Well today, I can’t even get the motion sensor to work when right next to the Xbee Pro router. I’m starting to think the motion sensor is just complete junk to be honest.
I’m sure that’s frustrating! It could just be a bad device, it happens. I believe some of the UK kits had motion sensors with poor battery connection, but in that case the sensor would stop altogether. You can certainly talk to support about it and see what they say.
Yeah very much so - I just tried bringing the motion sensor back into the house and it works again, so I put the multi sensor next to the xbee - reset the network for 15+ minutes just to make sure, but nope, that wont work next to it either now.
No idea why it latches onto an Xbee yesterday and today nothing from either node, all the routers show up when I look at XCTU, they’re all there, the cordinator, 2 ST sockets and 3 xbees. To be honest none of the battery powered end nodes are showing up on.
I’ve ordered two Zwave repeaters which will be here tomorrow along with my Zwave motion sensor, its not for that location but i’ll test it out with the repeater and see if I get any better results in comparison. If I do I think i’ll drop zigbee all together - the last thing will be the ST Shield which I want to use with an RF module to trigger the gates, but i’m starting to think the ST module is going to need to be in the house now by the window and i’ll have to get a really powerful RF zapper!
Well, this reply is going to be quite off topic from how this post started, but I figured the information may well be valuable for visitors.
I’d more of less given up with the zigbee network as its ability to actual “self heal” seemed random - no amount of resetting the hub for 20 minutes was doing anything. I could get the motion sensor to connect to one Xbee (an antenna-less one) but it would never latch onto the antenna zigbee which I thought would give me a little more wiggle room outside when placed closer to the motion sensor. I could see all three xbee’s I had were working well within the network and all had strong signal communicating with each other, it was the end nodes that weren’t play well.
So I decided to try Zwave. I already had a Aeon 6 Multi-sensor on the way which I wanted to use for Lux ratings - so I ordered two repeaters and put one on the end of the house. It worked perfectly in the shed without the need for a second repeater, which had be thinking it would easily work in the post box a couple of meters from the shed when the second repeater was turned on.
So I tried it and nope, it wouldn’t work in the post box either - I got it to work on top of the postbox, but not in it - at this point the motion sensor was still in the shed with the xbee’s on and still not working. So I figured id have no choice but to drill holes in the post box and fill them with plastic bungs to make it water tight again. So that was my plan.
Suddenly after 24 hours of nothing the ST motion sensor started working in the shed, so I moved it, closer and closer to the post box and it kept working. Finally for a laugh I thought id throw it into the metal box whilst the z-wave one was in there too. It was lashing it down with rain at the time as well. I get in the house, check SmartThings…the zigbee motion sensor appears to be reading the correct temperature?!! I go out and try to trigger it by putting something into the postbox and…its working?!!
The z-wave sensor isn’t working, despite having its repeater closer and in a better position, but all of a sudden, with a network that hasnt changed for 2 days, the zigbee ST motion sensor is working.
I’m at a total loss to be honest. Sure, i’m happy that its now working where I want it to be, but I don’t understand the results of any of this at all, seems there is no rhyme or reason. I mean - I have no way of seeing if the z-wave repeaters are working and repeating via each other…maybe the one near the postbox is doing nothing. The lights indicate nothing and I can’t map the network out the way I can with zigbee and the xbee’s.
I’m still going to put the holes in the post box as I think its best practice and you wont see them on the far side, so it should increase reliability and once my project boxes and longer cables come i’ll be able to mount the xbee closer too and hope it doesn’t lose signal when I reboot it. I would ideally like the sensor to latch onto the antenna module though really.
@JohnR one question I do have for you. Can you think of any reason why the ST motion sensor will connect to my PCB antenna Xbee and not the Antenna module. In terms of hardware they’re both seemingly identical and the only setting in XCTU I can’t match on the two devices is the very first setting which is related to bits I think. The PCB antenna modules let me select 15 bits, the antenna one only 14 bits. Any idea if this would make any difference what so ever?
When you move a zwave device from one physical location to another, you then need to run the “Z wave repair” utility to cause the address tables in each device to update.
When you move a Zigbee device from one physical location to another, you then need to do the process of powering off the hub, leaving it off power for at least 15 minutes, and then restoring power to cause the address tables in each device to update.
In both cases, the change will not be instantaneous. Each device has to rebuild its own partial address tables, and some devices may be asleep for a while. It can take a while for the changes to propagate through the network. That’s why I previously mentioned that field engineers will often wait until the next day to check for The results of these changes.
MESH IS A DIFFERENT ARCHITECTURE
I know it’s a very significant change in mindset to go from working with a Wi-Fi network where the signal can be boosted, there is constant connection, a predefined route, and changes can be made that show instantaneous results.
However, mesh networks just work differently. Their architecture is designed for minimal power use. It is not intended to be boosted. It is not a continuous connection. Routes can and do change somewhat randomly with each message sent. And network changes propagate slowly through the network.
(It may also be helpful to remember that Zigbee itself can be deployed either in a star network (which operates like a Wi-Fi network) or in a mesh network. Consequently there is equipment which can be deployed for either. Equipment specifications that apply to star networks may not apply to mesh networks even though it is the same device. This is where the specific profile chosen comes into play. SmartThings only supports the use of Zigbee in a mesh architecture, using the Zigbee Home Automation 1.2 profile.)
In a mesh network, it’s not a matter of “latching on” to a particular neighbor. Each device has its list of neighbors and it will use any of those for its next signal transmission depending in part on availability and in part just on random choice. This is intended to keep the network balanced. Mesh networks are not designed with an assumption that some nodes will be much higher power than others.
All of which is to say that, professionally, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if you saw different results the day after a Zigbee network heal. That can happen.
1 Like
Yes, I know all of this - and all that has been done.
There is still erranous behaviour with the zigbee motion sensors though, but hey at least one of them is working, in a metal box as well! I wouldn’t be surprised if it stops tomorrow mind, but for now, its ticked one box.
I’m going to leave both Zigbee and Zwave repeaters in the system I think - the cost is negliable, it was £60 for the Zwave repeaters and I considering where the hub is, having them both place where there will probably cover the house and all the out buildings pretty well.
This at least gives me the chance to chose either Zigbee or Zwave devices to put in the outdoor areas in the future, which is quite useful as there is a lot more Zwave choice.
At least know now, from this thread, and that setting up the Xbee’s to join the ST network is very easy - having them actually work with the end nodes is a different matter - but I think I’ll do a conclusion post to show how its done…
2 Likes
Rain may still be an issue for the outbuildings…
The irony here being that the ST motion sensor worked for the first time whilst there was heavy rain 
1 Like
Zigbee, like the ST sensor, tends to work somewhat better through rain than Zwave does.
So you mentioned before (any citation for this?) the irony though being that it didn’t work in clear weather but it works in sh*t weather!
Glad its connected. The hub power off and back on is not the only thing that may need to be done to heal a large complex ZigBee network. The one thing you can do for sure is just wait, ZigBee does a fantastic job of self-healing. But it requires all child devices to wake up and realize they are not connecting to their parents and start looking for new ones within range. I think the power on / off trick is good advice (I often have to do it) and works for 90% of the people because their child sensors are using the hub as a parent.
If you have a complex / large configuration and you don’t want to wait for the self-healing to take place. I suggest you toggle the power on and off to the hub, toggle power or reboot all your router devices and then remove and replace the batteries in all your child devices. If you do it in that order it should cause a fresh new mesh to be formed. But if you wait, it will also happen if you have good signal strength to all devices.
As to why a child device connects to one router over the other has to do with signal strength, the router’s load, and configuration. Routers can only support xx amount of children and if they are too busy they may not respond in time. If I had to guess it is connecting to your PCB antenna xBee because it responds quicker or has better signal strength.
2 Likes
Trade secret. 
However, the truth is in the marketplace. There are no certified Z wave rain sensors. There are over a dozen certified for Zigbee.
edited to update I asked an academic friend about this. It’s the use of DSSS (Zigbee) versus FSK (Zwave). Zigbee is a more robust modulation for this reason.
Hey John. Yeah could be - though bare in mind I swapped the devices over so they should have been the same, and it was always right next to either device and I want always pulling the battery out and putting them back in, if only to wake the thing up and get it to see “something”
For sure it seems to connect to the hub a lot easier than anything else, if I bring in a non-responding zigbee sensor within a few minutes it’ll work in the house near the hub. It makes sense they favour the co-ordinator I guess. My zigbee network, with exception of the Xbee’s is pretty simple, the graph above is everything and three of those are xbee routers, its two ST power sockets, the ST hub and 3 xbees, all the battery nodes are what come with the ST starter kit, so a presence sensor, a motion sensor and a multi-sensor.
Hi @realdannys. I’m trying to do something very similar to what you did here but I get stuck at the point I try to connect XCTU to the Xbee Pro S2B. When I try to connect a prompt comes up to press the reset button (which doesn’t exist) and then it fails to connect. You managed to get around this, do you mind telling me exactly what you did?
Hi Kieren,
Yeah I had to use the Xbee Recovery in tools - it comes in client mode so sleeps straight away, if you select that it’ll flash it into router mode which stays away longer (though I still have the reset button problem after running a graph for a while)
@JohnR funny this should be brought back up actually. I had two devices connected to an Xbee working perfectly for months. The Xbee though was being powered with an ardruino with lose wires as a temp measure. I got some USB boards in so figured it was time to replace that and place it in a better position a couple of foot higher and nearer the items. So in about 30 seconds it was running on the new USB board.
Now I can’t get either of the client devices to connect for more than about 30 seconds. I pull the battery, they see it, they connect straight away, i can trigger the motion sensor or what not a few times - as soon as they go asleep they never wake up and join the network again. I’ve reset everything a few times to try and fix this, but it doesn’t work. I’ve check XCTU and the router I swapped over to the USB power is still there on the network just like before.
Any ideas why its doing this odd behaviour?
So the child devices connect to your xBee and work one time and don’t reconnect after that? A few things come to mind. First I would pull the batteries out of the devices, remove power to the xBees, and then to the hub for a few minutes. Then I would power on the hub and let it boot completely up and start communicating with the cloud. Then power on your xBees and then lastly put the batteries in your sensors that connect to your xBees. This may fix the problem but if not it positions everything for the next bit.
There is a Cyclic Sleep Period setting (SP) on your xBees that may help if you increase it. On routers the SP setting determines the transmission and buffering timeouts when sending a message to sleeping end devices. If this is set to low your seeping devices will miss packets and (I’m speculating about this) cause communication errors with your child devices. But its worth a try to increase and see what happens. It should be set to 0x20 = 32 x 10ms which means your child device should be checking in every 320 ms. Try setting it to a much higher number and see what happens. If you like bump it up close to the max on your xBee out in your shed.
Tip: You can use the XCTU to change the SP setting as shown below under the Sleep Modes category of your xBee.
Without sniffer packets I’m guessing as to what is really happening. If it doesn’t help put it back to the previous setting. I can’t explain why this worked fine until you moved your radios to your USB boards??
1 Like
Thanks @realdannys. I tried that but had no joy, wondering if it’s the cheap USB adapter component. I’ll start another thread about this specific issue.
I doubt it, they’re all the same - they cost like £1. They all work for me, there’s no reset button unless you get the bigger official one. Just make sure you’re flashing it with the settings John mentions above.
@JohnR thanks for that input i’ll give it a go - it is very odd how they’ll always instantly connect to the Xbee so no trouble there, but then lose it as soon as the activity stops for the first time. The USB is doing nothing more than powering the positive and negative and seen as its on and the device connects to it the first time there is nothing else different than before.
Hi John,
So I did the full system reset, I even switched the USB adapter in the outbuilding just in case the power was faulty. I also put my antenna Xbee in the outbuilding that nothing would connect to last time. At first it seemed to work, I re-added everything, my motion sensor had stopped working! So I got it replaced with Samsung and it arrived today.
I tried adding it whilst in the outbuilding and amazingly the hub saw it via the Xbee! It added just fine at 1.30pm. I put it in the letter box and it worked. Great! Until 2.50pm that is - which was the last feedback I got from it and its now not working again! Same goes for the multi-sensor on the Xbee also not working.
It makes no sense, because surely within the nearly 2 hours it was working it would haven’t gone to sleep - so its not the first time it sleeps that the disconnect happens. Do you think the SP setting (which I haven’t messed with just yet) would have any affect on this? If not i’m at a loss - I haven’t changed the settings at all since it was working just fine for weeks and weeks.
My SmartThings setup at the minute involves fixing one thing and then another breaks. Im 5 months in now and still don’t even have the basics working reliably.
FYI, I removed my inside Xbee as it turns out the outside one on its own has a strong signal with the SmartThings router. So save confusing things for now, i’ll just that on its own.
Ive changed its SP rate from 20 to 400.
Its 8.53pm and the multipurpose sensor (after pulling the battery out and putting it back) has connect to it and is working. The letter box sensor has naturally not reconnected and will need the battery pulling in it to get it search again. I won’t bother until i see how the multi purpose gets on.
1 Like