zigbee-dense

Custom Silabs Zigbee firmware manifests for dense meshes, built via the Nerivec/silabs-firmware-builder toolchain. Not a fork. The upstream repository is cloned at CI runtime; this repository contains only the delta: our manifest YAMLs, a workflow, and docs.

Grabbing firmware

1. Open the Releases page.
2. Pick the latest build-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS release.
3. Download the .gbl file matching your device (filename includes manifest name, e.g. smlight_slzb06mu_dense_zigbee_router_*.gbl).
4. Flash using your vendor's tool. For SMLIGHT SLZB-06 series via the device's web UI:
   • Open http://<device-ip>/ and upload via the Firmware page, or
   • Scripted:

     curl -F "update=@firmware.gbl" "http://<device-ip>/fileUpload?customName=/fw.bin"
     curl "http://<device-ip>/api2?action=6&zbChipIdx=0&local=1&fwVer=-1&fwType=0&baud=0&fwCh=1"

Adding a manifest

1. Drop manifests/<vendor>/<name>.yaml — see the existing dense-router manifest as a template. The base_project field must reference a directory that exists in the upstream branch pinned by upstream.conf (e.g. src/zigbee_router). All customization goes through slcp_defines, configuration, c_defines, and add_components — no src/ patches in this repo.
2. PR, review, merge.
3. Actions → Build firmwares → Run workflow.

Building locally

Requires Docker and about 15 GB of free disk for the toolchain image on the first run. Subsequent runs pull the cached image from our ghcr.

./scripts/build-local.sh manifests/smlight/smlight_slzb06mu_dense_zigbee_router.yaml

Output lands in ./tmp-out/. The script clones upstream, computes the same Docker image tag CI uses, pulls it from ghcr.io/alexmkx/zigbee-dense, and invokes tools/build_project.py in the container. If the image is not yet in ghcr (e.g. after bumping upstream.conf before any CI run), the script builds it locally from the upstream Dockerfile.

Upstream pinning

upstream.conf pins the Nerivec branch:

UPSTREAM_REPO=https://github.com/Nerivec/silabs-firmware-builder
UPSTREAM_BRANCH=sisdk-2025.12.x

Bump = one-line PR. The first CI run after a bump rebuilds the Docker image (~15-20 min); subsequent runs reuse it (~5 min).

If a fix requires changing src/ in upstream (app.c, zap files, SDK patches) — open a PR against upstream first. This repository does not carry src/ patches.

License

MIT. Upstream toolchain and Silabs SDK are licensed by their respective vendors.

Debug builds (SLZB-06MU)

Each release publishes two GBLs for the SLZB-06MU router:

GBL suffix	Debug print
smlight_slzb06mu_dense_zigbee_router_*.gbl	off
smlight_slzb06mu_dense_zigbee_router_debug_*.gbl	on

The debug build enables compile-time debug print groups STACK, CORE, APP and ZCL, so the EFR32 emits diagnostic lines on USART0 (PB1 TX, PB0 RX).

Reading the debug stream

SLZB-OS only exposes the EFR32 UART on TCP 6638 when the device is in Zigbee2MQTT-TCP coordinator mode (coord_mode=1). To capture logs:

1. In SLZB-OS UI → Zigbee → Working mode → switch to "Zigbee2MQTT / TCP socket". Reboot when prompted.
2. nc <device-ip> 6638 | strings — text lines will stream as the firmware emits them.
3. When done, switch the device back to "Zigbee Router" mode so it rejoins the mesh as a router.

Important: while in TCP coordinator mode the device is not acting as a router. Switch back as soon as the capture session is done.