Oh, I am seeing this just now. That looks like a perfect match for Home Assistant on a Synology NAS. No more fiddling around with USB drivers - and you can place the device where reception is best. I like!
I've been using the UZG-01 for a couple of months now and I really like it. Very versatile and great features. But as you already mentioned, one weakness is the firmware. I had serious issues in the beginning because of it and had to rearrange a lot (switching channels for both my WiFi and ZB network, new location of the unit compared to my previous coordinator, adding a couple ZB repeaters, repairing everything etc. etc.). Now everything works great. The experience has apparently been very varied between users, not everyone has exactly the same issues and some have hardly any. A lot of the issues seem to point towards devices from certain manufacturers. The guy behind ZigStar, Koenkk and a couple of volunteers are testing several new firmware versions at the moment. So it will most likely get more stable and reliable in the near future.
I have few SMLight coordinators on my desk - for review/test... Same thing P7 firmware has some issues - they all are using the same. Funny thing is that it works for some, others have issues and that's always hard to debug,
@@BeardedTinker One of the observations within the test group is that Tuya devices tend to talk a lot, which seems to cause many issues for some users at the moment.
@@TommyBrenneryeah,the most problem come from firmware side of P7 and Tuya devices. This will be solved by Koenkk and team of testers,hopefully very soon.
Another excellent video. Thank you. Please consider doing a video on how to setup a Zigbee Gateway at a remote location and connecting to your local HA instance.
Really good video! I just ordered one. I have to switch from the Sonoff dongle P to this one. Maybe you can make a video on how to do it without having to pair everything again? I have read that it can be done. I certainly don't think I'm the only one, after this video, who switches from Dongle P to this Zigbee coordinator. 😊❤
Noted! Depending if you're using ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT, that should be just replacing the stick and it should offer you to restor Backup (in ZHA). For Z2M - you can read here: www.zigbee2mqtt.io/guide/faq/#how-do-i-migrate-from-one-adapter-to-another BTW - why are you switching from P to UZG? Any particular reason?
I switch mainly because of your nice video. I'm running Zigbee2MQTT and have started experiencing many devices going offline.I have a large network with many devices. I was considering the sonoff dongle E until I saw this video. I like it is with an esp32 😁I have been in contact with the seller, who writes that it is not necessary to re-pair devices, they should connect to the new choir themselves I also found a video showing this. I will receive mine next Saturday, sent from China 🙂
With my current zigbee usb stick, when I want to pair a zigbee device, I have to bring the USB stick very close to the device in order for it to detect anything. When using the zigstar, can I pair devices without having to move it?
What kind of stick do you use and are yu using ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT? Also do you have any routers on network (for example Zigbee plugs, light buls or similar that are NOT powered by battery). If you don't have devices except ones on battery, try adding 1 or 2 of them. Other possibility is that you are limiting pairing only to coordinator. This is not normal behaviour on Zigbee network.
@@BeardedTinker I use a CC2531 stick on ZSH, there are multiple smart switches that are running on 230v, I don't know if these are routers. Some devices seem to lose connection randomly, both my wireless temp sensors have disconnected after a few days. Not sure if it's because of interference or anything else, but because I haven't updated my home assistant in years I thought I should get a new zigbee hub, and move HA from a raspberry to my synology, so I can setup everything properly in one go. I've already installed HA on my synology and ordered the Zigstar, just waiting for it to arrive.
CC2531 is no longer supported on Z2M and also not recommended on ZHA. That's a very old stick with old firmware and SOC.But yes, it can definitely be because of that stick. In this case, this would be great upgrade both in quality of life but also to move coordinator away somewhere else.
@@BeardedTinker thanks for the info, to be clear, I can leave the zigstar hub in one place and it should be able to pair with any zigbee device within reach?
I wish I had bought this one but instead I purchased the cheaper HamGeek copy. Be warned that all of the HamGeek devices use the same IEEE address so you cannot have more than one on a zigbee network. Fine as a coordinator but you cannot have one as a coordinator and one as a router. Buy the UZG-01, not the HamGeek one.
BTW - I would really recommend for router to get a bit cheaper device such as Sonoff Dongle P or even E. It is good for that role and much cheaper. But for coordinator UZG-01 is really great!
Looks nice, but is this ui really needed? I prefer a plain-simple Ethernet to zigbee device from tubeszb. They have a standard esphome firmware that you can customize as you want, plus double as a Bluetooth gateway. How many times did you flash your coordinator? I remember I did it once from the command line, and that's about it.
But you don't need to use UI at all. You could set everything up directly from ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT. And also, you probably missed, but you can also run it as BT Proxy. As for the firmware, usually there are 1-2 releases per year that not only fix bugs but also expand functionality. So, no, not need to update every week, but things you do once a year you tend to forget how they are done - having AddOn in HA for FW update for Zigbee module is great idea.
@@BeardedTinkerI'm actually considering doing this... I have some devices that work only on Z2M (tuya presence sensors) while my whole setup so far is on ZHA.. quite annoying with that I get the best of both worlds (I'm assuming)
Thank you!! I did try router FW on it but only with Z2M not ZHA. Also, you don't need to worry if devices at first don't attach to it. If you can see it on the network, when time comes and if there is a need, devices will migrate to it. They usually are clever enough to know when to transfer to new router.
So, am I hearing this right? I can move this coordinator anywhere in the house where I have WiFi/Ethernet? I can move my coordinator out of my basement (where my HA Pi is) and put it central to my home?
When you enable MQTT, you get control over the device from within HomeAssistant (Restart ESP, restart Zigbee) and get sensors for the ESP SoC (ESP temperature, IP Address, uptime etc)
Hi, Is there a similar coordinator supporting Z-Wave with Ethernet for HA? or maybe this one has support for Z-Wave in addition to Zigbee? Thank you!Hi, Is there a similar coordinator supporting Z-Wave with Ethernet for HA? or maybe this one has support for Z-Wave in addition to Zigbee? Thank you!
I'm not saying that there isn't one, but I haven't seen it. I did see combos (for example Z-Station from zwave.me) that have both ZWave and Zigbee, but they use USB cable.
It also can be flashed ESPHome stream server, I like to have everything on the same platform. On my first UZG-01 ethernet port died. As for BLE proxy - GL-S10 is the best (again, ESPHome and PoE)
What Sonoff dongle - P or E? But no natter what, not really... SkyConnect has same SoC as Dongle E from Sonoff. And while Dongle P is "worse" that UZG-01, upgrade is not worth it. Only if you want to move coordinator somewhere else in home, than it makes sense to do it.
Awesome video. Would this work in a scenario where I have Home Assitant running in Proxmox as VM and Home Assistant could failover to another proxmox node?
Thanks B.T. really interesting. I have a question. I have now Sonoff, A coordinator on the Attic, and two routers (sonoff) second floor, first floor. Is the same setup possible with these UZG-01? So Buy three of them? I think they don't have to be routers then because they can connect directly to the Z2M but would this be possible?
You can have only one coordinator for Z2M - but also it's possible to run multiple Z2M, each with its own coordinator. Not sure what you would get out of the upgrade, besides ability to move coordinator, if needed, from attic. I don't think, unless this is the case to move coordinator out of attic, you will gain anything extra.
Other than placement, is their any real advantage of this device over a remote Zigbee to MQTT (running on a Raspberry Pi) or a USB connected Zigbee Dongle?
Depends on SoC you are using, if you are on cc2531, sure, if you already have something like cc2652 or EFR32MG2x - no. Unless as you said you need to position it somewhere else or want to make it independent on any host HW.
Would it potentially work better than say a dongle if connected through Ethernet. I run HA through a VM and sometimes it stops reading the USB causing my Zigbee network to drop. Luckily I have an automation to start the host if this happens
It's should be more reliable - unless you have some network issues, but that's very unlikely. Especially if you use Ethernet and not WiFi. What's your host for VM?
I used to use Virtualbox, but was causing a lot of issues. I now use VMWare which is way more stable for me, but there are just a few times where the VM has issues
Is the Zigbee range better on this than the Sonoff stick? I have a Sonoff stick connected to Synology in my living room but find that it doesn't reach all of my house. If I bought this I could move my Synology elsewhere and just connect the ZigStar to ethernet. Thanks
There is no need for coordinator on Zigbee network to cover whole house. That's why the network has routers - devices that are not powered by battery are usually all routers. But yes, you could do it like that - move Synology somewhere else and use this as remote coordinator.
@@BeardedTinker Thanks for the reply. The only zigbee devices I use are Hue and Aqara. Aqara seems to use a non-standard zigbee implementation, so far I've had problems finding router that works with their devices. Hue will also not mesh with Aqara. I think some Ikea outlets will work with Aqara but never in stock where I live. Think I will pick up this coordinator since other commentators says range is much better.
Just got it the UZG-01 and immediately ran into a problem with WiFi - which didn't work. Turns out there was a problem with firmware versions 0.2.4 and 0.2.5 which broke the WiFi. They have just released 0.2.6 which appears to have fixed it again.
I wish IP configuration pages displayed the MAC address for that interface. Usually even if you configure static addressing, you'll still want to configure a static entry in your router so if something happens to that downstream device the dhcp server does not reassign that IP.
I'm wrong person to ask because my first response is always - if Deconz works for you, keep using it! But if you one day decide to replace it, this is really great choice and works awesome with Z2M.
This is ESPHome based device. Check github.com/esphome/feature-requests/issues/1430 if you are interested in a (very long) read on support of Matter and Thread in ESPHome. Also, it would require completely different HW.
@@BeardedTinker I just read it, this will try to pair with zigbee network over zigbee signal. But what if i do not have zigbee wireless signal and want to use this device as router over ethernet. In my case, Basically router should be connected over ethernet to coordinator, and not over zigbee wireless signals
@@sanketgroup - I think this device can be a zigbee coordinator or a zigbee router. A zigbee router is a device in an existing zigbee network and the network must have one, and only one, zigbee coordinator. So if you do not have a zigbee signal then as a router it is a just an disconnected device and will do nothing.
@@wobbit42 @BeardedTinker So let's say i have a garage where there is no Zigbee signal, but I have ethernet LAN cable, how can I make Zigbee devices in garage to be connected to same home assistant instance over ethernet?
+1! Just moved to SLZB-06 from TubesZB POE. Physically looks pretty ugly, but since using it I now appreciate its industrial/commercial intended usage and the design matches that. Newest firmware makes it simple to manage / upgrade / configure too.
I have SLZB-06, 06M, 06P7 and 07. 06 is most basic and both M and P7 have better SoC, but firmware for plain 06 is better currently as it's older and more tested and tried.
haha, snap! I also have the 06, 06m and 06p7 (was having a lot of problems I eventually traced to the TubesZB I'd been using, so bought all 3 and the UZG-01 in desperation). Need to revisit notes, but I remember the improved SOC was actually fairly unnecessary (at least to the P7), the processes were not getting anywhere close on the base model for memory and processor, but I remember there being a "recommended" for ZHA being the 6M and 06 Z2M 'preferred'. From what I tested, I had no issues with Z2M or ZHA using either. Have put base unit (06) into production at home, running around 120 ZB devices across approx 4000sqm - all great so far. My UZG-01 was DoA so didn't get to compare - but props to the owner, they sent a new one right away, no questions asked. @@BeardedTinker
