Zigbee support on the ESP32-H2, ESP32-C6 and ESP32-C5

[levihb]

Describe the problem you have/What new integration you would like

A new variant of the ESP32 was announced last month, the ESP32-H2. It supports 802.15.4 and therefore Zigbee and Thread, as well as BLE, and now runs on a RISC-V architecture which should be a lot more efficient. It also still supports WiFi.

This looks super interesting because it will finally give home users a way to easily build Zigbee/Thread versions instead of WiFi ones. I think ESPHome supporting this would be a brilliant step forward.

Please describe your use case for this integration and alternatives you've tried:

There are no alternatives to ESPHome for Zigbee as far as I know? Or really any simple development environments for home users.

Additional context

Of course the H2 isn't out yet. But I think it'd be good to get a discussion on this going before it is released. Zigbee is definitely a lot more friendly to larger home installations in many ways.

Support for battery operated end Zigbee devices would also be a huge leap forward. And I would think that should be possible on the new H2.

[oxan]

The big open question here is whether some group will port a Zigbee stack to the H2, as that's likely a too big task to do for ESPHome by itself.

[levihb]

The big open question here is whether some group will port a Zigbee stack to the H2, as that's likely a too big task to do for ESPHome by itself.

I asked on the ESP forums. Looks like they haven't released any information publicly yet.

But there will be an OpenThread implementation available. What about potential support for that?

[levihb]

@oxan Excellent news. They have confirmed that there will be a Zigbee stack available!

Hopefully this means we can have a Zigbee ESPHome.

[DelusionalAI]

With thread being IP based, would it be possible to connect it to a ESPHome thread device to a thread-border router and then control it over existing tools like MQTT and the Esphome API?
I believe the only "issue" would be that Thread is IPv6 only, which is being worked on

Controlling my devices over the existing APIs but without worrying about wifi would be amazing, and then you wouldn't be limited to the zigbee protocols.

[oxan]

I looked a tiny bit into this, and getting the API to run on Thread seems like it'll be fairly straighforward. Once devices start becoming available that's probably something we'll work to support.

As for Zigbee, examples using the Z-Boss 3.0 stack have started appearing in the IDF repository last week, so I bet that's what they're going with. There's actually an example of how to use an ESP as a lightbulb. It doesn't seem like it'll be too hard to integrate that into ESPHome as well, in case anyone is interested. I'm happy to help people implementing this, but probably won't work on it myself.

[Drizzt321]

Really interested in this myself! Would love to create a few battery sipping things for myself, particularly Zigbee 3.0.

[Hedda]

With thread being IP based, would it be possible to connect it to a ESPHome thread device to a thread-border router and then control it over existing tools like MQTT and the Esphome AP

That could indeed be possible if Espressif releases a documented CLI or open API for Zigbee NCP or a Zigbee SDK for RCP, and that is something that Tasmota already feature support for but only for Silicon Labs EZSP and Texas Instruments ZNP, see: https://tasmota.github.io/docs/Zigbee/

There is by the way a related similar request here for Silabs EZSP (EmberZNet Serial Protocol) -> #681

There is also a separate request for just pass-through serial stream server (ser2net tunnel) support for Zigbee MCU here -> #688

[kaystrobach]

Related?

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/announcement-esphome-running-on-adafruit-52840-over-thread-mesh-networking-using-zephyrrtos/363712

[HarvsG]

I would very happy to contribute to the esphome team getting an engineering sample ASAP (if it is a matter of $) - Apparently espressif are hoping to get them out in May 2022 according to this reddit post

[Hedda]

Espressif now looks to have released ESP ZBOSS 3.0 binary libraries supporting the Zboss Zigbee 3.0 stack for ESP32 series chips:

https://components.espressif.com/component/espressif/esp-zboss-lib

https://www.esp32.com/viewtopic.php?t=24624

FYI, Espressif has joined "ZBOSS Open Initiative (ZOI)" so chances are they will base is Zigbee stack on ZOI's ZBOSS stack by DRS:

https://dsr-iot.com/news/78

https://www.prweb.com/releases/espressif_joins_zboss_open_initiative_zoi_a_community_for_royalty_free_zigbee_pro_stack_software/prweb18263163.htm

ZOI (ZBOSS Open Initiative) ZBOSS stack look to be available as royalty-free for ZOI members like but not as open source code:

https://dsr-zoi.com/frequently-asked-questions/

https://www.prweb.com/releases/announcing_launch_of_zboss_open_initiative_zoi_for_royalty_free_zigbee_pro_stack_software/prweb16814352.htm

https://dsr-zboss.com/#!/updates/dsr-joins-cmgc-partnership-s2link

All support for it will need be handled though Espressif as implementer and not directly to ZOI or DRS.

There now also looks to be Zigbee examples in Espressif’s IoT Development Framework (ESP-IDF) but no news on SDK or docs?

https://components.espressif.com/component/espressif/esp-zboss-lib

ESP ZBOSS 3.0 Libraries

This repository contains binary libraries supporting the Zboss Zigbee 3.0 stack for ESP32 series chips.

Packages from this repository are uploaded to Espressif’s component serivce. You can add them to your project via idf.py add-dependency

More information about idf-component-manager can be found in Espressif API guide or PyPi registry.

There now looks to be some Zigbee examples in Espressif’s IoT Development Framework (ESP-IDF):

https://components.espressif.com/component/espressif/esp-zboss-lib

https://www.espressif.com/en/products/sdks/esp-idf

https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf

https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/tree/master/examples/zigbee

Those examples include; Zigbee coordinator ("light coordinator"), "Zigbee RCP (radio co-processor"), and "Zigbee gateway":

https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/tree/master/examples/zigbee/light_sample/light_coordinator

"light_coordinator is a light coordinator example demonstrating Zigbee Coordinator role. It provides a formation of the Zigbee network. It runs on an 802.15.4 SoC like ESP32-H2. For more details to see the example readme file."

https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/tree/master/examples/zigbee/esp_zigbee_rcp

https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/tree/master/examples/zigbee/esp_zigbee_gateway

Wondering if "RPC" works similar to Silicon Labs RPC which works like a dumb radio requiring external ESP ZBOSS 3.0 libraries?

https://components.espressif.com/component/espressif/esp-zboss-lib

"This test code shows how to configure Zigbee rcp (radio co-processor) device. Rcp doesn't function alone, it needs to work together with Zigbee gateway (see esp_zigbee_gateway example)"

"After rcp starts up, it will send its own MAC ieee address and Zigbee stack version number to the Zigbee gateway and start working together with Zigbee gateway via UART communication"

ESP32-H2 has apparently now also already been certified as a “Zigbee Compliant Platform” by CSA:

https://www.espressif.com/en/news/ESP32-H2_Thread_and_Zigbee_certified

https://www.espressif.com/sites/default/files/ESP32-H2%20Zigbee%20Compliant%20Platform%20Certification.pdf

Type of Device: Zigbee Compliant Platform
Zigbee PRO Feature Set (2017)
Manufacturer: Espressif Systems (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.
Model Identification: ESP32-H2
Firmware Version: V1.0
Hardware Version: V1.0
Certification Date: October 20, 2021
Certification ID Number: ZIG21030ZCP27315-24

PS: ESP32-H2 has also passed "Thread Certified Component” certification and will surely also be prioritizing Matter certification:

https://youtu.be/bS9Ch7k_GK0

PPS: They also say Espressif’s IoT Development Framework (ESP-IDF) feature a Thread SDK and that OpenThread is now supported:

https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/tree/master/examples/openthread

[HarvsG]

@Hedda thanks for that information dump. Could I be bold and ask what the implications for esphome are? Sounds like many of the software stacks are already quite mature. Do you think that the team have enough to work with or do they need the SDK first?

[Hedda]

FYI, ESP-IDF (Espressif IoT Development Framework) look to now have posted an OpenThread RCP (Radio Co-Processor) example:

https://github.com/espressif/esp-idf/tree/master/examples/openthread/ot_rcp

I think that is needed for ESPHome to support OpenThread and Matter over Thread on ESP32-H2 with its IEEE 802.15.4 radio?

https://www.espressif.com/en/news/ESP32_H2

At least if that could be built so firmware provides OpenThread RCP (Radio Co-Processor) mode with SPI interface over the Spinel protocol (spinel+hdlc+uart serial protocol) and tunnel that serial stream to agners OTBR addon (OpenThread Border Router add-on via OpenThread adapter in RCP mode) from Home Assistant addons-development repository for testing Thread/Matter support inside Home Assistant:

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/chip-matter-support-including-thread/305633/88

https://github.com/home-assistant/addons-development/tree/master/openthread_border_router

https://github.com/openthread/ot-br-posix/

https://openthread.io/platforms/co-processor

https://github.com/agners

https://community.home-assistant.io/u/agners/summary

Matter upstream SDK also has support for ESP32 (but not sure if that is only over WiFi?):

https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip/tree/master/examples/lighting-app/esp32

The main reason for OpenThread RCP (Radio Co-Processor) support in an "RPC" firmware with OTBR (OpenThread Border Router) support will make ESP32-H2 with its IEEE 802.15.4 radio compatible with the upcoming Thread stack / IEEE 802.15.4 radio based "Matter" (Project CHIP / Connected Home over IP) devices if used in Home Assistant with their other add-ons for the that is also in development. That addon by agners requires that the IEEE 802.15.4 radio have a OpenThread firmware in "RPC" mode instead of the no traditional "NCP" mode of OpenThread stack running on the IEEE 802.15.4 radio:

https://github.com/home-assistant/addons-development/tree/master/chip_controller_repl

https://github.com/home-assistant/addons-development/tree/master/chip_tool

https://github.com/project-chip/connectedhomeip

https://buildwithmatter.com

https://csa-iot.org/all-solutions/matter/

Also having optional OpenThread "NCP" border router firmware would allow users to alternatively use other existing OpenThread applications that use "NCP" mode instead of the newer "RPC" mode which require additional component running on the host. Ex:

https://github.com/openthread/wpantund

Note that as far as I read so far agners has only worked with Silicon Labs based adapter with OpenThread "RPC" firmware for Thread / EEE 802.15.4 radio based Matter (as well as ESP32-C3 based devkit for Matter over WiFi) and that is only because it is a Silabs EFR32MG21 chip based adapter that will ship inside the official Home Assistant Yellow (formerly Home Assistant Amber) hardware as well as the upcoming official Home Assistant SkyConnect USB Stick dongle:

zigpy/zigpy#894

https://github.com/home-assistant/addons-development/tree/master/silabs-multiprotocol

https://www.home-assistant.io/blog/2021/09/13/home-assistant-yellow/

https://www.crowdsupply.com/nabu-casa/home-assistant-yellow

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/home-assistant-skyconnect-usb-stick-announced-will-be-compatible-with-both-zigbee-and-thread-including-matter-chip-over-thread/433594