Overview

This comprehensive guide provides step-by-step technical instructions to successfully connect and map a USB Zigbee coordinator from a Proxmox VE host to a Home Assistant OS (HAOS) Virtual Machine. It addresses critical hardware best practices to prevent signal interference, covers the implementation of persistent USB passthrough using Vendor/Device IDs, and outlines the final configuration steps using the ‘Devices Discovered..

Hardware / Requirements

  • Zigbee dongle: You should use a shielded USB 2.0 extension cable of at least 1 meter (3.3 feet)

🌐 Prerequisite: Before proceeding with the steps below, you must have Proxmox VE installed and fully optimized on your Mini PC. If you haven’t set up your hypervisor yet, please follow my step-by-step guide: Proxmox VE Installation.

Procedure

Step 1: Configure USB Passthrough in Proxmox VE

The best practice in Proxmox is to map the device by its Vendor/Device ID. This ensures that even if you move the dongle to a different physical USB port, the VM will still recognize it.

  1. Log into your Proxmox VE web UI.
  2. In the left sidebar menu, select your Home Assistant VM.
  3. Navigate to the Hardware tab.
  4. Click Add at the top and select USB Device.
  5. In the pop-up window:
    • Select the Use Vendor/Device ID option.
    • Open the dropdown list and select your Zigbee dongle.
  6. Click Add.
  7. click Reboot in the top right corner of the Proxmox UI. Note: Simply restarting Home Assistant from its internal dashboard is not enough.

Step 2: Verify the Dongle inside Home Assistant

  1. Open your Home Assistant dashboard.
  2. Go to Devices discovered. 3.Select the Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus V2 option.
  3. Click Submit
  4. Select the Set up automatically(recommended) option.
  5. Choose any name and area you prefer, then click Finish