I think i may have hit the device limit, the last week or so I keep finding various devices loosing connection and I am guessing it’s because I added 3 more ikea wall plugs
Another oddity, I have a wifi lamp connected via cloud
First an established ikea plug dropped out, reset it and it came back online, then a different but newly installed ikea plug dropped out, again reset and back online
What are the limitations exactly, is it total devices or zwave 40 zigbee 40, I don’t think v devices count for cloud control of odd devices though I stand to be corrected
Another oddity, a cloud connected wifi lamp is showing off line in the old app but works fine ? It uses the global suite cloud integration from the new app for control
Interesting. I have almost 270 devices, and have had close to 300 in one Location. There are others with that many, and more. I know having more than 300 is an issue, but never heard of anything around 200.
Z-wave does have a limit if I recall, but I’m not sure anymore. Zigbee probably does, but I’m not sure about that either. Tagging @JDRoberts who may know better.
@fido, the WiFi lamp offline issue could just be related to differences between the mobile apps. There are several discussions about that in the community.
The dropping of your IKEA plugs can be interference/range related. Those are zigbee repeaters, and should actually be helping your zigbee mesh. Since rejoining them, are they working ok now? Btw, you should not have to reset them. Just unplug them and plug them back it after several seconds.
Devices being marked “offline” is a long-standing problem with SmartThings and can happen whether you have 3 devices or 300. Many forum threads about it. Is that what you meant by “losing connection”? If so, it’s an artifact of the cloud platform, and nothing to do with any particular protocol. The hub itself hasn’t lost connection to the device, but your cloud account thinks it has.
If you meant you actually did lose connection, that would be a different problem, most often caused by one bad repeater somewhere.
As far as limits…Any zwave network, regardless of hub brand, is limited to 232 devices total. Zigbee allows for thousands. There’s a FAQ on this:
Amazing… I had always thought there was a 40 device limit !!! Thank you so much guys, every days a school day, that gives me scope now to examine why im getting devices dropping out of connection, it is mostly ikea plugs with the one exception of the cloud based lamp showing not connected when it is
As JD reports it appears to be quite common although for me the whole system is 98% reliable , any connection issues are really unusual in my useage scenario
I believe there is a hard limit of 32 zigbee end devices (non repeating) connected directly to the hub. So if you don’t have any zigbee repeaters this can be an issue. Definitely not your issue though since the Tradfri plugs are great repeaters.
That only applies to child devices, non-repeating lightbulbs like Sengled and battery powered devices. It does not apply to plug in devices or most lightbulbs. So as you note it wouldn’t be affected by adding more IKEA plug-ins.
It’s always possible that one of the new IKEA devices is defective and other devices trying to use it as a repeater are not getting through, so they are being marked “off-line.“ That’s just something you have to test with trial and error by removing the new devices, adding them back in one at a time, Then waiting a few days to see what happens.
I’m finding one or two devices still dropping out JD, currently one is a multi smartthings sensor which is an end device and also a zigbee ikea socket which is furthest from hub and has another ikea socket closer to it than the hub
It does seem i am hitting the hard device limit and I can’t seem to get a decent repeat from other sockets, I use 3 types, the older now discontinued greenwave sockets, ikea and Smartthings, a recent count of Smart sockets/ devices found i have at least 36
Aren’t your greenwave sockets zwave? Zwave repeats only for Zwave, zigbee repeats only for zigbee. So a zwave socket can’t help a zigbee sensor reach the hub.
That said, the “device offline” issue may not have anything to do with the protocol, but rather just the SmartThings cloud. Many reports in the forums about “device offline” issues even from people who only have a few devices all very close to the hub. So report it to support, and see if they have any ideas.
Hi @fido, for those devices still dropping, what is their Next Hop? You should be able to see that in the IDE per device (Zigbee only). It will tell you the name and DNI. Here’s an exampl from my setup:
If the Next Hop is too far or there’s interference, try moving the device closer to a different repeater and rejoin there. It can take some work, but you could almost build your mesh layout with the little info ST is now providing us with Next Hop to see if any of your repeaters has maxed out and you need another one somewhere in your house.
Thanks Jon, I don’t drop into the ide much these days as i usually get great reliability so dont need to tinker, this being the reason I didn’t know hops were now available to see, that helped greatly and I was able to swap a zigbee switch here and there which gave me an extra hop, it also seems to indicate that all devices are straight back to hub although zwave does not show hops my zigbee devices all go straight to hub, just my layout to blame really
I guess this is the also the reason the odd zwave device drops out… I’m hitting the physical limit
I’m really hoping that ST will some day provide a mapping tool for us, or at least include that field in the My Devices list so it can be exported out to a spreadsheet.
Seriously doubtful. The limit for z-wave devices is 231 (232 including the hub). And hitting any device limit is unlikely to cause connected devices to drop off, and more likely to cause issues with being unable to connect additional devices.
If your z-wave devices are truly dropping off the network then it’s likely an issue with your z-wave network or with the devices themselves. If they’re simply showing as “offline” but still respond to commands, that’s an issue with the ST cloud.
At the moment everything is connected so nothing to chase down and test but from looking at my IDE zigbee hops, all go straight to hub, I have around 12 ish zigbee devices, if the zwave devices all go straight back to the hub it would indicate im hitting near the 32 physical limit not hop limit
You’re misunderstanding. Z-wave and zigbee are two separate networks with two separate limits. The z-wave limit is 231 devices and doesn’t have anything to do with the zigbee devices. The zigbee limit of 32 devices is only END devices connected directly to the hub, that is devices that don’t repeat and are aren’t connected through a repeater. You said you have a Tradfri plug, which is a zigbee repeater, so your limit for zigbee devices is much higher than 32. If you had 32 zigbee devices connected to your hub and tried to add another one, it would simply connect to your Tradfri plug or another repeater, and at some point the neighbor tables might update and things initially connected to the hub could re-route through repeaters.
Edit: For reference I have a total of ~60 zigbee devices and ~20 z-wave devices connected to my SmartThings hub (along with ~45-50 virtual and cloud connected devices) and am very far from encountering any device limit issues.
Im at 297 devices and am having some issues with really simple local automations sometimes running really slow (local devices with default handlers and smartlighting app). I read through this thread and found the link to the developers page, saying 200 is the max. how firm is that limit? am i just throwing too much at smartthings? i have about 50 webcore pistons and 45 smartlighting automations. id hate to jump ship but the performance is suffering and im getting frustrated.
