so, after venturing in the world of smartthings one step at a time, I finally managed to set up a few automations and I’m starting to get the gist of things.
However, since the world hates me (that or I’m not getting the gist of things as much as I thought) now everything went offline. Well, all Zigbee devices, to be accurate, but one (a Zigbee Sonoff button).
They all are using Edge Drivers, and most of them are native (aka they were recognized without me adding any DH or Edge Driver… idk if that means they’re working with Edge Drivers).
However, if I were for example to try and turn on a light through the app, even though it was offline, it would turn it on, it just wouldn’t then recognize it as on and therefore I couldn’t turn it off.
After unplugging the cord and plugging it back on, now everything’s back online, but it seems rather laggy (for example, turning on a light, again, but being unable to turn it off without using Alexa, which is connected to ST, and I couldn’t even do this before the unplug and plug).
Furthermore, one device has straight up remained offline (A movement and light sensor).
Will everything sort by itself? Could this be an issue with the servers? Is this even supposed to happen? Did I screw something up? Do I have to manually do something to fix it?
I have had my ST system stop responding twice in the last couple of weeks. Both times was after I rebooted my Wi-Fi router. Then I had to power cycled the ST hub to regained control.
After the 1st incident 3 zigbee sensors and 3 ST Wi-Fi outlets were off line. I had to re-add them. The strang thing was after I got 1 Wi-Fi outlet back on line the other 2 Wi-Fi outlets were also back on line.
After the 2nd incident 2 zigbee sensors were off line and I had to be re-added.
In both cases all offline devices were close to the hub.
All my zigbee devices, 4 z-wave devices, and 1 Shelly Wi-Fi device are using Edge Drivers.
I think there is some connection to using Edge drivers.
I guess that is something to think on yeah. Though I’m not sure all of my devices are using edge drivers… they’re just using whatever ST assigned them out of the box.
In fact, some of them are detailed in the IDE, so maybe they are using DHs… I’m not sure.
Long story short anyway, everything’s back online, the button appeared online but it wasn’t and only came back online after pressing a couple times, the motion sensor I had to literally pick up and shake it xD Not sure why but it worked. They are both definitely on Edge Drivers, since I recall installing them and they appear not in detail in the IDE.
Just to make sure, is this something that can happen even if something is correctly set up? It’s not me screwing over? Cuz this happened out of nowhere, internet connection was fine, no power outage, nothing
To tell if a device is using an Edge driver… open the device in the ST app and click on the 3 dots in the upper right of the screen… if you see Drivers in the menu, then it is using an Edge driver
Yes, I very much am, I am new to the whole smart home and automation world to be honest haha.
All I have been doing so far was telling Alexa to turn on a wifi bulb xD
Anyway, I have two zigbee bulbs, a motion/luminosity sensor, a contact sensor, the hub itself and that’s about it for zigbee devices. They are all within very close proximity to the hub, not more than 5-10m, without walls inbetween (only a door that is usually open). Turns out, only the button and the sensor are using drivers, whereas the rest is using stock DHs.
I’m not feeling well today so I will have to leave it to others to go into details on this topic, but that close to the hub plus the lag my first suspicion would be WiFi interference. Where is your WiFi router relative to the hub?
Also, if you haven’t read the range FAQ yet, start with this:
(Edge may be a factor in all this as well, in that it might be less resilient to message transmission failures. I don’t recall seeing anything about how device health works with Edge. So maybe multiple factors.)
Some people do that successfully, but from a network management standpoint it’s much better to move your hub at least 2 m away from the Wi-Fi router. Just use a long cable.
You can also check the channels for both Wi-Fi and Zigbee to limit interference.
Wi-Fi and Zigbee transmit in the same frequency, but Wi-Fi is much much stronger, so it can drown out zigbee. That might then require zigbee messages to be sent three or four times before they get through, which can introduce lag or cause a device to be marked off-line when it isn’t.
If you have your smartthings hub right next to your Wi-Fi router and everything is working fine, you don’t have to worry about it.
But if your zigbee devices are getting a high rate of error transmissions or are off-line, then it may be time to consider more separation or changing channels.
