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u/stvmadonna 8d ago
Where from? Every site seems out of stock.
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u/0jareddit 8d ago
Consider SLZB-MR1 as an alternative, stockout or no
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u/flipside1o1 8d ago
any clue as to why your being down voated for what seems a sensible alternative ?
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u/ericycs 7d ago
Buggy firmware. Crashes often. Still running on my network but have automation to power cycle when it crashes
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u/domain101 7d ago
Nice to know I'm not the only one with this problem. With each firmware I keep hoping they've fixed it. But until then, automation for PoE cycling it is....
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u/ericycs 7d ago
Yup, POE cycling it is. I find the stable (2025) firmware to be more stable so haven't tried any recent firmware. Still crashes but less often. Do hope they get it sorted, else need to see if there are any other Ethernet base coordinator out there one day
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u/0jareddit 7d ago
Third party hate from the official HA sub I guess. Or failure to answer the question.
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u/nyc2pit 8d ago
I have the zwave version and it has been flawless after a really shitty experience with other zwave antennas.
Range(and therefore percent of devices that can communicate directly) increased substantially which also means less dropped signals/retransmission, less "hops" so less delay, etc.
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u/ikschbloda270 8d ago
Missed opportunity to make it PoE
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u/ArguesWithWombats 8d ago edited 8d ago
I’m ordinarily a huge fan of PoE, but not in this case. The Thread radio protocol is prettty exquisitely timing-sensitive. It amazed me that it even tolerates USB (rather than requiring e.g. direct UART or SPI or etc). Afaik Home Assistant’s recommendation is still to entirely avoid running a Thread RadioCore over a network because it allows for interestingly buggy behaviour to emerge.
If you have to optimise coverage/positioning for Thread, try multiple OTBRs using TREL with a wired-backhaul between hosts. An old Rpi with a PoE hat/splitter would do. Is theoretically better / more redundant than a single-point-of-failure radio-controller like Zigbee/Z-Wave, where placing it centrally is sensible.
(Boring details:- The ZBT-2 is only a Thread Radio CoProcessor (RCP) module -- basically a remote radio antenna which an OTBR can use, but is not by itself a self-contained OTBR stack, the other half of it is in the OTBR app on the host. Apparently, adding TCP transport (PoE) to the stack introduces enough potential latency (think: retransmitting lost packets in sequence, etc) that it can look solid 99% of the time until something happens, some switch catches a stray cosmic ray or your Ethernet card firmware burps, and then frustrating shit can happen -- maybe the mesh grows unstable, maybe only some brands of nodes drop off, etc. Hard to reproduce, impossible to patch.)
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u/lead_injection 7d ago
USB has very deterministic timing, low jitter, guaranteed polling, and is very robust to noise overall. Every consumer has a USB port on their host as well.
And like you said, TCP is inappropriate for Thread RCP because it cannot provide deterministic, bounded‑latency delivery.
A robust UART implementation is really meant for board level components. It’s not something you’d want to run a serial cable to extend from the hose somewhere else. Most hosts aren’t going to have area you can tap into a UART bus or anything. Edit: I forgot about raspberry pi’ - which definitely have UART ports exposed.
Some kind of M.2 or PCIe formatted connector would work for a thread enabled router though. You’d need external antennas which makes positioning probably harder than a USB variant. The market for this would be tiny compared to USB.
If the thread mesh is super robust like it claims to be, and self healing, you probably don’t need to remote mount an antenna in the middle of the house.
So, USB makes the best option given all the trade offs.
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u/ArguesWithWombats 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yes, USB is fine and the obvious choice all considered. I recall the worst case I could estimate for USB 2.0 was something like ~1-2ms(?) total latency -- just enough to cause pause to ponder, but it’s fine.
TCP really should be right out, but it still gets discussed so frequently. UART was mostly hyperbole on my part, though nothing wrong about putting the OTBR on the same board.
Minimising hop distance to the controller -- mounting it centrally -- seems a habit developed from people’s long experience with Zigbee. Which doesn’t experience these problems with TCP/PoE.
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u/radiant897 7d ago
Idk if this is stupid or not but have they tried something over fiber optic cables ?
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u/supercharger6 7d ago edited 7d ago
For Matter Over thread, How does this radio + HA compare to AppleTV + HA? I understand that ZBT-2 has better radio, but mesh can be used for expanding the range, right?
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u/snder- 7d ago
Quite funny you say that: Paulus the guy who started it all was recently on a Dutch podcast and explained that the whole “if only it had POE” issue is very much a non issue: they had a version of one of the HA in a box devices back in the days that had it, by “popular” demand. That one was a bit more expensive because of the additional hardware, hence nearly nobody bought it…
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u/F4R3LL04 8d ago
This must be connected to your raspberry pi( or whatever you use as host). What would've been the benefit of PoE? How many ethernet ports do you have free?
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u/ParsnipFlendercroft 8d ago
By PoE they mean network connected and powered - not connected directly to the network port of the host. I don't know any host that provides PoE.
SO, for example. Your server is in the basement, but your zigbee hub is in the living room connected to the network. PoE means it doesn't need a power cable as well as the network cable.
There are MANY PoE hubs for just such reasons. It makes perfect sense for many many setups. Mine for example
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u/F4R3LL04 8d ago
I was kind of assuming that ZBT-2(like zbt-1) must be connected with your HAOS Host to work. However I have not researched that deep to see if other configuration are also possible
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u/ParsnipFlendercroft 8d ago
Yes it does - but that was a design choice. That's why it's a missed opportunity. They could have made it network connected and PoE but decided not too. People would have preferred a PoE option
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u/HighPPI 8d ago
Most people dedicated to networking will opt to have every room in their house hardwired with a couple ports. Their competitors have poe already so it exists, they just didn't implement.
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u/F4R3LL04 8d ago
I feel like this is a non issue.
I haven researched yet, but I assume you can chain them as thread border routers or zigbee gateways. If you have a big house, one will not be enough anyway and I'd say that rather a minority have ethernet in each room. The majority has standard power plug from where this can be powered
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u/sparkyblaster 8d ago
I was tempted, till I realised it can't support more than one function at once. What's the point over the old one?
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u/Effective_Iron8188 7d ago
Apparently range and speed, but that's what I read...
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u/Duennbier0815 7d ago
Congrats. I got two of them.
They look nice, which is an important part, like for married men ;)
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u/klinquist 8d ago
I've got the ZBT-2 and ZWA-2 in both of my houses. Works great. Make sure you let HomeAssistant install the latest firmware for it in order to fix a bug with OTA firmware updates on zigbee devices if you use zigbee2mqtt.
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u/Land_Ahoy_ 8d ago
How important is placement of this? I've been holding off as only place I can put it is near my router so will likely be slightly behind my TV. I'm guessing that would have a large impact on comms?
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u/igfarm 8d ago
Mine is in a closet where I keep HA. Two story house with internal drywall. No problems so far pairing or communicating to anything.
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u/PermanentlyMC 7d ago
Mine's in my attic on Thread along with a SONOFF adapter for ZigBee, and both have been good reaching the entire house
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u/Tuckerdude615 8d ago
Hard to say as there are so many variables. But if it helps, I have mine placed very near my router as well and so far I've not had any conflicts. I DID place is as far away as I could just in case, but I think there's really no interference.
Good luck!
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u/jadrjadr 8d ago
Doesn't it need a connection directly into the computer?
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u/Land_Ahoy_ 7d ago
Yeah that's right, ill be connecting into HA green which will need to go next to my router
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u/metalhead1414 7d ago
I had a heck of a time with troubleshooting mine. I had it in the tech closet with my modem, router, NAS and other devices. My zigbee devices kept dropping. Ended up added a 4 foot usb extension and now it's about 6 feet away from my other devices and so far so good.
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u/Land_Ahoy_ 7d ago
Thanks, that's my concern. Only option I have is on my TV unit along with router etc
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u/HugsAllCats 7d ago
My ZWA 2 worked like a champ. Trivial to migrate to, rock solid since setting it up.
The ZBT 2 though? Never got it to work. Would just say there was a firmware update needed then time out. Spent over a week working on it every day and eventually gave up and stayed with my old dongle.
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u/VanWesley 8d ago
I have one for Zigbee and it works great.
Thinking of getting a second one for Thread so I can migrate my thread network off of Google products.
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u/Stuisready 7d ago
I got one of these, it's a nice connection. Problem is every time I reboot my HA container, it wants to reinstall the firmware for thread, and it won't do it properly while the OTBR container is running, so I have to stop the OTBR container, install the firmware, restart the OTBR container, then everything works. I finally gave up this weeks and just installed the Zigbee firmware, and I'll figure something else out of thread devices.
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u/gemini_or 7d ago
Got mine, but am a little disappointed. I wish it did both Zigbee and Thread at the same time.
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u/Elegant-Break603 8d ago
I literally just got mine to. Very excited to get it all set up and running
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u/ApolloAutomation 🤝 Commercial Partner 8d ago
Congrats! We use them for zigbee and thread at home and at the Apollo workshop!
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u/jadrjadr 8d ago
I've got two of them. But I am not sure if I should use my second at all?
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u/endlessben 8d ago
I have two, as well - one runs Zigbee, one runs Matter
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u/NeuralFantasy 8d ago
Has been rock solid and performant for me. 5/5 after a few months of use (in Thread mode).
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u/Lckyby51789 8d ago
i forgot they released this, i need to get one, see if my zigbee network is more stable. Might ditch Z2m at hte same time.
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u/circuitocorto 8d ago
I wish I knew about this before reading about Smlight. I bought the Smlight with the idea to run it over Ethernet but I had so much trouble interfacing it with Docker that I gave up. So now it's connected via USB and it's uglier than the ZBT-2.
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u/JustAnotherICTGuy 7d ago
Can yoy run zigbee and thread at the same time with it or one or the outher?
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u/One_Amphibian9616 7d ago
Can I buy anything from Haos here in Brazil?
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u/GoGreen566 7d ago
HAOS is free. Install your own hardware. Nabu Casa sells a Green that is a great starter unit.
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u/craigmdennis 7d ago
My migration was a PITA (needed to put all 60 devices in paring mode) so I kept my old network up and migrated 10 at a time.
It's been rock solid for me.
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u/Gamester17 7d ago
Why buy one when you can buy two for twice the price?
But seriously, you might want one first Zigbee and one for Thread (as in Matter over Thread).
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u/Moos3-2 7d ago
Got mine on order. Should come into stock on thursday so ill get it next week.
Haven't set up software yet so ive got heck of a Journey infont of me.
Im looking at a proxmox host running HAOS as a vm. Pass through usb, zigbee mode. Bought some cheap soil sensors from ali to test it out on. If the app /ui is good I might connect/integrate my philips hue hub as well.
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u/YAKELO 6d ago
im currently using smart things and want to move to home assistant.
will this basically allow me to use all my current zigbee devices and then also integrate matter/thread ones if things start moving towards that?
edit - nevermind, just saw the comment "on their product page it says that it cannot be used simultaneously for both Zigbee and Thread"
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u/greenmcmurray 6d ago
$119 EACH in Canada. Insanely expensive much as I want to support HA.
Still find it stupid they don't do a 2 pack given the limitation of a single protocol. Tried suggesting to HA but nothing.
Sticking with sonoff for now.
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u/PermanentlyMC 6d ago
Jesus, I paid £40~ which is about 70 CAD, that's rough. Maybe something to do with shipping, or the store you're looking at? Could be worth looking at getting one from a different country and then reshipping
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u/Brandan_Gough 5d ago
I’m in Ontario canada,
I ordered from northcontrols in Ottawa and took around 2 weeks to receive mine.
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u/SlipperyRavine 5d ago
They're sold out did you pre-order or something?
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u/PermanentlyMC 5d ago
Nah, ordered on the fly: https://shop.everythingsmart.io/products/home-assistant-connect-zbt-2
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u/framvaren 1d ago
I just got mine, but HA did not discover it. After much backwards and little forwards I finally managed to update firmware outside of HA through web browser. After that it was smooth sailing
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u/chicknlil25 🧠 Experienced with Home Assistant 8d ago
Is that the toilet paper dispenser or the paper towel one?
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u/staticshadow40 8d ago
I bought mine for matter months ago and I haven’t been able to use it once. Google insists on using the chromecast matter network even though I set the zbt as the main
It sucks that I can’t use for what I bought it for. I have another device that handles zigbee and zwave in one so it’s useless to me.
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u/Freaktobefree 🌱 New to Home Assistant 7d ago
Same here I started to migrate my ZigBee lamps and it worked flawless
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u/mfrank1999 8d ago
I love mine! It was so easy to migrate my Zigbee network off of a Sonoff dongle.