Find what devices are being used in Zigbee hops

I have a large Zigbee network, and was wondering if there is anyway on the IDE to find out what devices are used for hops? For example I have a Zigbee bulb, and at the moment is used to hop to the hub by 2 devices, but with over 130 devices is there a way other than clicking on each device?

I don’t believe mesh networks have fixed routes. Any message can traverse the network by hopping to any sequence of neighbors based on multiple factors. I believe the IDE only shows you a route taken by one recent message.

I’ve seen Z-wave tools that show a matrix of nodes with reachable neighbors but have not seen one mentioned for Zigbee.

If anyone here has a more detailed understanding, it would be @JDRoberts

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@HalD is correct.

What you are looking for is a “map” of the Zigbee mesh. As Hal noted, mesh networks do not have a fixed route: instead, messages sent at different times may travel different paths, just depending on network traffic at that moment. A map would show you the list of all possible paths available in your network.

The information in the IDE is just a record of one path taken at one time and recorded in the cloud. It is not realtime information, and it doesn’t necessarily show you the most common path for that device. Or all possible routes. Just one route taken at the time the record was made. :thinking: unfortunately, this is all that SmartThings gives us in the official tools.

If you want a full map, you have to buy a third party device with its own mapping tools and use that. This can be expensive and/or complicated, and isn’t worth it to most people, but it is possible.

Here’s the discussion thread for zigbee mapping. The topic title is a clickable link. Note that this is only for zigbee.

The similar thirdparty tool for zwave is more polished and easier to use, but quite expensive, anywhere from $125 to $250 depending on whether it’s on sale. (It does go on sale pretty often.) So again, not worth it to most people. Here’s the thread on that one.

Note that that one is only for zwave.

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Thank you so much for your excellent reply, very helpful. I wrongly thought it would be more like a standard network, where once a route had been established it would then tend to follow that route. There is little point in me wasting money as this would not help my set-up at all. I am finding that the better quality kit is definitely more reliable and stable, thanks again.

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Glad to help. :sunglasses:

Mesh networks ARE “standard” networks, and used in many different applications, not just home automation. But the route planning is indeed very different than for “tree” networks like most WiFi networks, so you’re probably just more used to that.

Back when I was in college, one of my network engineering professors explained It’s like the difference between taking the subway or a taxi in New York City. The subway takes the same route and the same time from point to point every time. The taxi driver varies their route considerably depending on traffic conditions, road closures, even weather, and the time for each trip may be very different. Both are efficient routing algorithms, but you have to know which one you’re working with. :mountain_railway: :taxi: