Hmmm, it's looking much easier now. I had a crack at enabling this at the start of the year and gave up out of frustration. I couldn't for the life of me correctly configure the multiprotocol pass-through to Zigbee2MQTT, so I gave up on it all, reflashed the dongle back to Zigbee only and put ZHA back on. I even tried using the SkyConnect dongle I have as a spare, no joy there either. Right now I do have Thread on the network as well but it's currently using my Eero mesh APs as the border routers, and I really want to remove that hardware dependency. Might spin up a lab hassio on the weekend and have a tinker. Thanks for posting!
My advice, give it a go. :) Remember that you can have multiple Z2MQTT networks (check out that video ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZBbl0I-Zpuk.html) so you don't even need a new HA instance to test it out.
They no longer recommend this: Note! Beware that the RCP MultiPAN in multiprotocol mode is no longer recommended because running multi-protocol with multiple active networks on a single radio adapter has proven to not be stable when using Zigbee and Thread network protocols simultaneously on the same radio adapter, it also increases the complexity of software component dependencies needed, so if already using RCP Multi-PAN then it is highly recommended that you plan to migrate to separate dedicated radio adapters instead, (using Zigbee NCP and Thread RCP firmware respectively), even if using RCP MultiPAN on a single radio adapter dongle has been working fine for you so far.
Thanks Vulcan, I would agree with your statement. The video intends to show that it is possible and how to do it. But also teaches the community the instructions on how to flash or upgrade to a different version of the firmware. I run the latest supported version and only use my ZBDongle for Zigbee, as I need this network to rock solid and be available all the time. Any other protocols I use other adaptors for. Thanks for your comments, its appreciated.
Great video as always.... thank you! I find these things so bloody frustrating - spent so much time mucking around with this thing and havent got much joy back in return... So in this weeks episode - a clean build of Win 11, plug the dongle in, load up the driver, connect via the web flasher - the running firmware could not be detected!!!!! URGH Not really sure how to tackle this new one if I'm honest... Rant over...
OK can I ask the obvious, sorry, are you using a chromium based browser? Can you see the device in device manager? and have you tried a different USB port.
@@smart_home_australia hi there, fair questions to be honest... Yes I had tried all of the above... Since my tantrum I've managed to flash it manually using Secure CRT and the latest firmware file. I think what is actually my greatest challenge here is getting the dongle to present to Home Assistant through my current crappy setup - virtualbox on win11. This seems to be the source of the bulk of my issues with the dongle. Cause I can't make the dongle appear in Settings/Hardware - I've presumed that the dongle is actually faulty and not an issue with my virtualbox setup. Thanks for taking the time to reply!!!
Wow its not supposed to be this hard.... very strange. I had some initial issues with making the dongle appear but that was in Edge (which is also a Chromium based browser and should work), but when I switched to Chrome it worked. Making the dongle appear inside of the VM should be super simple. 1) Launch VirtualBox on your system. 2) Click on the USB option present in the vertical menu. 3) Click on the USB 2.0 or USB 3.0 controller radio button. 4) Navigate to the USB device filters section and click on the add USB devices icon with a + sign on it. 5) You will see a list of the available devices. 6) Select the USB device you want to attach. 7) Click OK to save changes and exit. If this doesn't work then I think it might be a defective dongle, then i'd RMA the dongle.
I was running this for years. Issue was that I started getting errors and everyone in the forums wouldn't help as they kept saying I was running an unsupported config. Ended up just flashing back to a ZigBee coordinator. I bought a second $15 dongle for Thread but haven't set it up. Any chance you can do a video on running these on separate dongles?
Thats the issue with running bleeding edge and topics where there is no community to collectively solve issues. Its one of the reasons I started this channel. Which Thread dongle did you buy? I'll see if I can get hold of one.
@@smart_home_australia I just bought another of the Sonoff ones. My WAF plummeted when I couldn't turn on or off the lights 😅 so I need a stable ZigBee coordinator but want to meas around with Thread too. I assume you could run two of the same dongles with different firmware on each?
OMG, WAF is the MOST important part of Smart Homes !! Get that fixed. ;) Yes you can run multiple Z2MQTT coordiantors (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ZBbl0I-Zpuk.html) so you can setup a "primary" zigbee network and spin up a secondary for testing and YES they can be on different firmware with no issues. Good luck with the WAF :)
Yep, you can run a second ZBDongle just for thread if you want, just skip the section about setting up ZHA to access via the socket and leave your primary ZBDongle as ZHA. Let us know how that works out as I've never tried that.
Hmmm... OK afew things to check. - Make sure your Zigbee adapter's firmware is up-to-date and compatible with Zigbee2MQTT. - Double check your port, SETTINGS > SYSTEM > HARDWARE > ALL HARDWARE - Which to the relative USB address as oppsoed to the absolute - If using VM make sure the USB is getting passed through correctly - Try using a different USB port that's running USB 2.0 only If all that fails, then retry factory resetting the ZBDongle, upgrade to latest firmware and retry. Remember that Sonoff support is really good, so raise a ticket and see if they can also assist.
You shouldn't need one as its created automatically. Check out the Thread integration page for more details (ref: www.home-assistant.io/integrations/thread/)
