Please support multiple coordinators

[PaulKlumpp]

I do use Home Assistant at my place with a USB dongle.
I can manage (and actually do) another Zigbee network at another house with a Smlight SLZB-06..
Because ZHA can't also add the SLZB-06 coordinator, I needed to use the Zigbee2MQTT HA Add-On which connects to the SLZB-06 over a socket.

I wish I would not need Zigbee2MQTT. 😌 I wish ZHA was able to add another Coordinator using a socket.

Edit: To clarify my use case:

The house (house 2) of my mother is 50 km away. Our IP-networks are connected with a VPN. My mother is old and I want to check on her, that she is walking by a motion sensors once a day.

But, I do not want to install a Home Assistant machine in her house. I only want to have a Zigbee Coordinator in her house.

My current solution: The SLZB-06 is a Zigbee Coordinator (as a machine) that is TCP/IP addressable using a socket (Zigbee2MQTT can do that, see: https://smlight.tech/manual/slzb-06/guide/installation/#zigbee2mqtt-setup). So I run Zigbee2MQTT alongside my Home Assistant (house 1) which can address the SLZB-06 (house 2).

What I rather want:

I want to use only one Home Assistant with the ZHA integration. As far as I know, ZHA uses this zha library.

I do not want to work around the ZHA limitation (which is only supporting one coordinator) by adding Zigbee2MQTT as Add-On.

[Hedda]

Can you maybe explain how and why you want the the zha library (i.e. the platform-indepenent backend framework) and/or Home Assistant's ZHA integration (i.e. the frontend Zigbee gateway implementation) to implement support for multiple Zigbee Coordinator radio adapters?

That is, what is the goal that you actually want to achieve? Please understand that in theory it would be technically possible to multiple Zigbee Coordinator radio adapters in many different ways depending on what you actually want to achieve from an end-users perspective.

Note! Be aware that at least in the Zigbee 3.0 specification the hardcoded limitations are that there can only be one Zigbee Coordinator per Zigbee network, (the current protocol standard only allows for a single Zigbee Coordinator per Zigbee network).

Here below are for example a couple of possible solutions that could probably be achieved (but question is if they should be?):

---

• Option 1: Add support to Home Assistant to run more than one instance of the ZHA integration via a single integration.
  • What is needed to make that happen?: See the experimental work dmulcahey done around ZHA WebSocket Server ("ZHAWS"). Read:
    • zigpy project roadmap for ZHA WebSocket Server ("ZHAWS") and matching ZHA WS addon + client integration and external/stand-alone ZHA Gateway WebSocket Server application? zigpy#1207
      and see experimental pull request:
    • [DO NOT MERGE] Add web socket server #271
  • Pros: From an end-users perspective this would allow you to setup several instances of the ZHA integration](https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha), each of which will need to use its own Zigbee Coordinator radio adapter, meaning that it would enable you could have a Zigbee network in different areas/locations that are reachable with standard Zigbee signals (such as for example if you have a detatched building/construction somewhere farther away on you property).
  • Cons: This would create its own totally separated Zigbee network on Zigbee Coordianor radio adapter. Meaning that you do not get the benefit of using the same devices in a single Zigbee network mesh for extended range/coverage, and you can not use Zigbee groups or Zigbee bindings which means that all automations needs to go via the automation engine in Home Assistant.
  • Notes: The option of allowing multiple instances is one of the main benefits of Zigbee2MQTT when compared to the ZHA integration.

---

• Option 2: Add support to for the zha library (i.e. the platform-indepenent backend framework) use multiple Zigbee Coordinator adapters and run a seperate Zigbee network on each Zigbee Coordinator.
  • Pros: This might be the best approach needed to implement native support in the zha library for the new ”Suzi” (Sub-GHz Zigbee feature) if a Suzi network now require it to be is own Zigbee PAN (Private Area Network) for the Sub-GHz fequency band?
    • [REQUEST] ”Suzi” - Sub-GHz Zigbee feature #582
  • Cons: Increases the compexity of the zha library if it needs to be able to support multiple cuncurrent Zigbee networks.

---

• Option 3: Simply duplicate the zha component in Home Assistant's core and that way allow Home Assistant to run more than one instance of the ZHA integration via a multiple integrations (meaning you would see zha1, zha2, etc. in the frontend).
  • Pros: Quick workaround to get around the limitation,
  • Cons: Dirty solution since probably require duplication of components in Home Assistant's core?