The Sundarban
Published Feb 26, 2026, 8:15 AM EST
Adam has a stage in Engineering and has a life-long hobby in technology. He has been writing for over a decade for diversified print and online publications, with a highlight on consumer tech. He joined How-To Geek in 2024 while working at Pocket-lint.
In addition to being a long-term fan of Apple merchandise, he additionally has a strong hobby in dapper home tech, running a Dwelling Assistant server at home to automate all his dapper home devices. He believes that the wonderful dapper home must work with minimal interaction from the person, with automations running as if by magic rather than requiring you to push buttons on a control panel. Yow will discover more of his work on Muck Rack.
Zigbee2MQTT is one of the most current strategies to permit Zigbee devices to converse with Dwelling Assistant. When Zigbee2MQTT is working neatly, you mostly won’t even compare it be there, but when it stops working, your Zigbee devices successfully disappear from Dwelling Assistant. Running Zigbee2MQTT on a separate instrument from your Dwelling Assistant server can resolve a range of common issues.
Zigbee2MQTT dies when your host reboots
One of the greatest problems with running Zigbee2MQTT alongside Dwelling Assistant on the same instrument is that when your host instrument goes down, so does Zigbee2MQTT. Since add-ons (now apps) flee as separate companies from Dwelling Assistant Core, if you restart Dwelling Assistant, rather than rebooting the host instrument, Zigbee2MQTT must sustain running in the background. On the other hand, if you reboot the instrument that Dwelling Assistant is running on, this will trigger Zigbee2MQTT to discontinue running, too.
Credit: Bertel King / How-To Geek
Zigbee2MQTT stopping isn’t always the finish of the world. For transient outages, your Zigbee community must reach support online reasonably painlessly once Dwelling Assistant and the Zigbee2MQTT add-on originate running again. Some battery-powered devices can also rob a petite bit longer to characterize support in, as they will commonly sleep to preserve battery energy, but in many conditions, things will recover interior a brief time.
Once in some time, nonetheless, things don’t always streak to space. A total lot of Dwelling Assistant users have reported issues with Zigbee2MQTT not restarting when the Dwelling Assistant server is rebooted. Even with Zigbee2MQTT station to start on boot, it would not restart, and Dwelling Assistant is unable to converse with Zigbee devices till the add-on is manually restarted.
Running Zigbee2MQTT on a loads of instrument, reminiscent of a Raspberry Pi, makes this powerful much less of an issue. Despite the indisputable truth that it be important to reboot your Dwelling Assistant server, Zigbee2MQTT will sustain running on your other instrument. When Dwelling Assistant comes support up, it must reconnect to the MQTT broker once it be on hand, and your Zigbee entities must snappy recover, since Zigbee2MQTT never stopped running.
Separating Zigbee2MQTT makes troubleshooting more straightforward
Another help of transferring Zigbee2MQTT to another instrument is that it makes it more at once glaring where the concern lies when something goes wrong. While you are running Zigbee2MQTT alongside Dwelling Assistant, and your Zigbee devices descend off the system, it be not easy to advise whether Dwelling Assistant or Zigbee2MQTT is the concern.
Credit: Adam Davidson / How-To Geek
If Zigbee2MQTT is on a loads of instrument, then it makes things powerful more effective. If Dwelling Assistant is working beautiful but your Zigbee devices disappear, it narrows the trigger all the map down to the MQTT broker or to Zigbee2MQTT itself.
It additionally map that you will be in a position to reboot your Dwelling Assistant server without affecting Zigbee2MQTT, and vice versa. While you are updating the Dwelling Assistant Working System (HAOS), as an illustration, you’ll wish to reboot the instrument you are running it on to entire the update. With Zigbee2MQTT running on a separate instrument, you will be in a position to enact so without caring about your Zigbee community going down.
You may per chance well per chance optimize your coordinator placement
One of the considerable advantages of running Zigbee2MQTT on a separate instrument is that it lets you discover your Zigbee coordinator in the optimal location. While you are running Zigbee2MQTT on the same instrument as Dwelling Assistant, you are restricted to having your Zigbee coordinator located wherever your Dwelling Assistant server is. This can also not always be the most attention-grabbing location for connecting to the Zigbee devices for the duration of your home.
Credit: Dwelling Assistant
While you flee Zigbee2MQTT on a instrument reminiscent of a Raspberry Pi, you will be in a position to station it nearly any place spherical your home. It’s most reasonable to then be in a position to hunt down the most attention-grabbing location for ensuring that every one of your Zigbee devices have a actual connection.
It may per chance well actually actually additionally assist to transfer your Zigbee coordinator a ways from sources of interference, reminiscent of metal racks or at the support of thick partitions. You may per chance well per chance quiet sustain your Dwelling Assistant server where it be most convenient, reminiscent of stop to your router or your UPS, without having to sustain your Zigbee coordinator in the same location, too.
No USB passthrough nightmares
While you are running Dwelling Assistant in a virtual machine or container, connecting to the Zigbee coordinator can also additionally be problematic. You wish to utilize USB passthrough to permit the virtual environment where your application lives to rep proper of entry to the USB port of your instrument. In theory, this mustn’t trigger too many problems.
Credit: Andrew Heinzman/How-To Geek
There are quite loads of strategies that things can streak wrong, nonetheless. Your host can also rep confused about the ID of loads of connected devices, or energy management components can also save ports to sleep when they don’t seem busy, robbing Dwelling Assistant of rep proper of entry to to the Zigbee coordinator. While you reboot the host instrument, the VM can also originate up sooner than the USB hardware is ready, and things can crumple.
Running Zigbee2MQTT on a devoted instrument can assist to avoid losing away with these USB passthrough issues.
