zigbee2mqtt-windfront v2 feedback

[Koenkk]

This is a continuation of the old feedback discussion. In the October release, WindFront will become the default frontend.

• Feel free to leave your feedback here (make sure you are at least on Zigbee2MQTT 2.6.1).
• In case you encounter bugs, submit a new issue here.
• List of changes since 2.6.1 (feedback/issues that are already fixed)

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To switch to Windfront, change the following setting:

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About the original frontend:

• it has not been maintained in quite some time
• at some points, due to its use of old libraries, it is expected it will simply stop working properly (which would require a massive overhaul - what WindFront has done)
• new Zigbee2MQTT features are not supported
• the option to use either frontend will remain for now, just the default (when no package is explicitly selected) will change to WindFront in the future release

[rbswift]

Sorry if I missed it but I can no longer find a way to sort devices by battery level the way the old frontend allowed. This is very useful for sites with a lot of battery devices to keep an eye on which batteries will soon need replacement. Thanks

(other than this wind front is looking really great so thanks for your work!)

[chris-1243]

Click on Advanced search and apply a filter. In your case, select power source and battery.

[rbswift]

Hi @chris-1243 I did try that but the option to sort the list by battery level seems to have been removed. Apologies if i was unclear but in the current version, with a single click, I can sort the devices by battery level. Each time I remember to buy a new pack of batteries I then go around replacing the batteries in the devices reporting the lowest level. I am only suggesting to have the battery level column reinstated as an (optional) click-sortable column. Thanks

[Nerivec]

There is a "Battery low" checkbox in Advanced Search. It checks all current "ways" devices report battery statuses (battery level alone would miss devices since some don't report one, just a state).
We can add back the level column too though.

[pawel-tomkiel]

(...) We can add back the level column too though.

That was my default sorting with just one click in old frontend, now it's multiple clicks through advanced search; I'd be really happy if it comes back 🙂

[Nerivec]

You can toggle the "battery low" column and sort it too. Note that it gathers states from all battery states, not just %, (some use %, some use a boolean state, etc.), so you may see a different result from old frontend. Or you can use the "battery level" column, but it's less precise since non-% "battery low" states won't be shown.
https://github.com/Nerivec/zigbee2mqtt-windfront/wiki#tips--tricks

[nephrotranz]

Will there be any possibility to keep the old frontend? Tried Windfront two times, but it is definitely a No Go for me and I would like to keep it simple and clean.
The new dashboard for example is an absolute mess.

[ArtJames]

I removed 'package: zigbee2mqtt-windfront' from the configuration to use the old version.
@Koenkk It would be nice to continue giving users the option to choose between the two interfaces.

Edit: Found the setting to switch interfaces.
It's good to see that you're not forced to use the new interface.

[Koenkk]

Old frontend will still be there for the time being

[sammyke007]

Sorting is not being remembered as with the old frontend. I need that to check on my last seen devices. Reported a bug.

[rbswift]

Suggest adding title attributes to the four icons in the top-right corner so users get a tooltip to indicate what action they might perform.

[weljajoh]

The color coding of the LQI values makes them hard to read when they are at 'warning' level because the contrast between the yellow and the white background is too low. May I suggest keeping the actual value in black and perhaps change the background of the field to yellow so it is easier to read?

[dpgh947]

People are often going to rebel against forced change they didn't know they wanted/needed, but I really don't like the new frontend. The device list is busy, having the power/battery icon shoved in the friendly name field makes it much harder to quickly scan the list, and it seems to default to sorting on friendly name even if no sort is selected on the column headings. I am really used to the devices appearing in the order they were added, especially when adding new devices. The map is horrible. If you zoom so the whole map fits on the screen (I only have 25 devices), the device names are too small to read, the font is tiny. The thick white lines are just eye-boggling. The way the old map gently moves things apart as you drag something makes it far more readable.

Is the old front end going to disappear at some point? If not, I can't see the reason for changing the default.

UPDATE - I see the sort issue has been addressed in the latest version. The other points remain.

[dpgh947]

EDIT - OK, I see this has been addressed in the latest version.

I think it is worth pointing out that you don't need to go editing the z2m config file to switch frontends any more, both versions have the option in their settings to switch now - BUT it takes a few clicks around to find it in the windfront settings.

You click on settings, you get a list of headings that includes "frontend", you click on that and you get some stuff that it says is only saved in the browser. But next to "frontend" in that set of headings is another "settings", click on that, you then get another set of headings that includes "frontend", click on that, and you can then see the "package" selection. This is far from intuitive.

[fapgomes]

The column order doesn't remember between sessions. (When I change to order by last seen, if I leave the z2m windfront page and come back, the order is by name again).

[nephrotranz]

To be honest...how can someone even think that this looks good compared to the old frontend?
Because the attribute field keeps changing size, everything looks completely messed up.

[Nerivec]

Added to the todo list.

Also, with the introduction of new translations, no doubt quite a few places will need adjusting since different languages will alter the sizing of various elements. If you find any other, feel free to open an issue. We have to rely on community feedback for this, since it would require an enormous amount of time otherwise.
If you find errors in translations, feel free to contribute.

[nephrotranz]

It seems the original frontend is working with a fixed size for these fields as you can change to every language and it always looks the same.

[mvoss96]

Can you please add the option of sorting by battery and by manufacturer like in the original frontend?

[rbswift]

Sort by Battery low seems to have a problem too:

screenshot

[Nerivec]

Default sorting didn't work properly due to the value type (that column was mainly meant for advanced searching capability, not display).
Already fixed, and added a battery level column too 👍

[Nerivec]

WindFront 2.1.0 was merged in Zigbee2MQTT dev/edge with some of the early v2 feedback as well as a large WebSocket optimization refactor. Dropdowns have also been refactored due to a Safari bug that's plaguing random iOS versions.

You can also test WindFront separately using the standalone version (Docker containers & Home Assistant add-ons are available). See instructions in the wiki: https://github.com/Nerivec/zigbee2mqtt-windfront/wiki#standalone-serving-with-multi-zigbee2mqtt-support
Note: you can run both the built-in frontend (with whichever package you want) and standalone WindFront, at the same time.

[HenkRenting]

Is there a possibility to change the name of in the middle of the interface, where it now says Zigbee2MQTT? Or otherwise add a name or title to the interface, @Koenkk?
Reason is I have two instances running for both my home and basement and a clear visible title of which instance I am seeing would be great…

[Nerivec]

The best way would probably be for you to look into standalone WindFront. Improving it was the main focus of WindFront v2.
https://github.com/Nerivec/zigbee2mqtt-windfront/wiki#standalone-serving-with-multi-zigbee2mqtt-support
There's a Docker container, and a Home Assistant add-on that can be used for quick setup (baremetal is also possible).

It allows you to merge multiple Zigbee2MQTT instances into a single UI, each instance (device/group/etc) is tagged with a name, which you can display in the UI (and sort/filter like the rest).
Feel free to find me on Discord, or open up a discussion if you need any help.

About changing the title: all non-static data displayed in the frontend is driven by Z2M, which means we'd have to add a configuration specifically to display there that would be in configuration.yaml.

[HenkRenting]

Hmmm, that could be a solution...
Must look into it, might be a bit over my head.

Changing or adding a tile/name (or even image) to the top of the webinterface might be a more suitable and easier option for users...

But will definately take a look, thanks your reply!

[lezruk]

Network map is not shown in firefox - just empty screen. Same works fine in edge/chrome

[Nerivec]

Could you have something that blocks it on your Firefox browser (like a bad detection from an adblocker)?
Also make sure your Firefox is not too outdated.

It should work in both. I primarily test everything with Firefox & Chrome, no issue here.

[lezruk]

This is strange, Firefox is most recent 142.0.1 on win11 (standard security settings) , all extensions are disabled, no ad blockers. This is the error I got in console

THREE.WebGLRenderer: A WebGL context could not be created. Reason:  WebGL creation failed: 
* AllowWebgl2:false restricts context creation on this system. ()

After manually enabling webgl.force-enabled -> true it started working. Looks like webgl is disabled by default in firefox

[Nerivec]

You might have had a customized profile or maybe corrupted. It should be enabled by default.
In case you encounter more issues, you can create a new profile in about:profiles and switch to it or just completely reset Firefox.

[0sy]

Can we have a version with less rainbowy colours?

[Soukyuu]

Have you looked at available themes? Business or Wireframe seem to have what you want.

[sigma415]

What's the problem with the "rainbowy" colours ?

[wesleyRaposo]

I'm a big fan of the previous interface, and for me, the change to the new interface made an impact.

I think these simple adjustments would greatly help this transition:

1. A color scheme identical to the old one (it was great—the current dark themes aren't as appealing as that one).

2. The "Dashboard" page should have an option to display the panels similar to the old one, where they're all the same size and spaced further apart (it looks more organized).

3. The old network/device map option should be brought back, or the current option should have larger icons and the circle borders could be removed.

[pxFIN]

I like the new interface .. new is not old and i on the other hand think something which needs to change.. .. change but using small bits

Network section somehow doesnt work.. i cant get similar network picture of personal network.. and i am starting to think is it good to have magnetism + <-> ? .. rather than switch them off ?

Changing something is always about having points of non .. nothing you can change without thinkin what the new can bring

[IgnacioHR]

Hi,

I tried to switch to new windfront package today but something is not working. I just upgraded to version 2.6.2 from version 2.6.1 and the only change was a line in configuration.yal file explicitly indicating the old front package as the one selected.

Than I went to settings and changed the front-end package as indicated in the first post of this thread. From that moment on the http server didn't start.

This is what I see while using the old front-end package:

root@z2mqtt:/opt/zigbee2mqtt/data# netstat -anp | grep LISTEN
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:25            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      373/master
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.53:53           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      95/systemd-resolved
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:5355            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      95/systemd-resolved
tcp6       0      0 :::22                   :::*                    LISTEN      1/init
tcp6       0      0 :::443                  :::*                    LISTEN      487/node
tcp6       0      0 ::1:25                  :::*                    LISTEN      373/master
tcp6       0      0 :::5355                 :::*                    LISTEN      95/systemd-resolved

And this is what I see after switching to the new front-end:

root@z2mqtt:/opt/zigbee2mqtt/data# netstat -anp | grep LISTEN
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.1:25            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      373/master
tcp        0      0 127.0.0.53:53           0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      95/systemd-resolved
tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:5355            0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      95/systemd-resolved
tcp6       0      0 :::22                   :::*                    LISTEN      1/init
tcp6       0      0 ::1:25                  :::*                    LISTEN      373/master
tcp6       0      0 :::5355                 :::*                    LISTEN      95/systemd-resolved

note port 443 is not present anymore.

I see no errors starting the service:

root@z2mqtt:~# journalctl -f
-- Journal begins at Fri 2023-12-29 06:08:22 CET. --
...
Oct 07 15:45:03 z2mqtt systemd[1]: Stopping zigbee2mqtt...
Oct 07 15:45:03 z2mqtt systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Succeeded.
Oct 07 15:45:03 z2mqtt systemd[1]: Stopped zigbee2mqtt.
Oct 07 15:45:03 z2mqtt systemd[1]: zigbee2mqtt.service: Consumed 8.817s CPU time.
Oct 07 15:45:03 z2mqtt systemd[1]: Starting zigbee2mqtt...
Oct 07 15:45:03 z2mqtt node[452]: Starting Zigbee2MQTT with watchdog (2000,60000,300000,900000,1800000,3600000).
Oct 07 15:45:04 z2mqtt node[452]: (node:452) ExperimentalWarning: Importing JSON modules is an experimental feature and might change at any time
Oct 07 15:45:04 z2mqtt node[452]: (Use `node --trace-warnings ...` to show where the warning was created)
Oct 07 15:45:09 z2mqtt systemd[1]: Started zigbee2mqtt.

Just the front end is not starting.

Here is the relevant content of my configuration.yaml file that works:

frontend:
  enabled: true
  port: 443
  ssl_cert: /etc/zigbee2mqtt/z2mqtt-all.pem
  ssl_key: /etc/zigbee2mqtt/private.key
  url: https://z2mqtt.chiton/
  package: zigbee2mqtt-frontend

And this is the one that does not work:

frontend:
  enabled: true
  port: 443
  ssl_cert: /etc/zigbee2mqtt/z2mqtt-all.pem
  ssl_key: /etc/zigbee2mqtt/private.key
  url: https://z2mqtt.chiton/
  package: zigbee2mqtt-windfront

Hope there is enough information provided.

[ubeaut]

I noticed on the new UI that is can generate graphviz data.
I used to be able to do it before and generate a network map by doing:
mosquitto_sub -C 1 -h $MQTTSERVER -t $ZIGBEE/bridge/response/networkmap/graphviz | $TYPE -Tpng > $OPENHABHTML/$FILE.png & mosquitto_pub -h $MQTTSERVER -t $ZIGBEE/bridge/request/networkmap -m graphviz
How can I do something similar now with the new system as the above doesn't work and hasn't done so for a long time?
Thanks

[pfak]

I've run into an issue where the initial page load AND clicking on any menu (Settings, Dashboard, etc. etc.) takes ~30 seconds the first time, and then is near instant after. This happens on any 'new' browser that visits the site, whether that be Edge or Firefox. I'm not seeing high CPU usage or anything, on either the client or server.

As soon as I switch to windfront, I see a ton of this in the Home Assistant logs:

2025-10-26 20:26:33.376 ERROR (MainThread) [homeassistant.components.websocket_api.http.connection] [140255378252448] Peter from 192.168.1.175 (Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/141.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 Edg/141.0.0.0): Client unable to keep up with pending messages. Reached 4096 pending messages. The system's load is too high or an integration is misbehaving; Last message was: b'{"type":"event","event":{"event_type":"state_changed","data":{"entity_id":"sensor.upstairs_office_closet_overheat","old_state":{"entity_id":"sensor.upstairs_office_closet_overheat","state":"No Alert","attributes":{"friendly_name":"Upstairs Office Closet Overheat"},"last_changed":"2025-10-27T03:24:10.490531+00:00","last_reported":"2025-10-27T03:24:10.490531+00:00","last_updated":"2025-10-27T03:24:10.490531+00:00","context":{"id":"01K8HV3QBTPSJ8N0APAVCYN6TB","parent_id":null,"user_id":null}},"new_state":{"entity_id":"sensor.upstairs_office_closet_overheat","state":"unavailable","attributes":{"friendly_name":"Upstairs Office Closet Overheat"},"last_changed":"2025-10-27T03:26:33.376107+00:00","last_reported":"2025-10-27T03:26:33.376107+00:00","last_updated":"2025-10-27T03:26:33.376107+00:00","context":{"id":"01K8HV82X0EYB7TBNBPP9TDDJ3","parent_id":null,"user_id":null}}},"origin":"LOCAL","time_fired":"2025-10-27T03:26:33.376107+00:00","context":{"id":"01K8HV82X0EYB7TBNBPP9TDDJ3","parent_id":null,"user_id":null}},"id":40}'

As soon as I switch away from the new frontend, the messages go away. The host doesn't seem to have any issues (it's an i7 with 64GB of RAM, and it's only using 50% CPU) and the client is basically idle.

[jamesonuk]

This is probably an issue with being colourblind but with the new UI I am unable to tell which options are actually selected

I have been through different themes and I can just about tell in one or two of them but almost all do not have anything to help me out. Obviously I can't tell what is there but if this is reliant purely on colour then that is not ideal.

Also there are no tooltips so things like the theme button take a bit of guesswork to understand what they do. For anyone with a visual impairment this would be largely impossible to navigate.

I appreciate the need to move to new UI and people will always complain because it is different but I think there are some fairly big UX issues to be addressed here.

Some things I would like to see

• better feedback of selected values. This should not rely purely on colour but perhaps adding a border around the selected option, making that text bold and making the background have better contrast to other options would help
• there is no way of tracking where you are in the UI. Eg. if you go into devices and then click on a device there is no way to get back to the list of devices (other than the back button)
• contrast is general is lacking
  • The subtle different between the menu / title bars and the main area is distracting and makes it difficult to draw users to what they need to interact with
  • the menu bar for devices (about / exposes / bind ....) appears washed out to the point it appears to be disabled or not a menu bar. I think this needs a different colour background and/or something to separate it from the main data area plus having the text appear more like a menu
• for me there is far too much whitespace so the exposes tab of most devices scrolls with only a couple of items visible at any one time. I feel on most screens there is plenty of room to move the controls to the right of the heading / summary

* there is an inconsistent use of icons. Some values have one, others so do not which is confusing. I would ensure every item has an icon even if the ones that don't all get a default * the icons are the one thing that does have contrast. When you open the exposes tab this is where your focus it taken too and not the actual settings. * controls on bind and reporting tab are inconsistent and this makes it hard to understand. placeholder text is wrapped and components do not fall align * on the bind tab I would make the clusters check boxes go over multiple lines and make the three inputs bigger and a consistent width * on the reporting tab controls are resizing based on the content. This would be much better with a grid layout * state tab could be better. There is a lot of text in there and this could be laid out better perhaps using standard JSON display libraries * there are inconsistencies in the themes eg. This is the device page in default theme but this is settings in the same theme

[wesleyRaposo]

This is probably an issue with being colourblind but with the new UI I am unable to tell which options are actually selected

I have been through different themes and I can just about tell in one or two of them but almost all do not have anything to help me out. Obviously I can't tell what is there but if this is reliant purely on colour then that is not ideal.

Also there are no tooltips so things like the theme button take a bit of guesswork to understand what they do. For anyone with a visual impairment this would be largely impossible to navigate.

I appreciate the need to move to new UI and people will always complain because it is different but I think there are some fairly big UX issues to be addressed here.

Some things I would like to see

• better feedback of selected values. This should not rely purely on colour but perhaps adding a border around the selected option, making that text bold and making the background have better contrast to other options would help

• there is no way of tracking where you are in the UI. Eg. if you go into devices and then click on a device there is no way to get back to the list of devices (other than the back button)

• contrast is general is lacking

  • The subtle different between the menu / title bars and the main area is distracting and makes it difficult to draw users to what they need to interact with
  • the menu bar for devices (about / exposes / bind ....) appears washed out to the point it appears to be disabled or not a menu bar. I think this needs a different colour background and/or something to separate it from the main data area plus having the text appear more like a menu

• for me there is far too much whitespace so the exposes tab of most devices scrolls with only a couple of items visible at any one time. I feel on most screens there is plenty of room to move the controls to the right of the heading / summary

* there is an inconsistent use of icons. Some values have one, others so do not which is confusing. I would ensure every item has an icon even if the ones that don't all get a default * the icons are the one thing that does have contrast. When you open the exposes tab this is where your focus it taken too and not the actual settings. * controls on bind and reporting tab are inconsistent and this makes it hard to understand. placeholder text is wrapped and components do not fall align * on the bind tab I would make the clusters check boxes go over multiple lines and make the three inputs bigger and a consistent width * on the reporting tab controls are resizing based on the content. This would be much better with a grid layout * state tab could be better. There is a lot of text in there and this could be laid out better perhaps using standard JSON display libraries * there are inconsistencies in the themes eg. This is the device page in default theme but this is settings in the same theme

The original interface theme was excellent!
I already suggested that they replicate the old theme in the current version, but it seems I wasn't heard.
The same goes for the old map, which was much better than the current one, but they don't want to bring it back, unfortunately.

[raqua]

Just switched to v2.6.2 and checked the new GUI a bit.
In general I don't use it that much. For example I don't care about the Dashboard, I never use it. Some stuff is shuffled around, which is mainly about getting used to, not a big issue.

There are 2 main things that I actually use from Z2M GUI and I see significant usability regression in both:

1. Map - as many others pointed out, it is way worse than the previous version. Please consider adding an option to use the former version. Currently there are many display options ranging from hard to read to useless gimmicks. When I want to look at the map I need to zoom out, then zoom in to read what I am looking at ... pretty bad in my opinion.
2. Logs - please introduce line wrapping, it is terrible to scroll horizontally to be able to read logs.

Thanks.

[louis-lau]

The new map takes much longer to load, and is extremely confusing to me.

The old map was very clear:

It very clearly shows that all those routers interconnect, and which routers end devices are connected to.

Then I open the new map and I get:

And I have absolutely no idea what I'm looking at. No clue. Looking at it longer, it seems they're grouped by what device they're a child of? I had to look at it for a long time to figure out what it was even trying to display.

Switching to another display mode and enabling icons seems to make it clearer? I feel like this map needs vastly different defaults and looks. I don't really get what the arrow direction means here for example.

The cards in the dashboard look extremely overwhelming.

When I save setting I get messages like this:

What does that even mean?

On smaller screens, the images get completely stretched out of proportion.

When I press settings, it seems I go to the about page, and then I have to go to settings again. Having to navigate to settings → settings is very odd.

It all seems very rough around the edges to me, so I wanted to thank you for providing both frontends for now. I'm not sure that I would have made this new one the default just yet, but I get that it's hard to get people to actually use and test it.

[louis-lau]

@wesleyRaposo I think it's too soon to just conclude that. This is an open source project we get completely for free, let's try to respect the devs that are putting in work without reward.

I posted this feedback so that it can be listened to, not just to bitch at the devs.

[bapesupreme]

@Nerivec can we have the ability to manually input the brightness level? Would make it much easier for group scenes

[Masssssy]

I just updated and while there's for sure improvements I find the new GUI kind of confusing.

Going to settings brings up "about". So then I need to press settings again. When I'm finally in the settings after pressing "settings" twice and once ending up in "about" I could select "frontend". Meanwhile there is an option for frontend settings in the main menu which doesn't have the option to select the front end but rather has front end specific settings (that don't exist under settings).

There's so many layers of tabs I don't know which level I'm tabbing.

In general I don't use the GUI for much more than adding new devices. But I feel the overview of devices and all the available properties under the "Exposes" tab to be a lot harder to navigate and get a good overview.

The device list has tiny font. While the about page has huge text in super bold. There's very little consistency in my opinion.

[andreasntr]

Frontend is all over the place for me. I'm running v2.6.3 via Docker with standard settings. Screenshot is taken on firefox 145.0 on fedora 42

[KostAlex07]

I installed Z2M the thirst time 2 weeks ago. And I didn't use the old frontend before. After a week I switched to old one to compare.
Some issues:

1. Before I switched to old frontend. When I was in a device and want to go to other device, I had to go back to devices. After switch to old frontend I saw there a combobox at the top with the name of device. It was clear how to go direct to an other device. In the new frontend it is a button, which I didn't see.
2. In clusters of a device will be better to show all clusters without clicking on input / output.

And one question: Is it possible to update a scene?

[ThorstenDtk]

What's the reason why Groups are not shown on the dashboard? I would like to be able to switch on/off lamps with multiple bulbs which are grouped. And not having to switch each bulb separately. OK, I can do that using a different UI (using vis or jarvis on iOBroker). But not having to swich would be nice.

[sfortis]

After working with the new FE for a while, I clearly prefer "Devices" as the landing page instead of the home, mostly because I'm used to and prefer the list view instead of the tiles. A nice addition would be a toggle selector between list and tile format.

[sigma415]

Proposal: Would it be possible for better overview, to highlight the slider for ON/OFF switches with some color for ON state ? e.g. green background ?