I have been away from actively working on my home automation setup for awhile, and just letting things run as they are, but am trying to get back into it to fix a few things that are bothering me for some time now.
Im currently using smartthings for my zwave and zigbee devices, though most of my automation and dashboards are in home assistant and smartthings is just my device gateway. I also have an older, no longer in use wink hub, and a a very old Vera 2 gateway that hasnt been used in years now.
I started by thinking I need to update the firmware on some Red switches that Ive had since the original preorder time for them, as well as some inovelli rgb bulbs that are painstakingly slow to interact with. It looks like I cannot update the fw on my zwave devices directly though smartthings though and need a usb dongle instead. If I need to buy a zwave dongle, that will be the moment I kick smartthings to the curb and move everything over to run directly in home assistant instead.
So, I am wondering what are the recommended usb dongles for 2022. I have mostly zwave switches thoughout the house, but also run a number of zigbee bulbs and sensors. I had thought maybe a Nortek HUSBZB-1 USB Hub would be what I get to have only 1 usb device for both protocols, but I wonder if the chipsets in it are getting old and if there is newer hardware with the latest zwave chipsets in it that I should be looking at instead.
Im fine with running 2 usb devices, I just want to get something that will perform well and that I wont be looking to replace again next year. Whats the current recommendations?
You’re not going to OTA Zwave with SmartThings directly. You have a choice of adding the SiLabs PC Controller as a 2nd controller using a USB stick OR remove the device from ST and flash it directly using the PC Controller.
I remove my Zwave devices from ST, flash directly with the PC Controller and then put them back, despite the pain that comes along with that technique. I use the Zwave.me stick.
If you’re going over HA, then one of the HA folks will have to recommend. There is a thread in here somewhere discussing HA sticks, but it may be dated.
BTW, at least at this point, if you need to flash a Zigbee device, then you’ll have to use either HA or Hubitat.
I still use this for my zwave network and it works fine, but I’d consider it obsolete for any new setup as it’s on the 500 series zwave chip. The Zooz 700 series stick is often recommended these days, but 800 devices are now becoming available as well. I’d recommend reading up on the changes in these series to understand if anything is specifically important to you. Zwave is nicely backward compatible, so running the latest isn’t usually a major concern.
For zigbee, I’d recommend something well supported by Zigbee2mqtt. The Sonoff listed there feels like it’s becoming the default.
Thanks for the insight folks. I was wondering if the HUSBZB-1 was not ideal for new installs, and thus my question, I jsut wasnt sure what device would be the next in line now. In Canada, it looks like I could buy 2 devices cheaper than that unit anyway.
I had also looked at the SONOFF Zigbee USB Dongle Plus Gateway, but paused my purchase when I found 2 identical looking dongles for the same price, but with different chipsets, and wasnt sure which chipset was more compatible. It seems theres a EFR32MG21 as well as a TI CC2652P.
Ive been running Home Assistant with the Smartthings integration for a couple years now and hassio has come a long way and Im comfortable to switch 100% over to that system now. Also hope it takes some of the delays out of my network, Smartthings seems slower all around compared to when I first got the hub a few years ago
The “P” version is the recommended one if you plan to use zigbee2mqtt:
Note before buying that ITead slightly confusingly now sells both the “ZBDongle-E” (based on EFR32MG21) and “ZBDongle-P” (based on CC2652P). This section is about the “ZBDongle-P”, for “ZBDongle-E” see below.
It seems like the EFR32ZG14 chipset is the one Silicon Labs is using in their 700 series reference device. I would imagine there will eventually be an 800 series using the EFR32ZG23 chipset.
EDIT: Ooops. I guess I lost track of the conversation and didn’t realize the topic had switched to Zigbee instead of Z-wave when talking about the EFR32MG21 and TI CC2652P chipsets.
A bit late on this but I wanted to drop in that I’ve been very happy using OpenHAB (version 2 and version 3) with Aeotec’s z-wave Z-stick Gen 5+ (the original Gen 5 stick works too).
One major benefit I experienced with these devices was the ability to backup and restore my z-wave items between sticks. Another benefit is that when you have to remove a higher security device like a lock, you can take the Z-Stick to that device since it has a rechargeable battery in it. I was able to migrate an OH2 system to OH3 on new hardware very quickly because of these two capabilities.
The software to backup the stick unfortunately only runs on Windows (nope, it doesn’t work in virtualization). That is a major fail in my book but for many people that will not be an issue.
A couple of firmware update attempts on two of the LZW30-SN I have at home have left them in a state where no amount of exclusion, factory reset, and inclusion attempts on my hubitat C-8 are working anymore. I downloaded the Silicon Labs simplicity studio to attempt exploring any final hopes of reviving these, even more so given there is no stock to buy and replace these.
Question for the community, will the ZOOZ Zwave 800 USB stick work as a access bridge between my LZW30-SNs and the Silicon Labs simplicity studio?
Also, once I get this going, any references to posts from the community on how I go about my chances of a successful repair and following that a more reliable firmware upgrade process for all my 30 Inovelli devices?
Thanks @MRobi! I installed simplicity studio on my Mac. Have you or others had luck with using simplicity studio, mac, usb stick for managing the devices and the network.
I’ve only ever used it to do fw updates before Hubitat had a native app for it. Not much experience with it, and what I do have was so many years ago I pretty much forget it all now lol
Just to second what Mrobi said, I have the Zooz 800 series stick and used Simplicity Studio to update firmware on devices last week. It worked as expected without any issues.
While you can download Simplicity Studio for both, it’s really just a package manager. You use simplicity studio to download PC Controller which is only available for Windows.
Thank you! That puts me back at square one … do not have a windows machine and that leaves me back at the start of search for options on how to revive the two inovelli switches.
There’s always zwavejs in a docker container.
No matter which route you go, you’ll need to get inclusion working.
It may be worthwhile rigging up a temp power source so you can get the 2 trouble switches real close to your controller for inclusion. I use a pc power cable with the end cut off. Gives you a great power, neutral and ground wire and great for moving a switch close.
Thanks to the hubitat community - I got and used the following method to force removed failed (ghost) devices from the network:
I got a zwave (Zooz 800) stick, installed parallels on my mac, windows 11, simplicity studio, zwave pc controller … and was able to successfully remove the two ghosts using this document Dropbox - Hubitat UZB Stick How-To.pdf - Simplify your life
In the computing world… ancient/dinosaur are the words you are looking for. Noone makes a combo stick since it’s region locked and not worth the cost to produce for the licensing requirements. I would not look at any ZWave controller with anything less than a 700 series chipset. Zigbee wise, look at the most recent supported chipsets on Zigbee2MQTT for the most compatibility and the most updated chipsets.