After updating my Dongle M to v1.0.6 Beta, all previous stability issues have disappeared. Since installing the update yesterday, I have had zero ZHA dropouts, no UART over TCP errors, and no log warnings. Before this firmware, the coordinator caused severe system wide instability in Home Assistant OS:
Supervisor would freeze or restart
unrelated services (BLE, Matter) would fail or become unresponsive
ZHA produced constant errors and devices randomly dropped
the whole system behaved as if under heavy load or I/O starvation
After updating to v1.0.6 Beta:
ping RTT dropped from ~100 ms to ~10 ms (really!)
UART over TCP forwarding is finally stable
no packet loss, no retries, no corrupted frames
Supervisor and all other services remain fully stable
the entire HA system runs smoothly for the first time, doesn’t produce error logs
This firmware is a massive improvement and completely resolves the issues I occasionally had since switching to Wi Fi mode. Great work — this version is finally reliable enough for real Zigbee networks and should be promoted to stable.
Yes! The instability issue with Dongle-M is what troubles me more than a month. It takes me and my colleagues tremendous efforts to resolve these bugs. I don’t even have time to visit eWeLink forum during this period.
Now I can finally take a break. Don’t get me wrong. There are still minor bugs to be fixed and lots of improvements to be made. We will keep working after Chinese Spring Festival. Many of my colleagues will be taking a 9 to 14 day vacation soon.
Yes, I noticed you completely vanished from here for a while. But now you’ll finally get a chance for some well‑deserved rest. Your spring holidays are pretty nice, I have to admit. We don’t have it that good unless the official days off happen to collide with a weekend.
The important thing is that you managed to defeat the main WiFi issue. With that dongle you actually had three fallback options anyway, and worst case you could always limp along over USB. But yeah, those random dropouts were maddening. Sometimes days of peace, sometimes a whole circus of events in a single afternoon. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s one of Sonoff’s best products. It’s been a few days since installing the beta and not a single hiccup. I assume eWeLink had a hand in that, right?
Meanwhile, I made a few important changes to my home automation setup. First of all, I sent the RPi 4B into retirement and replaced it with a GMKtec NucBox G3 with an Intel N100. At first I planned to move to an RPi 5, but once I calculated the cost of a decent case and an NVMe HAT, it became obvious it made no sense. Then I stumbled upon a used mini‑PC offer and for surprisingly little money I got something the RPi 5 simply can’t compete with. Despite being used, the device looks brand new. Original packaging, and inside a manual in Chinese — because the previous owner bought it on Ali last year.
On top of that, I finally moved away from the eWeLink platform and parted ways with the NSPP. Not that I don’t appreciate your efforts, but the broken TRVZB panel integration (Zigbee stack) drove me up the wall — especially when we had –15°C outside at night. I migrated all TRVZB valves to HA and discovered the Better Thermostat integration. Works perfectly, moving all the valve logic into HA. I replaced the NSPP data display with an Ulanzi TC001 running AWTRIX custom firmware. So far I’m happy with the decision. The panel went to a young enthusiast — let the kid learn something
Wishing you a relaxing break and a genuinely pleasant holiday season
