Since the end of last year, ITEAD has introduced several Zigbee Sonoff products such as Sonoff Basic R3 Zigbee, but so far customers had to rely on third-party hardware for the gateway, and they very recently launched a CC2531 Zigbee USB dongle to ease the task.
But now the company’s just-launched Sonoff ZBBridge WiFi to Zigbee gateway allows people to control compatible Zigbee devices using eWelink mobile app.
Sonoff ZBBridge specifications:
- Wireless Connectivity – 2.4 GHz 802.11b/g/n WiFi 4 and Zigbee 3.0
- Power Input – 5V/1A
- Dimensions – 62 x 62 x 20 mm (PC V0)
- Weight – 35 grams
- Temperature Range – -10 to 40°C
The gateway is working with BASICZBR3 Smart Switch, S31 Lite zb Smart Plug, and the upcoming SNZB-01 Wireless Switch, SNZB-02 Temperature & humidity sensor, SNZB-03 motion sensor, and SNZB-04 wireless door/window sensor. It will also work with other smart devices certified by the ZigBee Alliance.
We don’t have many technical details from the product page, but the company recently sent a review sample to NotEnoughTECH and he opened the device…
We can see WiFi connectivity is handled by ESP8266 WiFI chip and Zigbee 3.0 by Silicon Labs EFR32MG21 Gecko Series 2 Cortex-M33 chip supporting multiprotocol, Zigbee, Thread, and Bluetooth mesh networking. So potentially, makers could potentially enable other protocols in the gateway. Tasmota got support for Zigbee recently, but the ESP8266 open-source firmware won’t be compatible with Sonoff ZBBridge because the implementation currently relies on TI CC2530 chip. I’ve mostly heard good things about Energy Micro (Now Silicon Labs) Gecko MCUs from developers, so it’s not impossible it gets added to Tasmota. [Update: See the discussion about that in comments]
The eWelink app has gone through a redesign recently, and the developers plan to offer free and paid plans meaning people with many devices or users may soon be asked to paid to use the app.
The free version won’t support IFTT, device passwords, nor give access to devices from PC or Apple Watch.
If you’d like to purchase Sonoff ZBBridge WiFi to Zigbee gateway, you can do so on their website for $16.90 plus shipping. A complete kit may soon be offered with various Zigbee sensors from the company once those become available.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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