Install zigbee2mqtt on a NanoPI Neo 256Mb

Yesterday I've received my NanoPi Neo with 256Mb of RAM. Such a cute and tiny board:

It has a bunch of pins too :)

Initial setup

I've started with Armbian first, but I hadn't too much luck. I've been told it was the power supply though :)

After, I've downloaded FriendlyCore from Friendly ARM, which is an Ubuntu Core 16.04 system. It's a bit out of date, but it worked out of the box.

I've logged into the machine via SSH and updated the system:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

As a bit of hardware, I've got Slaesh's CC2652RB stick (from here). I've got the type 4 for maximum range :)

Install zigbee2mqtt

I've installed the system using verbatim the guide on the site. The only change is that I've used /dev/ttyUSB0 instead of /dev/ttyACM0.

For my own reference, here are the steps I've run:

1. Add the node 14.x repo:

   sudo curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_14.x | sudo -E bash -
   

2. Install the required dependencies:

   sudo apt-get install -y nodejs git make g++ gcc
   

3. Clone the zigbee2mqtt repo (and change the ownership)

   sudo git clone https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt.git /opt/zigbee2mqtt
   sudo chown -R pi:pi /opt/zigbee2mqtt
   

4. Install dependencies:

   cd /opt/zigbee2mqtt
   npm ci --production
   

   You should get an output similar to:

   node-pre-gyp info ok
   added 383 packages in 111.613s
   

5. Update the configuration file (/opt/zigbee2mqtt/data/configuration.yaml) with something like:

   # MQTT settings
   mqtt:
     # MQTT base topic for Zigbee2MQTT MQTT messages
     base_topic: zigbee2mqtt
     # MQTT server URL
     server: 'mqtt://localhost'
     # MQTT server authentication, uncomment if required:
     # user: my_user
     # password: my_password
   advanced:
     network_key: GENERATE
   

   You will want to set up your own mqtt server address (I have mine as plugin in HomeAssistant) and credentials.

6. (optional) Start the server:

   cd /opt/zigbee2mqtt
   npm start
   

   I've done this just to see it connects to the mqtt server.

7. Add the service.

   Edit /etc/systemd/system/zigbee2mqtt.service with something like:

   [Unit]
   Description=zigbee2mqtt
   After=network.target
   
   [Service]
   ExecStart=/usr/bin/npm start
   WorkingDirectory=/opt/zigbee2mqtt
   StandardOutput=inherit
   # Or use StandardOutput=null if you don't want Zigbee2MQTT messages filling syslog, for more options see systemd.exec(5)
   StandardError=inherit
   Restart=always
   User=pi
   
   [Install]
   WantedBy=multi-user.target
   

8. Start the service:

   sudo systemctl start zigbee2mqtt
   

9. Check it's working:

   systemctl status zigbee2mqtt.service
   

10. If all is ok, then enable the service:

    sudo systemctl enable zigbee2mqtt.service
    

Notes

1. If you run zigbee2mqtt from root, redo sudo chown -R pi:pi /opt/zigbee2mqtt because the logs created will be owned by root :)

2. If the service doesn't work, then check it with the status command above. You can also see the error in:

   sudo journalctl -u zigbee2mqtt.service -f
   

HTH,