Zigbee devices don’t reroute on the fly the way z wave devices do. Instead, at the time of joining, each new child device chooses its parent and then it only knows about network options that that parent tells it about. This can lead to what is called “the orphan problem“ in Zigbee, where a child device gets lost for a while because its parent is not available.
Eventually, things will get sorted out, but it can take several hours or even until the next day. And in a few cases, it doesn’t fix itself until the device selects a new parent.
this problem was much worse in ZHA 1.2 then in Zigbee 3.0, so that’s the good news. The following describes the ZHA 1.2 process.
Information Only: ST not working 100%. Heal zigbee network - #13 by JDRoberts
With Zigbee 3.0, Devices no longer give themselves the orphan designation, And the finding a new parent can happen much more quickly. But it still takes at least until the next check in.
So it’s pretty common in Zigbee For problems to resolve themselves in a day or so, but not immediately. And Zigbee 3.0 devices will have fewer problems of this type than the older ZHA 1.2.