The 32 device limit is the total number of battery-powered zigbee devices (plus Sengled Element lightbulbs). Not just one device class. But every mains powered zigbee device ( except again Sengled element lightbulbs which are in the other group because they don’t repeat) can take some of the burden off of the hub.
The Lowe’s Iris smartplug 3210-L Is popular because of the unusual fact that it includes both A zigbee repeater and a zwave repeater.
Not the other Lowe’s smart plug models. Just that one.
Otherwise, any Zigbee pocket socket that works with SmartThings should act as a repeater, so those are popular.
However, that’s not what’s causing the problem you describe as it would only affect non repeating devices of the zigbee protocol. And it wouldn’t happen at the same time or thereabouts each day.
The problem you described is one of the hub becoming unavailable To all locally connected devices. Not of a few individual devices not being able to get through to it.
Also
Since I already have old ones in place just added more of the same, I did not consider this as a pattern change
Having four of something instead of three is definitely a network change. Adding a new device, any new device, is a network change. Moving a smart plug from one room to another is a network change.
Take a before and after picture. If they don’t match exactly, there’s a network change.
I use a few Centralite based Zigbee outlets as repeaters. One is an original SmartThings outlet, the other is a more modern Lowes Iris outlet. These seem to work pretty well for me. I also have about 5 zigbee bulbs (Cree and GE Link) directly paired with the Hub. These might also be acting as Zigbee HA repeaters, but I am not 100% certain.
This kept happening to me a while back, but it was mostly my zigbee devices. My ST Presence Sensor and other devices kept going haywire or becoming unreachable at roughly the same time every night. It turned out that it was because my wife was turning on a 2.4 GHZ wireless headsets to watch TV at the same time. So if there is consistency in the times that it is happening, check to see what devices (even outside of the Smartthings environment) that might be using a 2.4 GHZ radio might be turning on at that time. Some examples are wireless headsets, microphones, RC cars/drones, microwaves, wifi cameras, etc. This at least speaks to the zigbee devices and possibly even your cameras.
Same for me, usually around 4:15am for about a minute most, but not all days. So far I can’t figure out what might be happening at that time other than perhaps my Internet is doing some quick reset. As it’s early morning hours I do not notice if any other devices are suffering.
For some reason my phone registers 5 GHZ but my wife’s phone is 2.4 GHZ???
And yes this is another thing she makes all her long and long distance calls after 6 or 7pm…
Holly sh…t
Ok SOLUTION…
I have a barely used amazing smart home setup… I am selling them all… Anyone???
Are you referring to the Wi-FI band they are connected to? Whether she makes calls or not, her phone being on 2.4GHz Wi-Fi is a red herring here. Any phone associated with Wi-Fi will connect to that Wi-Fi while it’s in range, regardless of calls being made. And then, unless you are using Wi-Fi calling, any calls are actually going via the cell network anyway.
Anyway, it’s unlikely the phone on 2.4 is an issue or just about everyone’s Zigbee network would be trash.
the whole picture is getting more clear now…
Just one thing I am slightly confused about is;
Lets say for all the reasons everyone is talking about my Zibgee network is really messed up.
But would this also effect my zwave network devices??? (Such as bulbs)
No, Which is why I have said since you first posted your device list that the problem you have described is not just a zigbee problem.
The problem you have described is the hub being unavailable for anything connected to the hub whether it is Z wave or zigbee or LAN, But your cloud to cloud devices still working fine.
There may be a lot of things you can do to improve the efficiency of both your Z wave and zigbee, and you’ve gotten lots of good suggestions about that, but none of those will help with your described problem of all your directly connected devices, regardless of protocol, all becoming unavailable at about the same time each night for four days in a row. And that included your Hue bridge and your Sonos speakers.
That’s not a Wi-Fi problem, it’s not local interference, it’s not a lack of repeaters. It’s the hub becoming unavailable.
So you need support to take a look at it, figure out what’s causing that, and get that fixed.
Then you can go ahead and work on all the other improvements that people are suggesting. But the basic issue where you have to reboot your hub every night Is not going to have anything to do with what Wi-Fi devices you have, in part because Wi-Fi doesn’t interfere with zwave.
And to add more targets to the dartboard if support hasn’t already gotten you squared away, take a look at the hub events in the IDE and see if there are any odd entries. Try to figure out which ones are a result of your manual reboots and which are not. Radio events, excessive pinging, no pinging for long periods, update attempts, etc.
bamarayne
(Jason "The Enabler" as deemed so by @Smart)
57
I’ve got six zigbee repeaters in my two story home… Things work great. I have around 50 to 60 zigbee devices that run on batteries.
The past week I have been having issues with hue bulbs not coming at all on or coming on at 10%… tonight for example I have to ask google 4 times to turn a lamp on… ST events on the app show all 4 events… for reference google links to ST and not the hue hub…
I’ve been hoping that the platform improved so I didn’t have to migrate to the other platform but when all you are asking for is lighting to come on when you ask and the platform can’t even manage that then you have to question the commitment of the team behind it…
I work in IT and I would have been fired by now if I had delivered a platform with this track record
yup frustrating especially after such investments (time and money) by consumers…
I have a company with employees and usually this happens with bad upper level management rather than technicians (but this is my experience)
But we’ll see, i’ve been getting great support from the community that thought me a lot.
we gotta figure it out ourselves I guess LOL
I’m in agreement by the way, I expect it’s largely issues around funding to get the right money in the right place - hardware or people and I’m not convinced that the priorities of the upper level management align to where the technicians know the issues to be… I’m not convinced that the platform is making any money and is more just the basis to sell more TVs and Fridges etc… But it’s all speculation and I am by no means an IoT expert…
I don’t want to bring this in to another “other” platform debate, but there are many posts on this forum about hubitat… not so say you may not get similar issues there, as I expect there the funding is much smaller and is a much younger business… but I get the feeling they are doing it more for love with the techs behind the steering wheel, much like SmartThings prior to Samsung… But as things progress and get bigger they too will need to scale with the challenges that brings and that is the difficult bit!
When you put all eggs in one basket, you need the financial power of Samsung and Google and Amazon to maintain the structure but if you decentralize and give the power to each hub, then scaling becomes a non issue.
