SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus-E Gateway, Universal Wireless Zigbee USB Adapter with Antenna for Home Assistant, Open HAB, Zigbee2MQTT etc

For anyone starting their smart home journey, the SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus-E Gateway is a fantastic choice. This gateway has been a rock-solid performer in my own home lab setup, seamlessly integrating with my virtual machine running Home Assistant. Its impressive range and reliable performance have made it a cornerstone of my smart home ecosystem. Effortless Passthrough for Virtual Machine Integration: One of the key advantages of the Plus-E Gateway is its ease of integration with virtual machines. I was able to effortlessly pass the device through to my Home Assistant virtual machine, allowing me to manage my smart home devices directly within the platform. This simplified setup process was a major bonus, saving me time and frustration. Unmatched Range for Extensive Coverage: The Plus-E Gateway's impressive range is a game-changer. Despite my server being located in the basement, it flawlessly connects to devices on the second floor, ensuring complete coverage throughout my home. This eliminates the need for additional repeaters, saving money and streamlining your setup. Rock-Solid Performance for Stable Connectivity: Throughout my experience, the Plus-E Gateway has been a beacon of stability. I haven't encountered a single dropped connection or any other performance issues. This reliable operation provides peace of mind, knowing that my smart home devices are always under control. An Excellent Starting Point for Your Smart Home Dreams: If you're just starting your smart home journey, the SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus-E Gateway is the perfect foundation. Its ease of use, impressive range, and rock-solid performance make it a fantastic choice for anyone looking to build a reliable and future-proof smart home system. I highly recommend this gateway to anyone who wants to start automating their home and enhance their daily life. Overall, the SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus-E Gateway earns high marks for its seamless integration, impressive range, stable performance, and ease of use. It's a fantastic choice for anyone looking to take their first steps into the exciting world of smart homes.

Using Home Assistant as a Proxmox VM, it was very easy to set up and pair devices. The range is quite good and low latency for me.

've been using the Sonoff Zigbee USB Dongle Plus (ZBDongle) with Home Assistant OS running on an Intel thin client for several months, and it’s performed flawlessly as a Zigbee coordinator. Setup was completely plug-and-play. I didn’t have to flash firmware, install drivers, or tweak any settings. Home Assistant (using the ZHA integration) recognized the dongle immediately, and I was able to begin pairing devices within minutes. So far, I have 43 Zigbee devices connected through it, including a mix of brands like Innovelli, Sengled, SmartThings, IKEA, and Bosch. Everything paired without issue—no quirks, no dropped connections, no endless reboots or retries. Pairing was quick, and the network has remained completely stable. I haven’t experienced any range issues, though I do have several hardwired Zigbee switches installed around the house that help form a strong mesh. I also use a USB extension cable to position the dongle about 3 feet away from my Home Assistant box to avoid any USB interference—this is a best practice with any 2.4GHz Zigbee stick, and it likely helps ensure consistent performance. Compared to my previous experience with SmartThings and later Hubitat, the Sonoff dongle offers better transparency, responsiveness, and local control—especially in combination with Home Assistant. If you’re running Home Assistant and looking for a reliable, no-drama Zigbee coordinator, this one is hard to beat. It just works.

We upgraded our previous zigbee antenna to this one so that we could have better compatibility for connecting devices to home assistant. This antenna was SUPER simple to do that with. Literally just had to plug it in, Install the Zigbee2MQtt Addon on Home assistant and we were off and running. From start to finish took me about 10 mins. From the research I did before purchasing said this antenna was one of the best on the market and I have to concur. It has great compatibility with all devices that we've tried to migrate thus far and the stability of all of the devices has been without any hiccups. 5 Star from me. Nice job Sonoff.

I was skeptical about going Zigbee and using this Sonoff Dongle Plus-E Gateway as a coordinator for my home assistant, but I found that the best choice was to implement the Zigbee2MQTT add-on. Since the dongle is flashed as a coordinator, additional units can be configured as router or extender for Zigbee. It actually covered a much larger area that I expected to with sensors being far away, still worked. I ended up buying Zigbee smart plugs that also act as repeaters which home assistant picked up immediately. So far, it has worked flawlessly and no delays noticed.

Purchased for integrating devices into Home Assistant. Installation was seamless and I was up and running in minutes.

I wanted to use this with Home Assistant. I have the -E version with the MG21 chipset. I wanted to update the firmware to either OpenThread or the multiprotocol ZB/OT firmware. This turned into an unexpected challenge. It came with firmware so old that none of the current flashing tools would get it into flashing mode. I had to open it to use the override buttons. You have to push and hold the Boot button while plugging it in, or hold Boot while pressing Reset momentarily. Once you actually get it into flashing mode, you can use the usual tools. I used the usual darkxst web flasher. It reported old 6.x EZSP firmware while the current version is 7.x. It was easy to either update to the current EZSP firmware, or switch to either Multiprotocol or OpenThread at this point. There were no surprises. Performance wise, it has been reliable and the external antenna is quite a step up over the usual dongles or the Home Assistant Yellow that I was using it with. There is a QR code in the tiny manual in the box that has unlisted documentation links for reflashing. It's not very clear but provided the clues for me to get it to work. Do be careful to not confuse this with the -P version with a different chipset. The -E version is what you want with Home Assistant. Overall, I recommend it still in 2024, but be prepared for some hassle with flashing.

Have had it in use for a few months now and have no issues. Have it on a 10ft USB extension cord to move it away from my server and my SDR dongle. Works perfect.