If anyone bought the previous one, how was it and what do you think about this upgrade?
Excerpts:
The easiest way to start with Zigbee or Thread just got even better, with Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2. This USB adapter plugs into your Home Assistant system and opens up a world of smart device options. Between its precisely tuned antenna and next-generation chip, it’s a big step up for anyone looking to connect Zigbee, Thread, or Matter devices directly to Home Assistant.
For all our Zigbee fans, this might be the best upgrade you’ll make all year. We’ve squeezed every inch out of this technology, giving it the best range, speed, and stability possible. The same can be said for our Thread-heads out there (yeah, I just came up with that cool nickname 😎), making Matter or ESPHome Thread connections rock-solid. Pick whether to dedicate your Connect ZBT-2 to run a Zigbee or Thread network, and it’ll provide the best experience for that protocol (and if all these names just sound like new streaming services to you, check out our explainer below).
If you’re one of those people still rocking three different hubs, what are you waiting for… another giant server outage to take down your smart home? Ditch those cloud hubs and take back your privacy today. As an added bonus, your devices will likely get more controls, range, and resilience.
Available today starting at $49 and €45 (that’s the MSRP, and pricing will vary by retailer). Designed and built by Nabu Casa and the Open Home Foundation, every purchase helps fund the development of Home Assistant. For quick specs, details, and where to buy, visit our beautiful Home Assistant Connect ZBT-2 page.
Open Design
When we say open, we mean it. In the physical sense, it’s easy to open Connect ZBT-2 as there are no clips or glue, just some lovely standard Phillips head screws. The board has a gorgeous silkscreen, which explains all the chips, exposed pins, and pads.
The bootloader is unlocked, and all the firmware we build is open source and available to modify. We’ve also built a new website that makes it easy to flash the stock firmware, and in the future, experiment with new firmware. We’ll also be providing the PCB and outer casing files if you want to tinker with those. Openness makes our products better… literally, since our community helps us find and fix bugs.
Why would a USB accessory need PoE?
Zigbee 4 support lacking in it is disappointing.
I grabbed a TubesZB and it has made things so much easier. I can put it wherever I need it and if I need to migrate my HA VM to another host there is no fuss. Literally did it the other day and it worked flawlessly.
PoE needs to be more prevalent, IMO. When Smlight came out with the SLZB I jumped on it. Not only does it give me options for where to place it in my house, but it also allows me to make HA more resilient on my Proxmox cluster because it isn't tied to a single node with USB passthru.
I know that this probably is an edge case and that the HA team wants to make things easier with the HA green and HA yellow so USB still makes sense, but if this or the SWA-2 had PoE as an option, it would have been a no brainer.
I guess I don't see how tying the radio to a PoE microcontroller improves your resilience. Just changes the critical system.