello, I had once a similar issue with flashing another device. In my case it had to do with the type of usb cable. Apparently you have cables only containing wires for charging and not for data.
@@tommylambin3617 That is definately true.
Glad I went with Z-wave. These compatibility and interference issues sound like a lot of headaches. Nice tutorial.
thanks Ed nice tutorial
Two big ones to avoid are using the wrong wireless channel and in the case of the Sonoff dongles, having the transmit power set to high
How do you set transmit power to high on Sonoff Dongle
@@terrybates6066 This setting can be found under the settings section labeled Transmit Power
LOL … I shall have to see … I kind of gave up in disgust with Zigbee about six months ago … 😂
Saving this video for later. You should call it “break glass in case of bad zigbee”
Hahaha. That's a good one! 👍🏻
Great video… really fast paced. On mobile device (iPhone) all of the videos you point to above your right shoulder do no link to those videos? You should also include the link in upper right above left shoulder that looks like a one liner photo n addition to the big picture one. I’m about to setup a second stand alone HA with another P model dongle. Hoping all I need to do is pick a different channel.
I did, but you can only point once to the exact same video within a video unfortunately. So yeah, you have to go to the description for the links.
Great video, thank you!
I have a question about splitting a Zigbee network in Home Assistant. In your video, you explained how to create two separate Zigbee networks by combining Zigbee2MQTT and ZHA. You explained to use two different dongles, each configured to operate on distinct Zigbee channels.
However, I'm interested in using only Zigbee2MQTT with two physical dongles, each set up for a separate Zigbee network on different channels. The reason for this is that I have energy meter devices and motion sensors that send updates every second, causing a potential flood on the Zigbee channel.
Could you please provide guidance on achieving this configuration using Zigbee2MQTT? Thank you in advance for your help!
You should be able to install Z2M as a docker container - just install 2 containers, exposed to 2 different ports. Not sure, whether you can add the same integration twice (with different configs, pointing to different ports) in HA though.
Thank You for that tutorial!
You're welcome.
This is also a brutally good video. Why is it possible that my thermometers are connected smoothly, but my police switches are not?
Thank you so much for your kind words! I'm glad you found the video helpful. It's interesting how different devices can have such varying levels of connectivity. I'm not even sure what police switches are...
I have to say THANK YOU for the great videos for dumies like me. makes doing HA experiance so mutch better :)
Glad you like them!
I found that by changing the single small antenna on sonoff dongle into 2 9dbi antennas with a T splitter does increase the range.
Thanks for this info!
Thank you great video I learned alot from you
Glad to hear it!
I am in the process of switching from the Ikea Integration (which is currently broken) to ZHA on a Home Assistant Yellow.
The biggest problem I am having is getting the remotes to bind with the lights in a room. I find sometimes the individual device binding works and sometimes not, and the group binding never works.
I'd really like to get all the lights bound so if I ever have an issue with HA the lights will continue to work using the remote switches.
I never used direct bonding to be honest. But it's a great idea to do that!
You forgot to explain zigbee channels, how it works and what it means, how to change the channel and that it entails repairing every divice & connection stability in the visuals - some lines are red, green, orange & grey. What devices works best on what channels / frequencies, otherwise good video!
I didn't forget it. I told that you need to set the channels differently if you want to run multiple dongles. It's not the goal of this video to show everything that you can do with Zigbee. Just what the most common mistakes are.
@@SmartHomeJunkie most common mistake in my experience is that most people just plug & play with channel 15 when most devices works best on 20-25. My point being was that it was missed opportunity for you to tell people to look what it says on their devices what channels they run on.
Firstly, many thanks for the video!. I upgraded my Sonoff Dongle plus (Cordinator) to the latest firmware (20230507) and now I can't connect to any Sonoff Dongle Plus based routers. I have tried to flash back to an earlier version, and the router can connect, but the zigbee2mqtt interview still fails and the device is not supported. But my IKEA Tradfri signal repeater works fine.... (Help).
On the more positive side, i have setup and Solar Assistant for getting data out from my Solar Cell inverter on a RasberryPI and struggles to setup the MQTT broker in Solar Assistant to bridge to my Home Assistant MQTT broker used by Zigbee2MQTT. (HA can only have one installed MQTT broker? Therefore a bridge)
Good to know. Thanks for this Video.
You're welcome
Gonna try that USB cable on my 3.0, I have zigbee dropouts from time to time.
This should solve it.
I was less confused before I started watching this. Now I need to answer all of the “if” questions - “if I want to use ZHA” or “if I want to use “MQTT”, this Sonoff dongle or that one or a Conbee or a Skynet. I’m making names up at this point. I don’t even remember what’s what! Where’s the video where you just tell me what to do? 😅
Ooh, I don't think I've got the power to tell anyone what they should do. 🫣
@@SmartHomeJunkie I figured it out. Your videos played into that. Thank you!
SkyConnect + ZHA… the easy way
Great video…. I am trying to find out how to programme a CC2530 for ZHA to become a router. I have spent hours on the web and UA-cam and getting tied up in knots trying figure this out. If you are able to release a video about this and how to do that, I am sure it will get high number of hits as I can’t find anything that shows this..
Great video. Some findings from my side on the performance of 3 different dongles and the difference between ZHA and MQTT.
I have 55 Zigbee devices in my home ( 15 battery rest is on mains). I started with ZHA for that was the easiest to implement.
Regardless what dongle I used I constant ran into problems. Especially with my light bulb they just were not reliable.
I moved over to MQTT and that was already a big plus. With MQTT I also could see much more link details. I had bought the sky connect dongle for it was future proof with matter. The link performance from my various active devices to this dongle however was poor ( between 40 and 100) and I wanted to get it up . I moved over to the sonoff dongle expecting it to have a much better linkage due to its external antenna but.. it was only slightly better compared to the sky connect. The conbee 2 stick was is the dongle that brought it to the level I was hoping for.
All links from my mains powered Zigbee devices to the Conbee dongle reply with link quality 255 and it's been very stable for the 2 months its now on MQTT
With ZHA I had at least once per week to re-pair a " lost" device. ( that was btw with all my 3 dongles )
I live in a big home with something like 80 zigbee devices with a good coverage with router devices. I don’t know why sometime my network goes offline… I’m trying to investigate.
9:55 great video like always.😊👍
I do have a problem with my remote HA deep and the Sonoff dongle E.
Sometimes there is a power failure. When HA reboots it can't find the Sonoff dongle E again.
As it is a remote location, I can't travel there just to plug the dongle in and out.
Do you have any suggestions how to reconnect the dongle without going to the remote location?
Louis
It is missing how to write a quirk. I have now TRVs and also wall switches for zigbee but they dont communicate properly with Home assistant. Pairing and everything works fine. and also partly read out works fine but for the switch entities are missing and same for TRVs and also for the TRVs its bound to wrong endpoints.
So I got to learn that now given half of my zigbee devices do not work with zha easily out of the box.
Hello, I have a request for you if you can help me. I installed HA on a generic laptop-x86-64 250Gb storage and 8Gb memory. I got a Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 Dongle plus and 2 Aqara P1 motion sensors. I can't integrate Zigbee2MQTT in HA. I install, I did all the configurations from your tutorials but the add-on does not start. You can help me, I haven't gotten any help from anyone here. Thank you very much.
I note that HA is the only one installed on the laptop.
Thank you for yr time
One issue I had was that some devices don't connect to some router devices. In my case the Aqara door/window sensors won't connect to Ikea Light Bulbs. My solution was to add some Hue bulbs here and there.
Aqara is notorious for not following the ZigBee standard, so they might not be compatible with all other ZigBee devices.
True
I know they are a bit bitchy, but with Hue bulbs for example they work well
Thank you very much. I like the clear way you explain. One question. Do you (or someone) know How many devices can we attach to one sonof dongle P? I read somewhere 100 devices and others say 200 devices. Thanks again.
It depends if you upgraded the firmware. But, it shouldn't really matter because you build a mesh network using Zigbee so not all devices will be connected directly to the stick. That is, if you not only use battery powered devices.
Thanks a lot@@SmartHomeJunkie
Is it ok, to connect zigbee stick to usb3 port using extension cabel ? Can it be an issue ? I have odroid n2+ which have only usb3 ports, maybe this causes zigbee issues.
That shouldn't be a problem. I use an Odroid N2 Plus as well without any issues
do you know a easy solution for "502: bad gateway" ?
same problem over here
Thank you for the explanation. Hope you can help with this. Do you know how to export or extract de ices, entities and helpers list? Let's say it would be used in an excel spreadsheet. Thank you.
My issue (and greatest home assistant nightmare) is that when I reboot home assistant I always lose the link with Aqara zigbee devices. The devices seem connected but instead they are just "frozen" in last state. If I reset the devices (single press on aqara button) then everything works fine. I didn't find the issue in your list. Do you have a fix for this?
I have my mqtt and zigbee2mqtt in separete dockers, so not installed in HASS. What is the procedure to use this in HASS
I am trying to connect zigbee2mqtt from 3 days even dissassembled zha by also i am getting error
failed to connect to the adapter (error: srsp - sys - ping after 6000ms)
Is it possible to use the sky connect as a zigbee router /repeater I want to switch to the sonoff zigbee dongle and use the sky connect as the router is that a good idea?
Bravo!!!
I have aqara D1 wall switch 3 channel paired with zigbee2mqtt. The issue really bothering me is, when i press manually on the switch, the state of device in HA not change at all. However, I have aqara D1 wall switch 2 channel version work perfectly when I manually press, the state of the device change instantly in HA. Pls help me how to solve this. I tried looking everywhere but no answer yet.
Suggestion: How to fix the z2mqtt naming issues that came with the recent update.
This will be fixed in the next release.
Hello, very nice video. For a person who is starting its journey into ZigBee, which would be your dongle recommendation today?
I'd say the Dongle-P
@@SmartHomeJunkie Thanks, I was thinking the same.
How do I connect zigbee dongle e to homebridge?
My HA server is in a separate building. A USB solution will not work for me. Please show a solution using a Zigbee device attached to ethernet or Wi-Fi.
Thanks for the video. Your original video helped me set up the Zonoff P stick more than a year ago. Just this week, an Aqara Button Switch stopped working. It has a fresh battery, the Map show it's connected to a powered router. I can trigger the automation on the dashboard. Is there a way to see if Home Assistant is receiving a command signal from the button switch? Z-wave has a way to listen for signals in Developer Tools. Is there something like that for Zigbee? Thank you!
Do you use ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT?
@@SmartHomeJunkieI forgot to tell you: Zigbee2Mqtt
Sonoff Dongle-P (No Thread Support?)
My zigbee2mqtt addon stop suddenly every 2-3 days. I must restart it every time manuelly. I checked also the autmatic restart ootio on the addon on homeasisstant. Can you help me?
Hi, any reason why my Sonoff dongle P and Z2M seem to have loads of problems with IKEA bulbs? I've only added 4 so far but they are go offline every few hours, they sometimes come back on their own but most need a power cycle to come back? The rest of my zigbee devices (All passive) like motion and door sensors seem to work just fine without any issues. I'd have thought the bulbs would be fine, whilst the rest would cause problems.. I have several different types of IKEA tradfri bulbs and they all do the same thing... Very oddd
May be you have to same like me, see my reaction. Are the IKEA bulbs connected to a LED dimmer switch???
Maybe add in a few bulbs and sockets from a different vendor here and there? My mesh is mostly ikea devices, but with several aqara sensors and Lidl bulbs as well as a few more. It does appear to me that this helps. Once the basic mesh is established, with several routes available between controller and the device in question, things become much more stable.
Hmmm. I do have one Ikea bulb that doesn't respond reliably as well. I always thought it was because of that this bulb might be defective, but now I am puzzled.
@@buuenkejanssuh5236 Nope, I don't have any dimmer controllers.
Ikea bulbs have always been reliable, but something happened and they went off... The became very slow to respond using a Conbee and ZHA, so I changed over to the Sonoff P and Z2M and now they randomly go unavailable usually requiring a power cycle to bring them back to life. @@SmartHomeJunkie
I started with HA and Sonoff E version. Most of the time it was working but some devices randomly stop working until i reboot HA. After a few months of trying to find te problem it flashed the Somof P version with the latest firmware and repair al my devices and now running so much better. Stick at the same location als de E version with extension cable. Devices are now also respond quicker. So the E version is indeed to unstable for me . I will see what the future will bring for this version. I use a lot of powered devices that are router. So if you have strange problems try using the P version.
Good choice!
Maybe a silly question, but will my sky connect usb adapter work on thread/matter if I use zigbee2mqtt? Tks
Yes, that should work.
Hi Ed, do you have any experience with enabling multi-procotol for the Skyconnect in combination with Zigbee2MQTT? If yes, is it possible to enable multi-protocol without impacting the existing Zigbee network connected to the Skyconnect in Z2M?
Hi Roger,
No sorry, I don't have any experience with this.
my sky connect seems to be nukeded since an update. i keep getting a ZHA failed to setup. it doesn’t seem reliable
ZHA uses Zigbee channel 15 as standard. This can't be changed after the installation. I do not feel like re-installing my whole system to change it.
The Hue Bridge uses channel 25 out of the box. This can be changed, in the app.
I was thinking: If I set the Hue bridge to channel 15 (the same as ZHA) Will this make use of the mesh and start expanding and enhance each other?
Changing a channel always requires you to pair all your devices again. This counts for ZHA and Zigbee2MQTT as far as I know. You can change the channel in ZHA without any problems if you didn't set up the network already.
I have a large (~50 devices zigbee network). 90% is routers. I paired everything using ZHA newest version and "sonoff dongle e". Zigbee stick is 1 meter from all usb ports, etc, but my network is randomly not stable. 99% of time everything works perfect, but sometimes I try to turn light using zigbee switch and nothing happen, or happen with 2-10 seconds delay, or click event is repeated 10 times. Can you make a video about how to troubleshoot such problems because I'm not the only one who has such issues and a huge headache
I experience this with one lightbulb and two battery operated switches that are connected to it. Only those give issues. I use ZHA with the sky connect for those devices. I have two Zigbee networks in my house. The other one uses the Dongle-E with Zigbee2MQTT.
I have an issue where some of my devices are not possible to link/locate again even if I try to reset it. It is however still in the config file. What might be the issue?
Maybe force remove the devices and paid them again?
My issue with my sonoff dongle P is that after a few days the stick becomes unresponsive. 100% stable up to that point, then nothing. Only a restart of the Z2M add on gets it up and running again. Frustrating, as it seems there are quite a few with the same issue, but no idea on a solution
That's frustrating indeed. I haven't seen that behavior before.
Hi Ed. About the issues with drop-out of battery powered devices with ZHA using the Sonoff Zigbee dongle 3.0. I use the Aqara TVOC Sensor. This device is always working when i pair it for the first time but always losing it's connecting within a day or 3. Are you familiar with that, and do you know how to solve it? All other 40+ devices do not have this issue. Another question. I can't get devices which are not paired, paired to another powered devices in their permanent location. I always first have to go to the Sonoff USB dongle and can than bring it over to it's permanent place. Is there a wat to fix this? One last question. Which channel do you use? Thanks in advance for helping out. And thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Do you use the Dongle-E? This might be because it's still experimental. I experienced this behavior with this Dongle in the past as well with Zigbee2MQTT. I use channel 15 on ZHA and channel 11 on Zigbee2MQTT.
@@SmartHomeJunkie Hi. I use the Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB dongle Plus. I know tried to change the channel to 15 instead of 11 (which might solve this issue) and now i have to repair all Aqara devices and all non powered devices. It does only work when i totally remove the device and add them again to ZHA. Strange that changing the channel causes so much issues unfortunately.
@@making-memories-nl It is correct that if you change the channel of the coordinator, you have to pair all devices again because they are paired using the old channel before.
i also have the dongle-e swapped over from conbee ii with deconz, have to say the sonoff has longer range but it is so unreliable all my aquara devices pair fine, work for a hour or 2 and then stop and become unavaliable, think im going back to the conbee ii, that was rock solid and have been using it for 4 years without any issues, not sure if its zha or the sonoff causing issues but deconz was rock solid for me just limited in its function
@@garethwilliams2147 I agree. Deconz and the Conbee 2 is a great combination!
The most common issue you might experience is IKEA!
Tell me more!
IKEA Zigbee devices, especially the battery powered ones, are known to randomly bounce between repeaters, especially after a power outage and then a couple of days later their batteries are dead. IKEA devices also refuse to use non-IKEA repeaters and the IKEA repeaters refuse to "extend" non-IKEA zigbee devices. I do love their return policy since of the 9 smart roller blinds (Fytur) I have in my house 7 have been replaced by IKEA under their warranty system. I am a pro at resetting and reconnecting IKEA devices and their repeaters. Sonoff buttons and sensors? Rock solid, Aqara buttons and sensors? Rock solid... IKEA? like a high maintenance girlfriend, look great but always in need of attention. @@SmartHomeJunkie
Did you solve your Zigbee issue using this tutorial? I'd really like to know if you did! And if you have other suggestions, please let me know in the comments as well!
Firstly, many thanks for the video!. I upgraded my Sonoff Dongle plus (Cordinator) to the latest firmware (20230507) and now I can't connect to any Sonoff Dongle Plus based routers. I have tried to flash back to an earlier version, and the router can connect, but the interview still fails and the device is not supported. But my IKEA Tradfri signal repeater works fine.... (Help).
On the more positive side, i have setup and Solar Assistant for getting data out from my Solar Cell inverter on a RasberryPI and struggles to setup the MQTT broker in Solar Assistant to bridge to my Home Assistant MQTT broker used by Zigbee2MQTT. (HA can only have one installed MQTT broker? Therefore a bridge)
better price in aliexpress
So can we buy Ed or his videos at aliexpress nowadays ?
I'll add the Aliexpress links as well.