[REQUEST] "ESP Zigbee NCP serial-to-IP proxy SDK" example project?

[Hedda]

@chshu (and @lhespress) not sure if should post a request here or official repo at https://github.com/espressif/esp-zigbee-sdk

Duplicate/cross-posting of espressif/esp-zigbee-sdk#253

Feature request for "ESP Zigbee NCP serial proxy SDK" example similar to "Gateway Example" (Zigbee gateway with RCP firmware):

https://github.com/espressif/esp-zigbee-sdk/tree/main/examples/esp_zigbee_gateway

So please consider making and maintaining an "ESP Zigbee NCP serial proxy SDK" example design to be used with zigpy-espzb

The example should demonstrate how to build an ESP Zigbee NCP serial proxy server. Using a Wi-Fi SoC such as ESP32, ESP32-C3 or ESP32-S3 running a serial-to-network proxy relay server service (similar to "ser2net") allowing for a remote socket connection, used in combination with an 802.15.4 SoC like ESP32-H2 or ESP32-C6 running ESP Zigbee NCP to provide 802.15.4 radio via ZNSP (Zigbee NCP Serial Protocol) interface.

That is, a software solution that would make the two hardware designs from the "ESP Thread Boarder Router SDK" project usable as a network-attached remote Zigbee Coordinator NCP adapter, and as such instead offer a UART-to-IP serial streaming tunneling proxy relay solution (i.e. a remote Serial Port over TCP/IP) that works the same way as TubesZB’s Zigbee Gateways and ZigStar’s Zigbee Gateways solutions, meaning that it would present Espressif Zigbee NCP with ZNSP (Zigbee NCP Serial Protocol) interface as a remote serial communication port that can be used with Home Assistant's ZHA integration (which depends on zigpy):

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha

Such solutions based on ESP32 are commonly also referred to "Serial to TCP Bridge" and Tasmota is also a popular choice for it:

https://tasmota.github.io/docs/Serial-to-TCP-Bridge/

That is, just offering a pass-through tunneling of the UART port using a "ser2net" type Serial-to-IP proxy solution for relay connection:

• ESP32-C6/ESP32-H2 with Zigbee NCP firmware <-> ESP32-S3 with Serial-to-IP Proxy Server <-> Home Assistant's ZHA integration.

Preferably announcing the proxy service on the network via Zeroconf for automatic network discovery which is supported inside ZHA:

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#discovery-via-usb-or-zeroconf

Otherwise, the end-user has to manually configure IP address and TCP port for the socket so Zeroconf makes it very user-friendly:

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#zigate-or-sonoff-zbbridge-devices

FYI, Zeroconf (Zero-configuration networking) in the ZHA integration in turn depends on the Zeroconf integration:

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zeroconf/

PS: TubesZB Zigbee Gateways and ZigStar Zigbee Gateways solutions as just examples as there are many ESP32-based solutions for this which shows that there are real-world use cases for "ESP Zigbee NCP serial-to-IP proxy" type products:

• https://tubeszb.com/

  • https://github.com/tube0013/tube_gateways

• https://zig-star.com/projects/

  • https://github.com/mercenaruss/zigstar_gateways

• https://shop.codm.de/automation/zigbee/40/zigbee-cc2652p2-tcp-ethernet-coordinator

• https://gio-dot.github.io/Z-Bee-Duo/

• https://smlight.tech/

  • https://github.com/smlight-dev/

• https://github.com/cyijun/OpenZ3Gateway

• https://shop68536829.taobao.com/

[chshu]

Addressed here: espressif/esp-zigbee-sdk#253 (comment)

[lhespress]

@Hedda Close this beacuse of it's duplicate/cross-posting of espressif/esp-zigbee-sdk#253