busware.de ESP32 (ZBOSS) Coordinator

A highly optimized ZBOSS NCP Serial Protocol implementation for ESP32-C6/H2 modules, tailored specifically for Zigbee2MQTT.

This firmware transforms any cheap, standard ESP32-C6 development board into an enterprise-grade Zigbee Coordinator that rivals or exceeds established commercial adapters.

Protocol specification

Why ESP32-C6? (Competitive Positioning)

The ESP32-C6 disrupts the traditional Zigbee Coordinator market (dominated by Texas Instruments Z-Stack and Silicon Labs EZSP) by offering massive hardware capabilities at a fraction of the cost.

Virtually ANY ESP32-C6 board on the market (including generic $3 boards from China) works out-of-the-box as a high-end Coordinator. You do not need specialized "coordinator" dongles anymore.

🚀 Key Advantages Over the Competition

1. Massive Capacity (200 Nodes) Older chips like the TI CC2531 max out at 20-40 direct children due to tiny 8KB RAM. The ESP32-C6 boasts 512KB SRAM. This firmware is hardcoded to support 200 direct nodes natively, allowing you to build massive, star-shaped networks without memory exhaustion, directly competing with the expensive TI CC2652 range.

2. Native "Long-Range" Transmit Power (+20 dBm) While standard Zigbee chips output +5 dBm and require expensive external Power Amplifiers (the "P" in CC2652P) to reach high range, the ESP32-C6 has an integrated power amplifier on the silicon. It natively transmits at up to +20 dBm out of the box, making it a true Long-Range coordinator.

3. Native Bare-Metal Backups (New in v1.1.0) Unlike Z-Stack or EZSP, which require hundreds of lines of complex parsing scripts to extract individual network keys and tables from RAM, this firmware implements a Chunked Raw NVRAM Transfer. Zigbee2MQTT can seamlessly read and restore the entire 40KB Flash memory (including frame counters, trust center keys, and routes) via standard NCP commands. You can swap a broken ESP32-C6 for a new one, hit restore, and the network will resume instantly.

4. All-in-One SoC (Wi-Fi 6 + Zigbee) Traditional network coordinators require two chips: a Zigbee radio (TI/SiLabs) and a Wi-Fi bridge (ESP32). The ESP32-C6 has both radios built into a single chip, drastically reducing hardware complexity for networked gateways.

5. Modern ZBOSS Stack The commercial, highly-certified ZBOSS stack provides an extremely robust alternative to the often complex and legacy-burdened EZSP protocol.

Recent Fixes & Improvements (v1.1.0)

This project is an actively maintained, heavily optimized evolution of the original esp-coordinator.

• Native NVRAM Backup & Restore: Complete firmware-side implementation of custom NCP Commands 0x0099 and 0x009A, supporting chunked Z2M backups.
• NVRAM Persistence Fix: Coordinator accurately resumes its network from NVRAM on boot, maintaining pairings and frame counters across restarts.
• Synchronous NCP Reset Fix: Reset acknowledgments (ACKs) are accurately sent back to the host before reboot, preventing Zigbee2MQTT handshake timeouts.
• Manufacturer Code Workaround: ZDO_SET_NODE_DESC_MANUF_CODE implementation allows Z2M to emulate the manufacturer code dynamically.
• Network Scaling: Tables and memory dynamically optimized for 200 nodes.
• Dynamic TX Power: Supports dynamic adjustment of the transmission power up to 20 dBm.
• Permit Join Handling: Added full support for the NWK_PERMIT_JOINING (0x0404) command.
• Modern ZBOSS SDK: Fully ported to ZBOSS SDK v1.6.x.

Zigbee2MQTT Integration & Hardware Migration

While this coordinator works perfectly with the standard Zigbee2MQTT release, we highly recommend using our customized Docker image (ghcr.io/tostmann/zigbee2mqtt-esp32:latest).

Our custom image unlocks Native NVRAM Snapshots, allowing Zigbee2MQTT to automatically stream the ESP32's complete NVRAM over the serial protocol. This means if your hardware breaks, you can just plug in a new ESP32 and Z2M will automatically transfer your latest network state (including frame counters) to the new chip without having to re-pair any devices.

👉 Read the full Zigbee2MQTT Setup & Migration Guide

Configuration Example (zigbee2mqtt)

Use the stable JTAG USB serial port in your configuration.yaml and configure the transmit power to fully utilize the ESP32-C6 amplifier:

serial:
  port: /dev/serial/by-id/usb-Espressif_USB_JTAG_serial_debug_unit_...
  adapter: zboss
advanced:
  transmit_power: 20

Flashing Instructions (Web Installer & CLI)

1. Web Installer (Recommended)

You can flash the firmware directly from your browser using our Web Serial Flasher tool. This is the easiest method and requires no software installation.

👉 Launch ESP-Coordinator Web Flasher

(Supported Browsers: Chrome, Edge, Opera)

2. Manual CLI Flashing

Alternatively, you can flash the provided factory binary directly to the 0x0 offset of your ESP32-C6. This single binary includes the bootloader, partition table, and the app.

esptool.py -p /dev/ttyACM0 --chip esp32c6 write_flash 0x0 binaries/esp-coordinator-v1.1.0-esp32c6-factory.bin

3. Build from Source

You can compile the firmware yourself using the standard Espressif IoT Development Framework (ESP-IDF v5.5):

idf.py build
idf.py -p /dev/ttyACM0 flash