I have an update for those who experience the pairing issue on the battery backup version.
Let me re-iterate what issue we are talking about. I can reproduce an issue where the module have difficulties paring. By share of luck, I can reliably reproduce the issue especially when there is no other repeater around. This issue may not show up in house with enough repeaters.
I tracked down the issue to a bad batch of linear voltage regulator. It is due to bad Linear Voltage Regulator.
I have tested replacing a couple of the modules. I can pair with hubitat hub with no other repeater around.
Here is what we can do. If you would like to send your module back to me, I can replace the voltage regulator. Please PM me if you like to do this.
This part can be replaced easily if you are handy with soldering iron. This is the part MCP1702. You can get them for $0.40 shipped free overnight from arrow electronics.
This has been very frustrating for me and perhaps everyone who got these modules. However, a bad batch of electronic parts do happen from time to time. In addition, the issue is not just a dead module which I can take care of it before shipping out. They do work when you have enough of certain repeaters in the house.
I apologize for the inconvenience. I hope it is one of small hiccup toward building the best modules for everyone. In perspective, when we are over this hump, you will have a module that can help you monitor your room, help repeating your Xiaomi devices and have very high up time. This is unique as far as a Zigbee sensor available to all of us.
Indeed, it is very frustrating. However, at least I got something to learn. I hope everyone here also can learn that small harmless voltage regulator can cause such an issue. I hope manufacture make component that either work or does not. We got into situation the component work enough to power up the module. However, it does not run optimally.
I believe this should be do able using a smart app. You may want to look at smart apps like Rule Machine and Webcore. Or, writing your own smart app just to do this, should be simple.
The module has analog input. You can connect a probe (thermocouple k-type) with this module.
to the analog input. If you need a help to write DTH to translate form voltage to temperature, let me know. This should be simple to do.
I’ve never wrote a smartapp before and although I’d class myself as fairly tech-literate, I’ve never done any kind of programming before.
With that in mind do you think it’s likely I’d be able to start from scratch to write an app to show temperature, and to take various actions when the temperature lies within certain limits?
I’ll admit that the advice you have offered in the last post is above my head really, so I’m guessing that this project may be beyond me.
All I want really is a probe in a water tank, wo I can view temperature of the liquid in smart things, and then have actions occurring depending on what the temp is.
Righto. Been experimenting with webcore and the standard smartthings sensor. The temperature readings don’t update often enough at all, which seems to be a common problem hence the need for this bit of kit =).
I’m confident that I could make use of a few of these around the house now, so here’s waiting =)
Hi, tried to find this above; How many additional zigbee devices can I connect to a Smartthings hub with this repeater? I have a bunch of Xiaomi devices I can’t fit on my Smartthings hub. Will you ship to Norway?
This device should have maximum of 20 children. I personally have not test it with that many children.
I can try to ship using USPS to Norway. However, I have never tried it before. I only have tried send the module to UK, Italy and Germany. If you can PM your address, I can try to check with USPS the cost of shipping.
I just want to update you guys what I have from the latest batch I have to share.
I only have one more smaller module (variant 1). It is time to share the bigger module that can take 18650 battery. As comparison, here is a picture that I took.
The bigger battery will give you a longer backup time. They should last at least about 20 hours. Battery is not included. Please get yourself a high quality 18650. The module has battery protection circuit. If you are getting a Panasonic NCR18650, you can opt one without battery protection. I have never try with a protected battery. They should work just fine.
Pm me if you are interested on trying these bigger modules.
Do we know yet why some PacketDrop numbers are so high?
I have two repeaters on opposite ends of the house. The one on the north end (see screenshot) has 17,933 dropped packets in the last eight days. My Zigbee network is on channel 15 and my wifi on this end of the house is on channel 11, so they do not overlap.
The interesting thing is that the repeater on the south end of the house has only 8,888 PacketDrops even though it is about six feet from an AP that is on channel 1, which does overlap with the Zigbee channel.
Any thoughts? Is this impacting the performance? Is there anything I can do to improve it? Also, should I be concerned with the Decrypt Failure?
These bulbs has tendency to have buffer overflow. There are a lot of thread about it here. There could be other devices that have similar issue as well.
This module stack keep statistic of number of packet drop by looking at the frame counter. If a packet received skip one or more count in the counter, they will be count as packet drop.
This can look like the radio performance is not optimal. Or, it can look like a interference issue because of the packet count. In the beginning, that is what I always suspect. However, radio may not be the issue at all.
This is potential issue to our module as well as others.
Zigbee does have higher level protocol that make the packet delivery more robust. It can hide this issue in most cases. However, as with packet loss with any protocols, there may be some specific scenario where it may not be recover due to the amout of loss it experience.
I am exposing diagnostic info like this to get a bit better understanding what is going on on the mesh.
