openHAB and zigbee2mqtt Tutorial for Beginners

Note that there is no “off the shelf coordinator like the one from Ikea” compatible with OH’s zigbee-binding as it is a native Zigbee implementation meaning it does not support so-called Zigbee hubs/bridges/gateways. If you use Zigbee hubs/bridges/gateways like IKEA’s Trådfri Gateway or Philips Hue Bridge then they offer an API with different protocols similar to how Zigbee2MQTT offers MQTT instead of Zigbee, and niether of those are supported by OH’s zigbee-binding.

OH’s zigbee-binding only support serial protocols over serial interfaces so you need to use a USB-adapter (with USB-to-UART converter) or a GPIO UART adapter which is presented to the application as a serial device by the operatingsystem.

OH’s zigbee-binding is based Z-Smart Systems ZigBee Cluster Library Java framework supporting multiple dongles on currently compatible with a few different Zigbee stacks and protocol versions; “CC2531” TI ZNP serial API from Z-Stack 1.2 (note that it does not yet support newer Z-Stack 3.x like Zigbee2MQTT does), “Ember” = Silabs EZSP (EmberZNet Serial Protocol) up to v8, Telegesis Zigbee AT protocol, Digi XBee-PRO Zigbee.

https://www.openhab.org/addons/bindings/zigbee/#supported-coordinators

As noted above, you can not use OH’s zigbee-binding with a Zigbee hub, (a Zigbee hub like IKEA’s Trådfri Gateway or Philips Hue Bridge does not offer a Zigbee API but translate to different protocols), at least not unless you have hacked that hub and can instead install a Serial-to-IP server proxy that can pass along the serial interface from the Zigbee radio microcontroller module to the zigbee-binding using something like ser2net and socat. In that case the zigbee-binding sees it just like a local Zigbee coordinator that it can talk to via its serial protocol even though it can actually located somewhere else on your LAN. But if you decide to do so then make sure it has as wired Ethernet and not WiFi as serial communication is not stable over Serial-to-IP if use WiFi. One hardware that could in theory be hacked to do so is ZB-GW03 eWeLink Ethernet Zigbee Gateway:

https://community.openhab.org/t/zb-gw03-ewelink-ethernet-zigbee-gateway-now-hacked-with-tasmota-zbbridge-so-can-be-used-via-mqtt-or-as-a-remote-zigbee-adapter-with-openhab-zigbee-binding/126795

Hacking ITead’s Sonoff ZBBridge to use with Serial-to-IP with OH’s zigbee-binding is strongly not recommended because it uses WiFi which is not stable enough for the EmberZNet Serial Protocol.

https://community.openhab.org/t/success-with-sonoff-zigbee-bridge-and-zigbee-binding/104985

Regardless of adapter, it is recommended to use USB extension cables with USB adapters and keep any Zigbee coordinator away from any electromagentic interferance, specially Wi-Fi access-points/routers.