This post is mainly for my own reference as because it took me far too long to set up a ConBee II USB Zigbee controller in my virtualized Home Assistant instance.

I am running Home Assistant OS virtualized via KVM, and as it turns out, passing the ConBee II USB device into the VM was not as easy as I thought it would be.

Initially, just passed the device to the VM as a USB host device. This seemed to work as Home Assistant noticed the device and even suggested setting up the Zigbee Home Automation (ZHA) integration with it. However, every time I tried to configure the integration, the connection failed.

I also tried using the deCONZ Add-on, but it couldn’t connect to the device either.

Enough complaints and problems, here’s how I got it to work:

First, make sure that the device is available on your host system. Then, create a serial device for your VM with a config like this:

<serial type="dev">
  <source path="/dev/serial/by-id/usb-dresden_elektronik_ingenieurtechnik_GmbH_ConBee_II_XXX-if00"/>
  <target type="usb-serial" port="1">
    <model name="usb-serial"/>
  </target>
  <alias name="serial1"/>
  <address type="usb" bus="0" port="22"/>
</serial>

Now you should be able to configure ZHA with the new serial device. If you’re not sure which device to specify during the ZHA configuration, check the kernel log (after adding the serial device).