FAQ: 32 Zigbee direct connection device limit?

Not entirely true…
I have loads of Ikea bulbs and they are all working GREAT as repeaters for my Xiaomi devices…
Never experienced a drop off… :crossed_fingers: :slight_smile:

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How have you validated this? Did you buy an xbee and map your zigbee network?

@Automated_House Are you asking me…? :slight_smile:

@AnubizDK assuming you have them direct connected to your hub (I only have a couple of tradfris - both running through Hue (I like keeping all my bulbs on Hue). Glad to know they’re working well for you. (Out of curiosity I might repair one of my tradfris from Hue to Smartthings one of these days and see what my XBees say through XCTU) .

Yup. SmartThings doesn’t provide a zigbee map natively.

Well let me see…
First of all i have more than 32 Zigbee devices, so that alone tells me that some devices are infact acting as repeaters.
About 15 of these are Ikea Trådfri bulbs in different shape and sizes.
I have hard wired all my lamp sockets, so the Trådfri’s are “always on”
I then use low cost Xiaomi wireless buttons to control them, where my automation don’t do the work for me.

Second, the Trådfri’s are placed all around my house, in both the basement, first and second floor.
My V2 hub is placed in a corner on the first floor, and the bulb with the longest distance from the hub, sits about 35m away with walls and such in between.
Besides the Trådfri’s, the rest of my Zigbee devices are battery powered Xiaomi endpoints.
I have both door/window sensors (2 diff. versions), motion sensors (2 diff. versions), and 3 different types of buttons. Many of these are placed well out of Zigbee range from the hub, so i have no doubt at all that the Trådfri’s are doing a great job repeating the Zigbee signals…
I have of course tried to disconnect some of the bulbs to test this, and the Xiaomi endpoint drop off immediately here after…
I have just got my hands on a couple of the new Ikea smart plugs, to control my outdoor december christmas lights. As a test i placed one of these in a outdoor wallsocket outside my house and approx. 50m(!) away from the hub, with no signs of connection problems at all…
So yes - i’m pretty certain that i have a nice strong Zigbee mesh from my Trådfri’s… :slight_smile:

(And i have off course thought about buying a Xstick and do a network mapping, but i’m afraid it would only give me a 40$ drawing of a spider web, of something i know works in the first place… :wink: )

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FWIW, i’m seeing reports on multiple forums that since they changed and met the zigbee certification specifications, the IKEA Tradfri bulbs are in fact working well as ZHA repeaters, without the issues reported for most of the other ZLL bulbs. But I don’t know anyone who has formally tested them yet.

@tpmanley

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what is the DH you are using to control the smart plug?
Is this a smart plug? I need a zigbbe repeater for my xiaomi sensors

Yup - that’s the one… I use the generic “Zigbee switch power” DH…
Regarding the repeater part - i use them right now as endpoints so i can’t confirm, but this post suggest that they also works as a repeater:

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I have the same experience with Tradfri and Xiaomi. :+1:

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Is this limit the same on a v3 hub? On the same token the v3 hub is supposed to support ZigBee 3.0 (which I believe it doesn’t currently?) and that spec calls for up to 240 endpoints. I thought I remember another post saying the goal was to update both the v2 and v3 hub to ZigBee 3.0? Is that still the plan and will the endpoint limit get increased at that point?

V3 hub does. Just paired a new water sensor by QR scan last week.

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Yeah, I did the same with 20+ sensors. Some multiple times with the whole hub upgrade debacle. Didn’t even put the QR code discovery + ZigBee 3.0 together in my head until you said that and I double checked my hub info.

But the rest of the question remains about the limits and v2 upgrades.

v3 supports 64 child devices.

Endpoints are kind of like ports in TCP/IP communication - basically different applications on a device. Most devices have 1 or maybe 2 endpoints. The child device limit is the number of end devices that can connect directly to a node on the network like the hub and it isn’t related to endpoints.

Yes, we do plan to update v2 to Zigbee 3 in the future and the limit will be increased at that time.

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It would be helpful (and honest) to existing/prospective SmartThings customers to mention this limit (as well as 32 end-device limit in V2) in the SmartThings FAQ. The FAQ currently implies that SmartThings supports unlimited number of Zigbee devices.

https://support.smartthings.com/hc/en-us/articles/208672926-Z-Wave-and-ZigBee-FAQ#No_Devices

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I am using the Xiaomi power outlet and is sold on aliexpress for about €20 for a euro version. Works well as a repeater for zigbee

Bro @MagnusBergs
Did you mean like this Xiaomi zigbee plug you are using as zigbee repeater??
https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/btnJIn9A

When I power off a Tradfri bulb in the loft, the Aqara window sensor drops off within the hour.

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Do you have an ETA for that release? I’m currently stuck with half a house of non working bulbs and contact sensors. It took a lot of hair pulling to come across this post as the 32 device limit is not called out in the SmartThings documentation. If it’s going to be a long time before a real fix will be released I will use the repeater work-around. I understand this defect probably doesn’t impact a lot of your users and may be a lower priority but it does impact your power users.

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That’s a 32 device direct connection limit, not a 32 device limit. There are plenty of Zigbee bulbs that are known to be poor Zigbee repeaters that could be the source of your problem. Real power users have repeaters in every room to ensure a properly functioning mesh. This is not a smartthings issue per say… but more Zigbee by design.

https://community.smartthings.com/search?q=Repeater%20in%20every%20room

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