Best Zigbee Coordinators for Home Assistant 2023

13 thoughts on “Best Zigbee Coordinators for Home Assistant 2023”

1. Nice guide. A few questions:

   – SkyConnect is the only one which is future proof with Matter & Thread support?
   – I’m currently using a Sonoff Zigbee Bridge with Tasmota, would you say I’m better off upgrading?

   Thanks

   • SkyConnect and Sonoff ZBDongle-E both use the EFR32MG21 which supports Thread and Matter.
     You won’t go wrong with either.
     Although, I would honestly not run a Thread network and a Zigbee network on the same stick.
     The UZG-01 is top of the line for Zigbee right now.

     • Hi. Thanks for the nice article.
       Why do you prefer ZigStar UZG-01 (CC2652P7) over SLZB-06 (CC2652P) or SLZB-06M (EFR32MG21)?
       What are the benefits?

       • Well, It’s not inherently “worse” in the most basic sense of the word, but it does use the ZigStar firmware, developed by the same person who made the ZigStar coordinators.
         So it’s essentially a clone firmware wise.
         I expect support to be better on ZigStar coordinators, since the firmware is created specifically for their coordinators.
         The CC2652P7 is better in almost every aspect than the CC2652P2. As for the EFR32MG21, ZigStar has a coordinator coming up with this chip in the near future.

         • Thanks. So is it better to get ZigStar(CC2652P7) now or wait for the version with EFR32MG21 or buy SLZB-06M?

         • ZigStar UZG-01. You will never need another Zigbee coordinator.

         • I have UZG-01 with P7 and I am having trouble with Zigbee2MQTT. I know that Radu (ZigStar) is working with Koenkk (Zigbee2MQTT) on stable firmware, but not done yet

         • What are the issues you are having?

         • 1. very low LQI in many cases <20
           2. Zigbee2MQTT crashes once per day in average
           3. Maybe not related to P7 directly (however I did not observe it before), but TuYa ZY-M100-24G (zigbee) and/or TuYa MTG075-ZB-RL (zigbee) crash UZG-01. HA entities are still shows availability, but actually they are not responding. Need to power cycle UZG-01 and restart Zigbee2MQTT add-on.

2. Hi,
   I tried the SkyConnect und Sonoff Dongle-E with a semi large Zigbee network (around 70 devices) with ZHA and keep having problems. What do you recommend for large Zigbee networks?

   • They are both awesome for any network size, you most likely need to add more routers or repath better.
     If I could see a map, I can tell better.

     • Since I can’t paste images directly in here I uploaded the image. Hope this works:
       https://imgbox.com/TIcWXJoK

       The problems I have with my Zigbee network are that I keep getting messages about my Zigbee Channel 15 utilization is over 90% (even though my wifi is at channel 11+ and the wifi router is over 5 meters away from the zigbee dongle) and I get EmberStatus.DELIVERY_FAILED messages in the log. Usually this results in my automations stopping to work after a few days of uptime.

       • First, Zigbee and Wi-Fi channels numbering do not match, I hope you are aware of that.
         https://www.metageek.com/training/resources/zigbee-wifi-coexistence/

         Second, I would use an app on the phone and scan for any Wi-Fi networks creating interference on the same channel.
         I would test by changing the Wi-Fi channel first, not the Zigbee channel since it will involve repairing all devices.

         You network seems fine, another thing to check is spammy devices that may cause delays (e.g. certain presence sensors)

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