Tips needed for migrating ZHA from Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 to ZBT-2

[pearl narwhal]

Hi all,

I have been reading a lot last couple days, but I can't find anything about migrating ZHA from a CC2652P to ZBT-2.
Some people are talking about not being same chip manufacturer and it wont work directly, but none have them indicating they tried them selves.

The things I already ordered the ZBT-2 yesterday and it will be delivered tomorrow, and I want to be prepared.
I have a ZHA Zigbee network with 124 devices, and I am not looking forward to repair them all and loose al my automations and Node-RED nodes.
If I can avoid that, it would be great.

Here is my hardware:
Running HAOS on a dedicated NUC with latest version 2025.12.5
Coordinator is a Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus with CC2652P chip and latest Z-Stack firmware 20250321
Coordinator is connected through a powered USB 2.0 hub, ZBT-2 will be connected through this hub.
The picture shows my Zigbee network, 3 devices are offline since they are battery powered buttons and has't been used for a while.

The reason for replacing is I have random devices loosing connection and have to repair them every couple days, it is every time different device, sometimes I have to reload ZHA because of compleet drop of the Zigbee network, lately it is little better with the new firmware on the Sonoff but it stil happens.

My questions is, do I need to do anything different than following the instructions on the ZBT-2 site for ZHA? Or does it just work?

[hallow remnant]

it "should" work automagically using the migration instructions.

does it work perfectly 100% of the time? no. but for the most part people have reported it going fine. some end devices might need to be slapped a bit because they are asleep when migration stuff is sent out. you may have to go around and make them wake up so they work out something is happening.

[pearl narwhal]

Thank you for your fast response @hallow remnant, I don't mind to go around to wake up the devices.
Couple years ago I went from Conbee-II to this Sonoff, back than I had around 90 devices and I had to pair everything back again, that was a pain.

I have also an odd issue with this Sonoff, it should handle 200 devices, but when ever I go above 125 devices, I get daily devices dropping off till I pair them again. I am hoping ZBT-2 solves this issue.

[hallow remnant]

yeah its a pretty busy network you have going on there. hopefully the upgrade will help you out.

i am pretty new to using zigbee tbh apart from a couple of failed attempts with some cheap devices and the built in ZB antenna on my old yellow i have only really used it properly since the ZBT-2 released and i made the effort

small network comparatively but its stable and growing.

[pearl narwhal]

I started with WIFI devices years ago, but after 50 WIFI devices my ISP modem started acting weird even with locally connected WIFI devices, than I realized the local part was not really local, so I went from 50 WIFI devices to 50 Zigbee devices, that was costly but worth it.

[hallow remnant]

I have a bunch of wifi stuff but I have 2 ubiquiti AP's so wifi load is not really a concern 😛 i want to move some more stuff over to zigbee in the future. will see how things go.

[pearl narwhal]

It was the modem from my ISP I couldn't replace it unfortunately, my WIFI network was a mesh from Netgear Orbi back than, I do still have couple WIFI devices, like curtain rails and dehumidifiers, where not available as Zigbee back than.

I did build a ESPHome temperature sensor last week with a BME280, which is also WIFI of course but truly local, I use this as a sensor for a virtual thermostat, the Aqara Zigbee sensor was not updating fast enough, I liked it so much I ordered some presence sensor for couple ESPHome projects. And electronics is my hobby so it is a win for me too.

[hallow remnant]

most of my wifi devices are shelly or ESPHome so are all local anyway. so I am not too concerned. i have a bunch of presence stuff running ESPHome and its great 🙂

[pearl narwhal]

ESPHome is neat indeed, I will play around with it for sure.

To go back to my first question, I just received the ZBT-2, I am not going to install it today at new year's eve and save me headaches 😅

From what I see most people having problems with ZBT-2 are using Z2MQTT, didn't see much people complaining with ZHA or I missed them, so I am hopping for the best since I am using ZHA.

[hallow remnant]

yeah sounds like a plan to wait until you have have time to fix stuff in case it goes wrong.
yeah ZHA does seem to have less issues.

[pearl narwhal]

I am just finished with installing ZBT-2, and I can tell you I have never had an easy coordinator migration ever, and I have done a couple of these.

There was a little "oh no" moment at the start, after FW installation process, I got FW update failed message, and ZBT-2 disappeared from my devices. I power cycled the ZBT-2 with the USB-C at the bottom of it and it reappeared in the devices again, after choosing the add and migrate option it did a FW update of one second and migrated all 125 devices, and it didn't even take two minutes.

No repairing, no power powercycling or pushing buttons on the devices, everything worked directly.
LQI's got a lot better on all devices, except a couple of them had slightly less LQI value, I am sure those will get better with time.

This was a pleasant migration, thanks to Nabu Casa guys.
Not many ZHA users report back, but I wanted to share my experience for others.

[hallow remnant]

That's awesome! Its great when everything works just as intended.

[pearl narwhal]

Thank you @hallow remnant , now I can focus on the ESPHome projects.

Yesterday I made our kitchen vent smart with a Zigbee valve opener, was a nice project too. I came up with the idea to use a Zigbee valve opener, a couple 3D prints and some tinkering, and the result:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KXKT5WOl8Q