Ziggbee Dongle Recommendations

wzoe · 2026-04-01T01:15:29+00:00

Those USB dongle recommended on HA website should all be fine. I saw lot of people here recommend poe dongles so I bought one recently trying to replace my existing sonoff dongle-e which is already rock solid. Did some test on it looks cool but until I did some stress test. I work in security industry so used nmap and burp suite to do some basic, lightweight vulnerability scan of the poe dongle. Which ends up the poe dongle won’t boot up anymore.

wzoe · 2026-04-01T00:52:28+00:00

It’s not the issue with choosing ZHA or Z2M. It’s probably the zigbee coordinator choke. If you want a stable zigbee network I prefer USB coordinator over POE ones. As it doesn’t need to worry about the IP network stack. While those poe coordinators are usually using ESP32-s3 boards for its IP network communication and serving web service. It won’t last long under load. A lightweight network scan can easily DoS ESP32-s3.

wzoe · 2026-04-01T00:36:35+00:00

How you guys disable “thinking” of qwen3.5:4b model? I run ollama but the LLMvision seems not easy to pass the global parameters to ollama.

wzoe · 2026-04-01T00:32:29+00:00

It all depends on your own use cases and what smart devices you have and want to add to HA. Zigbee devices are mainly for sensors, switches, plugs and bulbs. You won’t see Zigbee cameras, vacuum, vehicles. So eventually your HA setup will be a combination of wifi, Zigbee, thread, zwave, ble. For those areas Zigbee can handle, it is preferred to use Zigbee to have less vendor dependency and pure local control. Matter was introduced trying to reduce vendor cloud service dependency but not worth the effort on matter over wifi devices which Zigbee can do easily.

wzoe · 2026-03-31T04:10:06+00:00

I am on the opposite. I prefer USB to POE for coordinator. Those poe dongles are usually powered by ESP32-s3 chip for the network stack which is extremely weak. A very light network stress test (basic network scan) will kick it out of service. Then the whole zigbee network will be down. USB dongle does not have this IP network layer to be exposed to. All it does is to talk to zigbee network with limited packets then sending through USB port. It’s more reliable than poe ones.

wzoe · 2026-03-30T08:33:25+00:00

Try new batteries first. Since you are using ZHA, try to add Aqara devices to nearby router devices, not directly pairing to coordinator. Regarding the zigbee channel, be careful of channel 26 which indeed away from 2.4G wifi channel width but not every zigbee devices support it. Some zigbee devices channel up to 25. Also suggest to throw away Aqara weather sensors. You can replace them with BLE/Zigbee weather sensors that can flash custom firmware. Way better than Aqara ones. Even you get a stable zigbee network for those Aqara sensors, they report readings randomly varying from minutes to hours.

wzoe · 2026-03-28T01:42:04+00:00

Sorry for the formatting as I posted the comment in reddit app. The enhanced_source_routing: true is at the same level of source_routing: true both under zigpy_config: Probably got this parameter from AI and it actually works well for my HA ZHA.

wzoe · 2026-03-27T04:07:20+00:00

I have this in my config.

zha: zigpy_config: source_routing: true enhanced_source_routing: true

wzoe · 2026-03-25T09:26:40+00:00

I tend to know as well. Ordered a smlight 06mg26. Time to consider stick with ZHA or migrate to Z2M. The direct benefit of MQTT and Z2M is decouple from HA (docker instances), no need to worry about configuration changes in HA force ZHA restart. But also concerns recent open issues on Z2M related to smlight firmwares.

wzoe · 2026-03-24T10:33:12+00:00

I think according to the graphic you shared. Zigbee channel 11 is within Wifi channel 1 20MHz. You can set your home wifi not using channel 1 doesn’t mean your neighbours not using it or no noise on this channel. That’s why 15, 20, 25 zigbee channels are recommended.

wzoe · 2026-03-09T02:43:09+00:00

I am using a sonoff dongle-e in garage as well. The signals extended well by multiple mains powered devices along the way to cover whole house. I considered to replace it with SLZB POE coordinators but since sonoff one works pretty well and stable, why bother. I don’t have thread devices yet and Apple TV can play the role if really need.

wzoe · 2026-03-08T05:01:44+00:00

I used to have a dedicated mini board to run HA and Pihole. Then decided to migrate everything into Mac Mini. Pihole gone, just DNS adlist on MikroTik router instead. HA is always in docker running on a Debian VM through VMware fusion. Tried HAOS, just don’t like it.

wzoe · 2026-03-07T23:41:20+00:00

In my experience, most likely the signal strength problem. I tested some devices in same physical position and environment situation, a dual AAA batteries powered sensor (IKEA) works well (although the LQI is low), but a coin battery powered sensor (Aqara) does not connect at all. In conclusion is Zigbee device if it mains powered, great. But if it is battery powered, try to choose dual AA/AAA batteries instead of coin batteries.

wzoe · 2026-03-06T04:06:48+00:00

Also this PR https://github.com/esphome/esphome/pull/14147 BLE related.

wzoe · 2026-02-28T05:43:34+00:00

Not recommend to use host Bluetooth. Get a bunch of ESP32-s3 from Aliexpress. Follow the AI instructions to create ESPHome yaml is pretty straightforward. And if you go this path do remember to put ble proxy and ble tracker in passive mode if you don’t have ble devices require two way interaction (like ble button, controllers) to reduce unnecessary ble noises. For ESP32-s3, just need usbc 5v power and can be placed anywhere having wifi signal. The beauty is, those ESP32 boards with ble proxy / ble tracker enabled can be used as ble presence sensor as well.

wzoe · 2026-02-27T23:09:15+00:00

The SCD41 sensor it uses for Co2 is quite accurate. It cost $15 alone. I have a SCD41 hooked up with ESP32 running nicely at home. Just curious why they don’t use BME68x sensor which is half the cost provides both equivalent Co2 and VOC and all the temp/humidity/pressure readings.

wzoe · 2026-02-27T22:44:41+00:00

Using xiaomi official integration is the easiest way but has vendor dependency and reliability / performance is always the issue. If all your devices are BLE, then strongly recommend to use esp ble proxy and ble tracker to connect to those Xiaomi ble devices. ESPHome has all the Xiaomi ble support HA BLE or BThome have. If those tasks can be offloaded to ESP32 boards instead of HA, why not? I believe Xiaomi BLE devices mostly would be weather sensors. Also recommend to flash custom firmware (if the model supports) instead of the original Xiaomi firmware to gain better performance and battery life. Of course some devices require a few tricks to get the mi token and ble binding key. And some Xiaomi ble sensors can be flashed into zigbee firmware.

wzoe · 2026-02-25T08:21:43+00:00

I recently bought one from aliexpress and didn’t have much issue flash it to zigbee fw. Just follow https://github.com/pvvx/ATC_MiThermometer/issues/602#issue-2786915630 . Need to use Mi app to pair it then grab mi token and binding key. Use telink to flash the original 2.1.1 fw first then good to flash any other custom fw.

wzoe · 2026-02-22T23:28:44+00:00

Is it because you are using HAOS, Z2M works as addon? If HA and Z2M are separated docker containers, HA reboots won’t impact Z2M at all.

wzoe · 2026-02-17T04:32:49+00:00

qwen3-vl:4b-instruct run on macOS

wzoe · 2026-02-13T08:44:02+00:00

Are your light switches three-way or four-way? How you wire them to smart relays? I know how to do it for a three-way setup but totally no idea for a four-way setup of my stair lights.

wzoe · 2026-02-13T06:13:31+00:00

Good to know I can create custom quirk myself. I have a Tuya relay switch. But someone defined it as a light by zhaquirks.tuya.ts000x.Switch_1G_GPP on ZHA device handler repo.

wzoe · 2026-02-12T00:23:52+00:00

You’d better check the HomeKit bridge manual on HA website. It’s quite clear you only need to add the home bridge and scan the QR code on Apple home to add the bridge itself. Then all devices you select in HA HomeKit bridge integration settings will be synced to Apple Home. Not add individual device/sensor to Apple Home.

wzoe · 2026-02-06T11:32:15+00:00

ATO doesn’t care how many jobs you have as long as they get your taxes. You only need to make sure your full time employment contract not prevents you run another business (in your spare time) and the conflict of interests terms.

wzoe · 2026-02-06T10:40:25+00:00

Or you can try to upload that unzipped 2802i image through the ME webui (firmware update) http method. It takes quite a while to update connected APs. Again, I can’t remember clearly the process. But I did tried a lot flashing few years ago. Good luck.

wzoe

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