InTheMail | Voltlog #403

Let’s start with this product from SONOFF, this is a USB zigbee adapter which is useful if you want to add zigbee connectivity via USB, for example I plan to use this with my RaspberryPi running HomeAssistant to be able to connect to a bunch of zigbee sensors I have around the house.

Zigbee for me is very convenient because it’s very low power and thus can make replacing batteries on my sensors a thing I only have to worry about every few years but depending on which zigbee gateway you are running things can run smooth or you can have hiccups like it was my case with the sonoff zigbee to wifi bridge which I used in bridge mode so far. I am having a bunch of connection issues so I decided to upgrade the zigbee dongle, this new one, also from SONOFF is based on TI CC2652P which is well supported by the zigbee2mqtt framework and supposably can support a higher throughput while being more stable.

I believe I will need to open this up and flash it with a different firmware but that’a a subject for a different video, bottom line is that right now this is the most affordable good zigbee adapter that you can get and if you want one, I will place a link to this in the description below.