I have had, now for about two months, a Sonoff Button (SNZB-01) that I use to control a light bulb.
However, every once in a couple days (usually 3-4 at most) it stops working, so I’m forced to remove it from SmartThings, open it, reset it, re-pair it, and once it’s reconnected, reprogram it, only for it to work a couple days at best.
This button is not in the same room as the hub, but it’s not too far, it’s probably 10-15 metres at best, but the light bulb it controls is in the same room and it never loses connection.
I own another one of these buttons, which is closer to the hub (probably 5m), and it works perfectly fine, it disconnected only twice at most in six months.
15 meters is too far for a minimally powered Zigbee device, which is what those buttons are. Especially through walls. So most likely the mesh just isn’t strong enough in the room where that button is.
Best way to fix it is to add a Zigbee Smart plug in that room which also works as a repeater (most brands do, sengled doesn’t). Remember that zwave Repeats only for zwave and Zigbee repeats only for Zigbee so make sure it’s a Zigbee plug.
After you’ve added the plug to your smartthings network, unplug the hub and leave everything else on power for about 20 minutes. This will cause the other Zigbee devices to go into “panic mode“ because they can’t find a hub. Then when the hub comes back on power, the other devices will rebuild their network connections, which should cause the button to choose the new smart plug as a repeater as long as they are within about 5 feet of each other at the time that this happens. This process can take a few hours to complete for the whole network, so you might not see improvements until the next day.
So that’s the most likely issue and solution.
Another possibility is that there is a strong Wi-Fi source in the room with the problematic button and it is drowning out nearby Zigbee. This would most commonly be a Wi-Fi booster or Wi-Fi access point.
I do have a 2.4 GHz access point but it’s not in the same room, it’s in the room next door, I’d say they’re 5-10m apart in total. The main router I have is set to work on 5 GHz only to avoid conflict, as previously I had frequent ‘blackouts’ for my zigbee devices that are now fixed.
So the bulb works because it’s not a minimally powered device, if I’m understanding this right, but the button, being one, loses connection? Isn’t the bulb a repeater? It’s an Innr E27 Warm White LED Bulb, if that’s got any relevance
Yes to both questions, but Zigbee bulbs tend to lose a lot of messages, it’s not quite clear why. IKEA Tradfri bulbs seem to be pretty good repeaters in a smartthings environment, but other brands have been problematic, as verified by smartthings engineering staff.
As for the access point, it might be a problem even at that distance, Zigbee and Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz are on the same frequency and Wi-Fi is just a much more powerful signal. Sometimes you have to just do trial and error.
I’ve mentioned in the past that I had a plug-in Wi-Fi access point and if I put it on one wall in a room all the Zigbee devices to the east of it dropped off. But if I just moved it to a 90° wall in the same room, everything worked fine.
With ZigBee devices that loose connection to the hub, you do NOT need to remove the offline device from the app. You can just do the normal pairing process. They will be readded as the same device and you will NOT loose your automations.
This doesn’t solve your problem, but should make it easier to deal with.
Sorry, I completely missed it. I’ve read the article. Is there a list of good bulbs, inconsistent bulbs and straight up bad bulbs? For example, I do have as Osram Bulb, in a different room.
