I have a little shed where I have some Zigbee sensors. Sometimes they work, others they don't. Due to this I ordered 1 of these and managed to flash it.
I cannot go on-site yet, but what I am wondering is, should I keep the dongle in the main house or the shed? i.e. is it better to transmit or receive, and does the 5/9 db (or 20db) matter that much in terms of range?
You could try either and see what works best. Can you put it in an enclosure somewhere between?
This is kind of different from what you would do with Z-Wave. With ZW it's usually better to be closer to the hub. Not sure thats the case here thanks to Zigbee's dynamic routing capabilities.
edit1: With the higher frequency signal you really have to think about range in terms of both receiving AND transmitting and obstructions. Another possibility is adding yet another repeater and have one in your house and one in your shed.
edit2: Another possibility is depending your use-case and wiring is using something like a Powerline Adapter and add a second hub to your shed. You could also do this with a WiFi connection but not recommended due to reliability concerns.
Thanks for thinking along. Love the ideas and I will definitely try them out. I guess I can use the LQI to gauge the success of the placement. I do have 2 of these repeaters, so I will be able to put one in the house and one in the shed.
The interesting thing is that I have a Z-Wave repeater in the shed already, and that is doing it's thing, it is just Zigbee that is not performing well. Eventually I might want to replace the Z-Wave with Zigbee if I can get this working well.
That makes sense for your Z-Wave devices as they communicate at a lower frequency so should therefore have greater range. If your ZW devices are working properly there is probably no need to replace them.
Report back with your results if you can, would be interested to hear how things worked out!
sending mine back to amazon apparently in latest firmware they lock down the device so you can no longer get it in bootloader mode with the button.. thus windows never finds a driver..
(I happened to have just finished writing this up today...)
The older units look kind of complex to flash. I've flashed three of the newer E types in the last three days and they couldn't be easier. Basically, install a Xmodem capable terminal emulator, set a couple of params, grab a USB extension cable to make pressing the tiny buttons easier, plug in the dongle, and follow the factory instructions.
Sonoff’s example uses SecureCRT. This is not free software. All you need is a serial terminal emulator that supports Xmodem file transfer protocol. I downloaded ExtraPuTTY from SourceForge for free. I used Windows but there are builds for most common operating systems.
With the dongle popped out of the case and plugged into your USB extension cable start ExtraPuTTY and make these changes to the default settings:
1 - On the first screen (Session) click Serial first to set up for serial communications.
2 - Under Connection click Serial. “Serial line to connect to” shows available COM ports. You may have to test a few to find which one you’re plugged into. Pro tip - Start with the higher numbers and work down. Be sure to set the speed and flow control.
Click Open and follow the factory instructions. You’ll find Xmodem under Files Transfer at the top of the terminal screen.
Pro tip #2 – Instead of trying to press the tiny buttons with two fingers, just roll your thumbnail across the two buttons, outside in. All-in-one-motion you’ll press and hold Reset, press and hold Boot, release Reset, and release Boot. You should get the menu shown in the factory instructions in the terminal window. If not, change to another COM port and do the button trick again.
When the upload is complete you enter 2 to boot the dongle. You’re in pairing mode now with a green flashing LED. At this point you can unplug the dongle and put it back in the case. When you plug it into a power supply it will go into pairing mode.
Hope that helps. Thanks to everyone who discovered these cool repeaters and posted here. They work great.
Not really. You just have to hold down the button while inserting it into the usb port. That’s the most difficult part, especially if you have oversized hands
Thanks for the write up on the newer SonOff E dongle. Very nice to have that!
FWIW, there have been some reports of connectivity issues w/the newer E dongles, evidently there are posts in the Home Assistant and one other forum...blanking on it, about those types of issues w/the chip used in the E version of the dongle and other devices. Hopefully not the same issues in use here on HE.
I’m pretty sure they’re still listed as experimental and not recommended at this time.
As i said not working on my box lights all stay red and no driver is avail for the card even though windows sees it
ok finally got it flashed. but no green light .. light is always red and cannot get hub to find it.. any ideas?
I never had that type of issue with mine (led red), so I don't have any great advice. I assume you you've done the normal unplug and re-plug basics...
the led has never been anything but red.. wierd sounds maybe defective but weird the flasher says it flashed ok..
oh well going back to amazon.. wonder if it was hosed when i got it as immediately plugging in before i did anything the led was red.. your saying it should not be.
Actually, the more I think about it the less sure I am. Been quite a while since I flagged mine, and I'm not sure what the led should do... Sorry, realize that's not helpful.
Just looked and here is nothing in my guide about led colors so it may just stay red all the time normally.
Mine only has a red led lit. I’ve not seen any other color. If you’re looking at the writeup above, that’s a completely different card.
To be sure we're talking about the same device... The Plus and Plus-E boards are completely different. The boxes are marked subtlety differently with the E having a circular logo on the bottom right corner. Sadly the device cases look identical; both are labelled Dongle Plus.
You don't need any drivers for the E, it's purely a serial upload.
Plus:
Plus E:
On the E the Reset and Boot button are side-by-side perpendicular to the long edge. That's why I mentioned rolling a thumbnail outside in across them to get started.
HTH
Edit - I found one of my boxes to better show the E logo. Sonoff should really update the labeling.
I’m assuming @kahn-hubitat is talking about the plus, not E, since he is flashing TI router firmware (old firmware btw) using TI software.
It’s a bit of a pain. The easiest way to pair it is to start pairing on the hub as soon as the firmware updates, because it leaves the dongle in pairing mode (briefly). Otherwise, start the pairing process on the hub and hold down one of the buttons in the dongle while plugging it in, then let go and pray. Of course you will need to remove it from power after it’s joined to put the case back on.
ya did that multiple times.(i wil try again and put in pairing before starting the update i tried after nothing). nothing.. hmmm
there was some mention that the latest f/w did not work for flashing but will try again with newer
Download the Hubitat app
