Hi there,
I’ve recently found that the zigbee devices on my network go offline from time to time, and it seems this is related to device hopping.
Wonder if there is any way to disable hopping, so all devices will be talking to the hub directly, though I understand this is probably done at the cost of battery life, but reliability hopefully will improve.
Or if it’s possible to force all devices to re-generate device maps when the devices used for hopping go offline.
Thanks a lot.
Hopping?
First, you cannot control the Zigbee mesh. The only thing you CAN do is ensure that you have a strong mesh with a lot of line powered repeating devices. Once you have your devices where they will live, you CAN force thdm to perform a Zigbee ‘heal’ by taking your hub completely offline for at least 20 minutes. (that includes any battery backups or any battery installed in a v. 2 hub.
The devices will go into panic mode and start rebuilding the mesh and ‘should’ communicate wigh the strongest signal.
But that said - see the first statement. They’re going to do what they want. Just make sure you have lots of solid repeaters…
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Thanks for your reply. Nathan.
I am setting up the offline zigbee devices by unplugging powered zigbee devices first (bulbs, outlets), hoping they would connect to the hub directly. (but there are still couple hardwired ones).
Let’s see how long this can last.
BTW, great to know about he panic mode.
Stay safe and take care!
There is a limit on how many Zigbee devices can connect directly to the hub, depending upon the version of the hub you have (32 for the v2 hub I believe). You don’t really want to force a device to the hub, or a particular zigbee routing device. You really want to let the mesh build those paths for you by performing a healing process, like @nathancu mentioned above.
Just make sure you’ve got good Zigbee routing capable devices, like your outlets, and if you can, avoid bulbs since those can be turned off and cause problems in your Zigbee mesh.
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What type(s) of bulbs are you using? Many Zigbee bulbs are poor Zigbee Home Automation repeaters and may be the cause of Zigbee mesh network instabilities. After I replaced my Cree Connected and GE Link bulbs with Sengled Zigbee bulbs, my Zigbee mesh network became very solid and reliable. I use Centralite/Iris Zigbee outlets as my repeaters. It should be noted that Sengled bulbs are designed to not be repeaters. This means they will not negatively impact your Zigbee mesh, even if switched off via a physical power switch. It also means that you will need other devices to act as repeaters.
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Thanks again for the replies.
I guess it’s time for me to do a thorough review and investigation of my zigbee devices. (Zwave devices seem more reliable by comparison)
Over the years, I’ve accumulated a number of zigbee devices consisting of different brands and types.
(There are door sensor, motion sensor, temp sensor, light switch, scene controller, outlet, bulb, water sensor, smoke detector etc. )
For light bulb, I think I’ve got GE, Sengled and Ecosmart (all bought when on sale).
Outlets includes Centralite, Xiaomi,Sercomm.
Sounds like you may need to reevaluate what you have for zigbee repeaters and make sure they’re working ok. Do the Xiaomi outlets repeat ok? I haven’t heard much about them.
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Are any of these Xiaomi/Aqara devices? If so, they are known to have trouble staying reliably connected to a stadards-based Zigbee HA1.2 mesh network. Many people have worked extremely hard to try to get these devices to be stable on their ST Zigbee networks. To do so, they usually end up with a specific set of Zigbee repeater devices that are known to work with Xiaomi devices. The main one I know Xiaomi fans like is the IKEA Tradfri outlet or dedicated Zigbee repeater. I know that users have problems with Centralite/Iris outlets as repeaters for Xiaomi devices. The Centralite/Iris Zigbee outlets are great, as long as you aren’t using Xiaomi.
The GE Link bulbs are troublesome - they fall off the network randomly, and they are pretty lousy Zigbe HA1.2 repeaters. I replaced all of my Zigbee bulbs with Sengled Zigbee bulbs. Sengled bulbs are designed to not be Zigbee repeaters. As such, they can safely be switched off via a physical switch without screwing up one’s Zigbee mesh network.
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I think you’re onto it @ogiewon…
Xiaomi + Centralite AND GE bulbs, who knows how anything is staying online…
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