Review of the SMLIGHT Zigbee/Matter controllers with Zigbee2MQTT and Home Assistant.

[@webdev6712]

I have been using SLZB-06 POE for more than 6 months. Rock solid and works almost 24/7 with some planned interruptions by me for Home Assistant/Z2M updates or server reboots. I am using Zigbee firmware 20221226. Great review, thank you!

[@Barnez2006]

I have the 06 with Zigbee2mqtt and have had great luck with it overall. (Switched from the SONOFF Dongle-E). I bought the 06M as well for thread but haven't bought any devices yet.

[@JoeBarnes-py5kj]

I have the 06 POE version connected with ZHA. I picked this one up so I could install remotely in a conditioned attic space in the middle of our home. Works great and now I don’t get drop outs that I was getting with the Skyconnect.

[@gerryf7015]

One potential solution for USB coordinator interference, is to add an extension USB data cable.

[@jordaynerjr]

Don't you think it would get too hot in the attic for the device

[@mostlychris]

Not recommending anyone do this but I have a raspberry pi or two in the attic as well as some other stuff. So far so good.

[@jordaynerjr]

@@mostlychris what state do you live in ?

[@mostlychris]

@@jordaynerjr Steaming hot TX

[@sandphotoNL]

I recently learned that the "E" devices are not experimental anymore in Z2M. At least, I can't find that anymore ;-) They do have (partially?) closed firmware though, as opposed to the TI ones.

[@kevinhenryviii]

Great stuff Chris. I have the Poe 06 version just arrived. I have some Zigbee devices drop off on the ground floor of my house(my sky connect is upstairs) Using the Poe 06 Can I set up a second instance of z2mqtt for downstairs (I have a Poe switch downstairs) I know I will have to delete the downstairs devices and re-pair them to the 06.

[@mostlychris]

You can. If you are using z2m, make sure you use a different base topic for each controller.

[@Pedro_mrg]

Matter is still very BETA, so it doesn't Matter right now :D

[@javierfilgueira]

🤣

[@ojtiooo7047]

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!

[@NicolaeFratila]

I have the router installed at about 40-50 cm away from the Rpi4 which is used for HA. I want to use SZLB-06 over the network plugged in direclty in of the router ports or in a switch. Can I install it near the RPi4 (50 cm away from the router) or shall I try to go further from the router? Now I have Sonoff Dongle Plus (P) installed "near" the router but separating them with a wall.

[@danielaguilarbenitez1076]

great video, thanks for that, a question, do you know how to migrate the sonoff dongle to SLZB-06M without having to re-synchronize all the devices, I can't do it, do you have a video on that, thank you very much.

[@mostlychris]

I think that if you are using ZHA you can change radios and migrate through the UI. Haven't tried it though.

[@wapphigh5250]

A reliable Zigbee mesh is 100% the most important thing for a happy automation project happy wife. So I don't get why you would use one of these. Isn't networking a separately powered Zigbee coordinator (rather than keeping it USB) just adding another point of failure? Even POE would potentially need a separate UPS. What if the controllers software screws up? Or it drops off the network? If the location of the coordinator is a problem, why not move the whole HA server centrally?

[@sierpus]

It depends what you have. In my case, I have HA on a vm on qnap. Because it works faster and it’s easy to backup as a full vm, export to a different format. And for some reason, usb devices tends to disappear from vm, e.g. after HA reboot, which is frustrating. Connecting this device to Ethernet, without dependency on qnap usb sharing feature is a great step forward for me. I have UPS for qnap anyway, powered is grabbed via USB from my router. Anyway, I’m having issues now with slzb-06m with ZHA but I’m hoping i will fix it soon

[@wapphigh5250]

@@sierpus Sure. I elected to run HA on an Intel nuc. Loaded on an SSD. Cheaper, faster, simpler, way less power to run (around 13W) and I can upgrade the hardware cheaper and easier as the project grows (which it will!) I then run automatic backups to small dedicated QNAP running at around 9W. As well as a copy to Google drive. Cheers

[@bsem68]

Unless I missed something you don’t show how to connect Z2M using network IP address and instead focus on your USB versions.

[@neildotwilliams]

Was it at 9:25? I am interested in this as well, as I want to make home assistant resilient and can fail over to different proxmox.

[@mostlychris]

It is at 9:25. I also showed what you might copy from the setup in the web UI of the device for ZHA and z2m. Just put the IP and the adapter type.

[@Schmidlap]

My skyconnect continually drops devices in my tiny 1400sqft single floor house. I’m thinking about getting one of these. Not sure if I need slzb-06, 06m, or an 07. Could I just get two of these and run Z2M on one and ZHA on the other?

[@javierfilgueira]

Hi @Schmilap. In the SMLight site they say that 06 is better for Z2M and 06M is preferred for ZHA. I'm waiting for 3 units of 06s. You can set up one as the coordinator and the other two as routers, or you could have 3 coordinators (each one against different z2m instances) in the same HA server. There are several KZbin videos explaining how to set up more than one z2m instance in the same HA server. Hope it helps.

[@yousaf.saleem]

your blog link is not a link right now, please fix it

[@mostlychris]

Let me check. Thanks for letting me know.

[@jordaynerjr]

Do you think it's possible to take it apart and paint it white including the antenna

[@mostlychris]

Probably but I don't know what warranty or guarantee that would void.

[@CleanPowerAuto]

Carefully mask RJ45 and USB ports and spray paint without taking it apart.

[@dantoma9160]

Hello those of you who connected via ethernet, please check if you restart the router, the connection between the zigbee2mqtt addon and the coordinator is restored, for me, after restarting the router, the addon does not reconnect to the coordinator and the whole zigbee network it falls and does not start again until I manually press the start button of the zigbee2mqtt addon...

[@mostlychris]

If you are having to start the Z2M add-on manually, something is amiss with it. Check the add-on logs to see if you can determine what might be causing issues.

[@dantoma9160]

@@mostlychris I have to start it manually because after a restart of the router, slzb-06 reconnects to the local network and to the Internet, but to the zigbee2mqtt adon it doesn't reconnect until I start the adon again because the adon stops while the router is in restart, all addon options are activated, except for the update...With another coordinator connected via USB I don't have these problems (sonoff dongle plus E and plus P), please do a test if you have SLZB-06, restart the router and see if it reconnects to the zigbee2mqtt addon, thank you!

[@mostlychris]

@@dantoma9160 Do you have the watchdog toggled on?

[@dantoma9160]

@@mostlychris Yes, of course, I specified in the previous message that I have all the options activated except the update

[@mostlychris]

@@dantoma9160 I just did a test and when I reboot the SLZB-06, Z2M stops because the controller gets disconnected but then it starts back up again. 2024-05-29 15:51:56] error: z2m: Adapter disconnected, stopping [2024-05-29 15:51:56] info: z2m: Disconnecting from MQTT server [2024-05-29 15:51:56] info: z2m: Stopping zigbee-herdsman... [2024-05-29 15:51:56] error: zh:controller: Failed to disable join on stop: Error: Cannot request when znp has not been initialized yet [2024-05-29 15:51:56] error: z2m: Failed to stop Zigbee2MQTT [15:52:00] INFO: Preparing to start... [15:52:01] INFO: Socat not enabled [15:52:03] INFO: Starting Zigbee2MQTT... [2024-05-29 15:52:06] info: z2m: Logging to console, file (filename: log.log) [2024-05-29 15:52:11] info: z2m: Starting Zigbee2MQTT version 1.37.0 (commit #unknown) [2024-05-29 15:52:11] info: z2m: Starting zigbee-herdsman (0.45.0) [2024-05-29 15:52:12] info: zh:zstack:znp: Opening TCP socket with 172.31.10.134:6638 [2024-05-29 15:52:12] info: zh:zstack:znp: Socket connected [2024-05-29 15:52:12] info: zh:zstack:znp: Socket ready [2024-05-29 15:52:12] info: zh:zstack:znp: Writing CC2530/CC2531 skip bootloader payload [2024-05-29 15:52:13] info: zh:zstack:znp: Skip bootloader for CC2652/CC1352 [2024-05-29 15:52:17] info: z2m: zigbee-herdsman started (resumed) [2024-05-29 15:52:17] info: z2m: Coordinator firmware version: '{"meta":{"maintrel":1,"majorrel":2,"minorrel":7,"product":1,"revision":20220219,"transportrev":2},"type":"zStack3x0"}' [2024-05-29 15:52:17] info: z2m: Currently 0 devices are joined: [2024-05-29 15:52:17] info: z2m: Zigbee: disabling joining new devices. [2024-05-29 15:52:17] info: z2m: Connecting to MQTT server at mqtt://172.31.10.124:1883 [2024-05-29 15:52:17] info: z2m: Connected to MQTT server [2024-05-29 15:52:18] info: z2m: Started frontend on port 8099 [2024-05-29 15:52:18] info: z2m: Zigbee2MQTT started!