Smlight SLZB-MR1 is an innovative dongle with 2 built-in technologies, Zigbee and Matter Over Thread, that allows you to have a smart home with the best of both worlds.
Why is Smlight SLZB MR1 priced like that?
SLZB-MR1 has a higher price than other dongles that are in USB format as this model is over Ethernet, integrates a Web interface, 2 Zigbee and Matter Over Thread technologies (with CC2652P7 and EFR32MG21 chipsets) and supports POE power supply.
Advantages and disadvantages of SLZB-MR1
Advantages
- Zigbee 3.0technology: If you are looking to unify your smart home, Zigbee technology is an excellent bet with an infinite number of brands on the market.
- Matter Over Thread Technology: It also integrates a second chipset that you can use for Matter Over Thread, the new home automation standard that unifies all ecosystems.
- Coordinator or Router: You can choose 2 Zigbee 3.0 modes (Coordinator or Router).
- Flexibility: You can use SLZB-MR1 as a Zigbee 3.0 dongle to LAN, WiFi or USB.
- POE support: You can power your SLZB-MR1 dongle via PoE or Type-C. Supports 802.3af PoE standard.
- Compatibility: This Smlight Zigbee dongle is compatible with Zigbee2Mqtt and ZHA so you can use it with Home Assistant.
Disadvantages
- Size: The SLZB-MR1 dongle takes up space so you need to take this into account.
Smlight SLZB-MR1 user tutorial
If you are starting your smart home project, you may have doubts when it comes to choosing smart devices. Zigbee is a recognised technology used by an infinite number of brands, and is currently a reference in the smart home market.
But Matter is the new promise of unifying all ecosystems such as Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Home Assistant and more, being able to control Matter devices with all these ecosystems.
And these Matter devices typically use WIFI or Thread technologies.
So which should I choose: Zigbee or Matter?
If you want to bet on the present… and on the future, Smlight, a Ukrainian company that revolutionises this market with innovative products, has just presented a new innovation: a dongle called SLZB-MR1 that integrates 2 chipsets:
EFR32MG21 and CC2652P7.
These 2 chipsets will allow the use of 2 technologies: Zigbee and Thread for Matter.
So it can be your choice for a smart home with both Zigbee and Matter over Thread devices and today we’re going to find out how this bi-tech dongle works.
Technical details of the SLZB-MR1 dongle
To start with, if we open the packaging, we find this Smlight SLZB-MR1 dongle.
We also have a ruler where the markers come.
And two screws, an Allen key and stickers to fix this dongle.
Since it integrates 2 chipsets, EFR32MG21 and CC2652P7, we have 2 rotating antennas that we can orientate to cover areas strategically.
Generally, if we have a home automation hub such as Home Assistant Green, to add a technology, either Zigbee or Thread, we add a USB dongle compatible with one of these technologies to the USB port of our home automation hub.
This USB dongle allows us to add this technology to our home automation hub.
And therefore be able to control smart devices that communicate with this technology, be it Zigbee or Thread.
And Smlight offers these types of USB dongles that are inexpensive and easy to install.
But there are also revolutionary dongles that work via Ethernet, such as the SZLB-MR1 and other dongles from Smlight.
We have already seen the technical details of these Zigbee Smlight dongles that work over Ethernet.
And with a power supply that we can choose between POE or USB-C, which gives us great flexibility when creating our home automation installation.
For example, if you have your home automation hub installed in a technical room or garage and this hub is far away from your Zigbee devices, you may have bad communications because of the distance if you have a Zigbee dongle connected via USB.
But with Smlight, you can connect an Ethernet dongle in a strategic area and thus cover this area correctly and control Zigbee devices without difficulty.
And speaking of Zigbee dongles, some can be used as Matter over Thread dongles, such as the Home Assistant ZBT-1 dongle, which you can change its mode of use at any time.
So, thanks to this kind of dongle, you can use Zigbee technology or Thread technology for Matter, but now, Smlight proposes a new idea which is to integrate 2 chipsets to use both Zigbee and Matter over Thread simultaneously.
And why 2 different chipsets: Silicon Labs’ EFR32MG21 and Texas Instrument’s CC2652P7?
The CC2652 chipset tends to have a better reputation for stability in use with Zigbee2mqtt, being the first coordinators to be used with this platform.
And for Matter over Thread, EFR32MG21 chipsets tend to have a better reputation for stability.
So this combination is a good bet for your mixed Zigbee and Thread installation, knowing that you can choose which chipset to use for which technology.
How to install Smlight SZLB-MR1 dongle
To install the Smlight dongle, the first thing you need to do is to set up its 2 rotating antennas.
Now, you can connect your Smlight dongle via Ethernet the first time to your router with an Ethernet cable which is not included.
You can, later on, from the local Smlight interface, activate a WIFI connection to use this dongle, but it is recommended to have an Ethernet connection if you have this possibility to have the best reliability.
To connect it to the power supply, you can choose a plug with a USB-C cable which is not included and which you can connect to the USB-C port of the dongle.
Or, if you have a POE port on your router, you can choose this option to avoid using an additional socket.
A final way to connect the dongle at both the communication and power supply level is directly with a USB-C to USB cable, connecting the USB-C port of the dongle to the USB port of your home automation hub, but of course this is not the practical method.
For this, there are Zigbee and Matter Thread dongles in small formats that connect directly via USB to your home automation hub.
Ready, after a few seconds, we can see LED indicators on my dongle indicating activity and that we are going to be able to configure and use it.
How to configure this Smlight dongle
From your computer, in a web browser, type http://slzb-mr1.local/ and it will give you access to the interface of your dongle with its different available settings.
For this content we will focus on how to use Zigbee and Thread technologies, but I recommend you to see the detailed documentation on the Smlight website.
To start with, under “Panel”, we can see general information about our dongle such as the currently configured technology on each chipset and the current firmware versions.
In “Mode” is where we are going to be able to define the technology of each chipset. In my example, I am going to configure “Matter over Thread” on my EFR32MG21 chipset and Zigbee for my CC2652P7 chipset.
Now, if we go to “Settings and tools” and “Firmware update”, we can check the main firmware versions of the dongle. In my example, I have version v2.6.8.dev26.
And we can also check firmware versions of each chipset, for my Matter-Over-Thread chipset I have the version 20241105.
And for the CC2652P7 chipset I have the version 20250321. You can evaluate which firmware version you need for your use and use the right one.
Now, if we go to “Z2M and ZHA”, we have the configuration information of the dongle with Zigbee2mqtt, which is very useful to copy and paste into Zigbee2mqtt.
But let’s replace the port and baudrate that correspond to the EFR32MG21 chipset with the port and baudrate of the CC2652P7 chipset, which are indicated just below and which correspond to the good chipset I’m going to use in my example for Zigbee technology. And we also need to replace “ember” with “zstack” when using the CC2652P7 chipset for Zigbee2mqtt.
It should be noted that if we had used the EFR32MG21 chipset for Zigbee2mqtt, we would have copied all the default information.
How to use this dongle with Zigbee2mqtt
With this information copied, I go to the Home Assistant interface and go to “Settings”, “Add-ons”.
And in the Zigbee2Mqtt add-on.
It is worth noting that it already had Zigbee2mqtt previously installed, an open source software for integrating a wide variety of smart devices using Zigbee technology.
In Zigbee2mqtt, we go to the “Configuration” tab.
At the top right, click on the 3 dots icon and click on “Edit in Yaml”.
And now, we paste the information previously copied from the Smlight interface corresponding to my CC2652P7 chipset.
Hit “Save” and hit “Restart” or go to “Information” and hit “Start”, Zigbee2mqtt should launch correctly.
And you can check it from the “Registration” tab.
Going back to the “Information” tab, if Zigbee2mqtt is correctly configured, you should be able to open its web interface after a few seconds when you have started the Zigbee2mqtt add-on. If this is not the case, you should verify that you have correctly copied your chipset information into the Smlight interface and also verify that you have the correct firmware versions of both Zigbee2mqtt and your Smlight dongle.
By having access to the Zigbee2mqtt interface, it is possible to include our Zigbee devices to our network.
At this point, I need to put each Zigbee device into inclusion mode.
That’s it, I have my first Zigbee device linked and the process is similar for each device.
Now, we will be able to control these devices from anywhere in the world on our phone.
How to use this dongle for Matter Over Thread
Now, let’s see how to use this dongle for Matter Over Thread.
We have also discovered how to configure Matter with Home Assistant from scratch, both with WIFI and Thread technology.
In this case, we are going to use this Thread technology thanks to our dongle and the EFR32MG21 chipset that we have previously configured in “Matter Over Thread” mode from its interface.
From the Home Assistant interface, go to “Settings” and “Add-ons”.
Let’s go to “Accessories shop”.
Look for the “OpenThread Border Router” add-on.
Click on “Install”.
Once installed, go to “Configuration”. We must verify that the “Baudrate” corresponds to the one we have configured in the Smlight interface.
We must deselect “Hardware flow control” and “Automatically flash firmware”.
And we must activate “Show unused optional configuration options”.
Now, in “Network Device”, we are going to indicate the IP address and port of our Smlight dongle.
In the Smlight interface, we have this IP address under “Dashboard”.
And in “Z2M and ZHA” we have the port of our EFR32MG21 chipset.
Fill in this information under “Network Device”.
And finally, in “Device”, we must select a random port, even if we do not have any device connected by USB, in our case it is by Ethernet, but it is necessary to be able to save our configuration.
Click on “Save”.
And now, we can “Start” our OpenThread Border Router add-on.
And follow the installation in the “Registration” tab.
Now, go to “Settings”, “Devices and services”.
“Add integration” and look for “Matter”.
Leave the checkbox “Use the official Matter Server supervisor add-on” ticked and click “Submit”.
Now we go to “Settings” and “Add-ons”.
Access the “Matter Server” add-on.
And click on “Start”.
Go back to “Settings” and “Devices and services”.
Both “Thread” and “Open Thread Border Router” should be automatically detected and you can simply click on their “Add” button.
In the case of “Thread”, you must access its configuration.
And make sure you have OpenThread Border Router as your preferred network. If not, click on the 3 dots to the right of OpenThread Border Router and select “Add to preferred network”.
And in this favourite network, you must click again on the 3 dots on the right and select “Used for Android + IOS credentials”.
It is now recommended to restart your Home Assistant hub.
And from your phone, as we have seen in other Matter content with Home Assistant, you must have both the Home Assistant App and the version of your phone updated and you must have Bluetooth activated and be connected to the same WIFI network.
Now, go to “Settings”.
“Devices and services”.
And “Thread”.
You must click on “Configure”.
And “Send credentials to Phone” allowing you to share identification information with your phone.
And now, we can add different Matter Thread devices from our phone. To do this, go to the “Settings” tab.
“Devices and services”.
“Add integration”.
And “Add Matter device”.
We select the option “No. It’s new” if we do not use our Matter device in another controller.
And scan the QR code on our Matter device found in the instruction manual.
Or directly on the product.
That’s it, now we have our Matter Thread device connected to Home Assistant and we can simply repeat the same steps to integrate each device.
It should be noted that there are WIFI Matter devices that do not require the use of this Smlight dongle.
But in this content we have discovered how to use both Zigbee and Thread technologies for Matter thanks to this innovative dongle.
In short, this Smlight dongle, being a 2 for 1 to take advantage of 2 technologies, Zigbee and Thread, and working over Ethernet, is a very interesting option for your smart home project.
Generally purchased together
Buy your Zigbee dongle and Thread SLZB-MR1
Graduated with a Higher Technician’s Certificate in Home Automation, a Professional Bachelor’s degree in E-commerce and Digital Marketing, and a Master’s degree in SEO, I have been working since 2013 in a home automation e-commerce company called Domadoo, where I have the opportunity to test a large number of the popular Smart Home products on the market.