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Home Assistant is a free and open-source smart home platform that runs on almost anything. With it, you can bring together devices across a range of platforms and protocols, all with the privacy and reliability of a local offline setup.
Though you can use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to connect smart home devices, many rely on low-power wireless protocols like Zigbee and Thread. You can easily add support for these protocols to your Home Assistant setup with the ZBT-1.
Introducing The Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1
Previously known as the SkyConnect, the Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1 ($45) is a USB dongle that adds support for the Zigbee and Thread wireless protocols.
Zigbee is a long-established example of a personal area network, having been standardized way back in 2003. Zigbee has been through several revisions since, with the ZBT-1 supporting the latest Zigbee 3.0 standard and all its security improvements. The ZBT-1 acts as a coordinator, which is the most capable device within a Zigbee network, allowing you to use it to build and command a network of devices.
This means that you don't need to use a proprietary hub with your Zigbee gadgets, even going as far as ditching your existing proprietary hubs or avoiding buying them altogether. For example, IKEA's smart home products rely on Zigbee and require the use of a proprietary router that costs around the same price as a ZBT-1.
In addition, the ZBT-1 can also support Matter devices via the relatively new (by comparison) Thread protocol. This technology works very similarly to Zigbee, creating a low-power mesh network that allows smart home devices to communicate without relying on Wi-Fi. Thread is a bit different in that it has the support of the major smart home players (like Matter), including Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung.
Like Zigbee, Thread also requires that a device "takes charge" of the network, known as a border router. The ZBT-1 can coordinate your Thread network by acting as the border router, which means you don't need to rely on a HomePod or Amazon Echo.
The ZBT-1 connects directly to your Home Assistant server via a spare USB port and an extension cable. This extension cable allows you to place the dongle far away from any USB 3.0 ports your server may have, since these can cause interference and stop your Zigbee network from working properly.
Home Assistant Connect ZBT-1
Add Zigbee or Thread compatibility to your Home Assistant server using the ZBT-1, previously known as the SkyConnect. While multi-protocol support has been tested, the dongle has proven to be most reliable when running one or the other (so you can always buy two to add both).
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The ZBT-1 was initially devised with multi-protocol support in mind, which means in an ideal world, you'd be able to connect a single ZBT-1 to your Home Assistant server and get both Zigbee and Thread working on the same dongle. Unfortunately, things didn't quite work out that way.
While there was firmware developed that enabled multi-protocol support, it was only ever experimental. After much testing and many attempts at improving reliability, multi-protocol support for the ZBT-1 has fallen by the wayside. It is not currently recommended that users install multi-protocol firmware on their ZBT-1, but instead pick either Zigbee or Thread outright.
Fortunately, there's nothing stopping you from using two ZBT-1 dongles. You can set one up as a Zigbee coordinator and use the Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA) integration, then set the other up to use Thread using the Open Thread Border Router and Thread integrations to get things working. Just make sure that you don't set up (or remove) multi-protocol support first.
Some users report no issues with multi-protocol support, but given that reliability is key when it comes to smart home automations, we'd probably recommend erring on the side of caution. If you have Zigbee water leak sensors that fail because of a problem with the multi-protocol firmware, then you're going to have a bad time.
A Solid Home Assistant Upgrade
Home Assistant can be a bit confusing for newcomers, given how powerful the platform is and how it feels like there's so much to learn. Adding support for additional protocols is an important step for any smart home owner who wants to avoid relying on a congested or flaky Wi-Fi protocol and have a broad range of smart home devices to choose from. The ZBT-1 is a cheap and effective solution.
While Zigbee may seem a bit old and crusty given that the protocol is more than two decades old, it's still in use by a surprising number of devices. Many of these are highly cost-effective, like IKEA's aforementioned range of smart home plugs, sensors, and more.
At the same time, Thread (and the Matter standard) seems to be poised to take over as a dominant smart home technology in the coming years. For Home Assistant users, the difference will be minimal since the open platform already supports being able to use a mixture of devices, standards, and protocols to do neat things like expose non-HomeKit devices in Apple's Home app or integrate cheap $1 smart plugs you find at a yard sale into your set up.
Adding additional protocols like Zigbee and Thread via an inexpensive dongle gives you so many options for expanding your smart home at a later date.
Are you wondering how to get started with Home Assistant? The inexpensive and ready-to-go Home Assistant Green is a great place to start.