Hi - setting up SmartThings for the first time. Got some devices setup but struggling with the Xfinity sensors. Got a bunch of them, with brand new batteries. Following all the instructions I found here and elsewhere but cannot get ST to pick them up. Closest I’ve come is a Zigbee Thing is added, but doesn’t seem to do anything. I saw some mention of a beta driver here and tried it, but it didn’t change anything. Any advice? Thanks very much.
Try the Zigbee Contact Mc driver from @Mariano_Colmenarejo. Subscribe to his channel here and install to your hub. If that doesn’t work, go to the ST Advanced Web App and post a screen shot of the device info in this topic.
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Thanks so much! That driver did the trick…
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Thought I was in the clear with these sensors, but this morning when I got up all of them were disconnected. Running the diag showed that Smartthings could no longer connected to the cloud. After removing the hub and re-adding it, and reinstalling the Zigbee Contact Mc driver, now I’m trying to re-add the sensors and they’re not found. Starting to think Smartthings wasn’t such a great idea!
Did you reset the sensors? Also try bringing the sensors near the hub when pairing.
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Again today, two of my seven Xfinity sensors are offline. Are there more reliable sensors I can get?
tell us more about your set up:
- which model hub do you have or appliance/tv with builtin hub?
- is the hub near any other equipment that may cause interface such as a wifi AP, etc?
- location of the hub in your Home? large house? multiple floors?
- how far are the sensors from the hub?
have you logged into the Advanced Web App?
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Smartthings as a platform does have issues with marking devices “off-line“ which are not actually off-line. That can be annoying and hard to fix. But before we get to that, let’s first look at some of the reasons why, regardless of the Home Automation platform you are using, a Zigbee device like your sensors might have trouble communicating to the hub. That is, situations where they are truly off-line.
First, Zigbee as a protocol is designed for “mesh“ communications. In order to get good battery life, the devices are designed intentionally as low power transmitters. Rather than having each sensor communicate directly with the hub, in most cases, a battery powered device will be communicating with a mains powered device nearby. that second device then Sends a message a little further down the line to another mains powered device. This is called “repeating”, and it’s sort of a pony express setup. Low power device sends the message to the limit of its range, which for Zigbee home automation is only about 40 feet. Then the next repeating device picks up the message and sends it along for another “hop“, another 30 to 40 feet. And So on, until eventually the message gets to the hub.
Many people who are unaware of this process will buy a bunch of batterypowered Zigbee sensors, Place them all over the house, but not get any mains powered Zigbee devices. They then find that only the few sensors that are within one hop of the hub can get their messages through, because battery powered devices generally do not act as repeaters.
So first, let’s consider the layout of your Zigbee mesh.
Begin by reading post 11 in the following thread, then after you have read that, go up to the top of the thread and read the rest of the messages. That will give you the basic concepts and terminology You need to build a strong mesh.
I will link directly to post 11:
A Guide to Wireless Range & Repeaters - #11 by JDRoberts
After you have read that, if you think you do have the right devices in the right places to create a strong mesh, we can start looking into the questions that @jkp just asked. 
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If you made a driver change from zigbee thing to the zibgee contact Mc driver, then the devices have not been configured correctly and appear offline after a couple of hours.
For devices to be configured correctly you have to pair them directly with the zigbee contact Mc driver.
- Delete the device from the app
- Put the device in pairing mode
- Add new device with the search nearby option
This will configure and maintain the same name and all the routines you made
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I used the Mc driver because the zigbee thing driver wasn’t finding the devices at all…
Thanks all for the helpful replies! I’m using a brand new Aeotec hub for my downstairs. Have another being delivered today for upstairs. All devices so far are downstairs. House is about 2700 square feet. The downstairs hub is in my network cabinet with a 24 port Netgear switch, a power supply, and an Eero wifi mesh device. It’s connected via ethernet to the switch. Sensors are two rooms away from the hub. In fact, one of the disconnected sensors is on the right window next to a working sensor in the left, directly next to each other. The only other Zigbee device I setup so far is an Aeotec motion sensor, which seems to be working fine and is right near the other sensors. Besides that just a Honeywell T9 thermostat. I have logged into Advanced Web App. Thanks again!
The Zigbee thing driver should match with any Zigbee device, which is compatible with the Home Automation platform. It doesn’t use fingerprints to search for specific models. However, any edge driver which does use specific fingerprints and matches on one of those fingerprints will take precedence over the Zigbee thing driver.
If the device is not matching with any edge driver, not even Zigbee thing, Then the pairing process is failing.
There are a few reasons that might happen.
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The device is not in fact compatible with SmartThings. These are most commonly control4 Zigbee devices, but there are others as well.
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The device needs to be reset before it can except a new pairing
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The device is too far away from the hub for the signal to reach
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The device requires some specific manipulation before it will accept a pairing. Just as an example, some Zigbee sensors Will only pair if the battery case is closed and an internal tamper switch is depressed.
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there is too much local interference from other broadcast devices to get Zigbee messages through. This is like when you turn on the microwave and your streaming TV box starts buffering.
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The device is defective.
Please read the wireless range and repeaters community FAQ I linked to previously. Network cabinets are a great idea for hardwired devices, but all that stuff together makes it really hard to get wireless signal through.
Zigbee and Wi-Fi transmit on the same frequency, but Wi-Fi is 100s of times more powerful, and will tend to drown out the Zigbee signals.
Even if your Aeotec hub is cabled to your router, Best practices would be to get it out into open air at least 3 m from your Wi-Fi router. Otherwise it’s going to be very hard to get Zigbee messages to and from the hub.
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Ok can anyone recommend sensors that are fully compatible with Smartthings and don’t require a third-party driver?
I will move the hub to another room and see if it helps. Thanks.
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There are quite a few, and we can start another topic for that conversation, but first, let’s get your hub out of that cabinet and away from the Wi-Fi router and see if that helps. 
Good plan. Done. If the devices still don’t connect I’ll remove/re-add them. Still using the Mc Driver though. Are you thinking I should remove that and try again with the standard driver? Couldn’t get any of them to come up at all with that before.
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I would stay with the Mc Contact driver (Mariano has many drivers, so it helps to be specific) if it matches the fingerprint of your devices. It will solve some other issues versus the stock driver.
Also, are you using Mariano’s “Zigbee thing MC“ driver or just the stock Zigbee thing driver? (MC are Mariano’s initials so they appear in the name of most of his drivers.)
If you delete zigbee contact Mc then it will re-pair with zigbee thing driver and you will be back at the beginning, since your device fingerprints does not exist in the stock driver.
What I was trying to tell you is that zigbee thing driver does not configure any device and only serves to pair it to the zigbee network and be able to view the fingerprints on the advanced users page.
If you later find a driver compatible with your device and make a driver change from zigbee thing then your device will seem to work, but since it is not configured correctly it will appear offline after a while. This is valid for any zigbee device.
smathings should inform the user when they make a driver change and warn them that their device may not work correctly and could will appear offline and in that case you must pair the device again
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Using Mariano’s Shared Beta Zigbee Contact Mc Driver…