How to Set Up the Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus for Home Assistant

Want to connect Zigbee sensors, lights, and switches to Home Assistant without relying on cloud services? The Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus makes it incredibly simple to build a fast, private, and reliable Zigbee network — all controlled locally from your Home Assistant setup. It is almost as easy as plug and play. 

What You’ll Need

• Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus

• A device running Home Assistant OS (Raspberry Pi, NUC, or mini-PC)

• (Optional) USB 2.0 extension cable — improves signal and reduces interference

• Home Assistant ZHA integration (built-in) or Zigbee2MQTT add-on

Step 1 — Plug in the Dongle

Insert the dongle into an available USB port on your Home Assistant device.

Tip: If using a Raspberry Pi, connect the dongle via a short USB extension cable to move it away from the Pi’s Wi-Fi antenna.

Step 2 — Setting up ZHA (Zigbee Home Automation)

ZHA is built directly into Home Assistant and is the fastest setup option.

1. Go to Settings → Devices & Services → Add Integration → Zigbee Home Automation

2. Select the detected serial port (e.g. /dev/ttyUSB0)

3. Press set up automatically and wait for initialisation. Once the device has created give it a name and room, then press finish.                                                                 

4. This can appear in the discovered devices, if it does simply click add and follow the steps.  

You can also set this up via Zigbee2MQTT, which can be installed via the Add-on Store.

Step 3 — Pair Your Devices

Your integration is now active, simply start your Zigbee devices ( put them in pairing mode if applicable), they should now appear automatically and can be added through:

• ZHA: Settings → Devices & Services → Zigbee → “Add Device”

FAQ

Q: Can I use multiple Zigbee dongles?
A: Home Assistant can only run one Zigbee network per integration, but you can run multiple with different adapters if configured properly (e.g. one for ZHA and one for Zigbee2MQTT).

Q: Does this dongle work with other systems like Homebridge or Zigbee2MQTT standalone?
A: Yes — it’s compatible with Zigbee2MQTT, ioBroker, openHAB, and other Zigbee gateways using the EZSP protocol.

Q: Do I need to flash custom firmware?
A: Not for Home Assistant — the preloaded firmware works out of the box. Only flash if you need experimental features or updates.