Does anyone know if and how you need to repair Zigbee mesh?
I know how to repair the Z-Wave mesh.
Thanks
You shouldnāt have to do anything to repair a ZigBee network if you have enough ZigBee router nodes. If a ZigBee router is turned off, other routers that are within range will automatically be selected to pickup and route packets in its absence. However, if the ZigBee router that goes down is the only one within range then you will loose communications to the down stream devices .
Now with all this said I have on more than one occasion lost communications with ZigBee end devices at the far edge of my network. I have found that resetting (or unplugging and plugging the power to) the SmartThings hub fixes this problem 90% of the time.
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I donāt think there is a way to do this. What itās your problem? Maybe I or some one here can assist you.
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Thank you both for your reply.
Iām actually not having a problem, Iām just trying to stretch the range to my chicken coop and I wanted to make sure I was getting the most I could out of it.
Ultimately I put a Zigbee SmartPower Outlet in one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006EUHRK6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I could not make it work with Z-Wave, even using a Z-Wave GE Appliance Plug in the same box. I was surprised because I thought Z-Wave had more range than Zigbee - not in my case though.
Iām very pleased, I have a door sensor on the chicken coop door (so I can tell if my kids locked up the coop on time) and a heat lamp plugged into the SmartPower outlet set to turn on when it goes below freezing. Automated chickens - who knewā¦
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OMG! My wife has a chicken coop in our back yard and I automated it for her a couple of years ago. We free-range 5 chickens and close them in every night and let them out in the morning with an iPhone app hooked up to a web cam and a 12v actuator. I have been thinking about converting the door control over to ZigBee and making a kit available.
It is so cool to hear someone else out there using ZigBee to check on chickens!!
Here is my coopās facebook page I made several years ago Facebook in case your interested. Our chickens are on an island (there is a bridge to it) in the middle of our pond and I have two ZigBee routers that connect to the island. Right now ZigBee is just turning on and off our pondās water fountain and four Hue bulbs that are on the bridge. Sorry for all you non chicken people Iām sure you wont get it, us chicken people and pretty dang proud of our birds!! My rooster is one bad ass bird (well he thinks he is anyway)!!
Nice and I thought I was getting fancy with a temperature controlled light and a door closed sensor. Nice work on the chicken coop - very fancy - your chickens are luckyā¦
@JohnR, that coop is awesome! Friends of ours have eight chickens and he built a very cool coop, similar to the one above. However, he has none of the automation. I just sent him the Facebook page. You should add the automation and camera info to the Facebook page as well!
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We have found ZigBee range to be greater. Additionally we āboost the powerā of the ZigBee radios in the SmartThings devices.
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But, does it go to 11?
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I am trying to understand what may have caused my zigbee mesh to go haywire yesterday, after almost a year free of major incidents. I didnāt introduce new devices to my network of any kind. I did notice that a not used presence sensor got included automatically, which I thought was strange but not unheard of. Between yesterday and today, almost 80% of my sensors and bulbs dropped out , and those that are still connected are either extremely slow or sending wrong messages. Could this be a local issue in my home or something that may have happened on ST side? I did restart my hub twice in my attempt to āfixā the erroneous messages I was getting from a presence sensor that is in my car. Also, I did open a ticket and am waiting for support to get back to me.
According to a message from support, the Cloud had āhiccupsā yesterday. Not a local mesh issue. Many people reported multiple issues including missing and duplicated messages.
Also, zigbee networks are easy to heal. They donāt require a special system utility like zwave does. Just unplug the hub for 15 minutes (.including off battery). Then repower it and over the next day or so all the routing tables will automatically rebuild.
Also, zwave plus does have longer range than zigbee in ideal conditions, but theyāre both in the same range in a typical home automation set up, and zigbee does travel slightly better through water, both rain and water pipes. So range is not usually a big differentiator unless youāre trying to go across an open field on a sunny day.
See the range and repeater FAQ for more information:
Thanks JD, I never experienced zigbee issues at this scale, and usually, if one device drops, I take the batteries out and put them back in, which 99% of time fixes the problem. But with a bunch of devices not working now, it would feel like v2 migration deja vue to go around the house to check each device. I didnāt know that rebuilding the routing tables may take more than several minutes. Iāll wait and see if the problem corrects in a few days, before Iāll start walking around the house to reset each device. As always, thanks for your quick response.
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Update: all but 5 devices came back alive overnight. The 5 that didnāt, I was able to bring them back by taking the batteries out and put them back in. Whatever the incident was, I hope it will not happen often, because it defeats the purpose of using these devices.
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Hi all sorry to reopen this thread after a year
Just before the hub update this week I lost all my ST zigbee devices
Motion, multi, flood, outlet and presence
All were lost within 15 mins of each other
Iāve tried taking my hub down (inc battery removal) for 15 mins, Iāve tried a battery pull on devices,
Nothing is working itās as if zigbee is offline but according to the Hub itās not.
Anyone any ideas on how to fix this?
Sounds like a bad hub. Support is your best chanceā¦
Thanks Iāve contacted support ā¦but its the weekend soā¦
Iām beginning to suspect the same after this week where everything seemed to implode slowly.
I have a theory - ST has disabled zigbee insecure rejoin - a lot of zigbee sleepy devices (battery powered) wonāt be able to communicate withthe hub once the secure token changes (say a hub restart) and are not able to rejoin. Iāve just enabled my insecure rejointo see if I am right. You may want to try the same too. I only have trouble with the Iris contact sensors and the leakSmart leak sensors. All other devices are fine, and I have quite a few 
Oh, put the hub in discovery while plugging the battery back into the nonresponsive deviceā¦
Thanks I had tried both of those (insecure rejoin & discovery) and no luck yet but if yours reconnects let me know. I think my next plan is to relocate my hub as it is currently 2ft from the router and in another thread I saw the zigbee channel had changed so it could be interference.
Iām having a problem with some GE bulbs dropping out and a Samsung Multi-Sensor getting stuck. Iām thinking it might be my zigbee network and that it needs to be rebuilt since I have been adding things and have never rebuilt it (Iāve only been doing this for a few months). I see how to do it (power down hub inc batteries) but I was wondering if I should get everything back connected first rather than rebuild as it is, then add them back in. Iāve had a bulb drop out previously and was able to re-add it. It was also one relatively close to the hub too.
Iāve also changed my WiFi channel to (1) as far from the Zigbee channel (20) as I could get.
Any advice would be most appreciated!