Zigbee Meshing Question

[JDRoberts]

@Mooseknuckle

I’m curious if two zigbee bridges (say for example hue and SmartThings) were “on the same network” (think: how zll remotes like ‘Lutron connected bulb remote’ steal bulbs if not paired with hub), would the two hubs be able to use each other’s devices for meshing. I know control of each other’s devices may not work, but would meshing work?

Unfortunately, no.

Zigbee Home Automation, which is what SmartThings uses, only allows for one coordinator per network. So all the zigbee devices that talk to the smartthings hub directly are on one network and any zigbee device that talks to the hue bridge ( I assume you meant the bridge, since there is no “hue hub”) directly is on a different zigbee network. Devices on one network cannot repeat for devices on another network.

The smartthings hub and the hue bridge talk to each other over your ethernet LAN, they don’t use zigbee for that.

In this specific case, that actually turns out to be a good thing, since the Hue bulbs, like many other zigbee Light bulbs, have a bad habit of dropping messages they are supposed to be repeating for other types of zigbee devices.

FAQ: Do I need the Hue Bridge/Hub to Use a Hue Bulb with SmartThings?

Yes. The only officially recommended way to use Hue devices with SmartThings is by using a Hue bridge. There are several reasons to use the bridge. Other Integrations There will be a number of other integrations available to you which you may want to take advantage of. Use of Hue Scenes you will be able to activate scenes created with the official Hue app, which at the present time offer many features not available in the smartthings scenes feature. Even just the ability to blink the lights. The easiest way to access scenes from the Hue app is through the following custom edge driver or IFTTT, but there are other ways as well. [ST Edge] Philips Hue LAN [BETA] (3rd Party Driver, Not ST Native) Not using the Bridge can mess up your zigbee network the most important really is …

But when it comes to repeaters, you will need to get enough repeating zigbee devices that connect to your smartthings – based network to strengthen the mesh; you can’t count anything that is connected to the hue bridge.

See post 11 in the following thread and then go back up to the start of that topic and read the whole thing for more details.

A Guide to Wireless Range & Repeaters

One more thought. While I understand the marketing reasons for the decision, the fact that SmartThings gives customers zero guidance on how to set up a network backbone does lead to a lot of frustration that shouldn’t have to exist. if people knew that .1) The hub should be located centrally in the home, both vertically and horizontally. Don’t put it in a garage or basement as those have concrete and pipes and metal objects which will reduce signal. If your Internet router is off in some inaccessible corner, you can use a Wi-Fi access point that has a ethernet port on the side and plug into that. Also, the hub should not be put in a cabinet. You just want to make it as easy as possible for signal to spread around your house. .2) you need one device that can repeat about every 40 feet…

And I know no one cares about the following except me , so feel free to ignore it, but one more FAQ:

The Technical Reason why that Hue device is a Bridge, not a Hub

Warning: super technical network engineering explanation follows. But the short answer is just that it’s a bridge by definition. The longer answer: A bridge (or gateway) converts requests in one protocol to that of another. The hue bridge is a Wi-Fi/ZLL Bridge. The bridge does not, however, “establish” the network. That is it does not assign network IDs to other devices that join to it or control which devices join. Instead, because the hue bridge is a ZLL device, there is no establishing coordinator on its network. [IMG_4091] A ZigBee Light Link network has no ZigBee network coordinator, even a bridge device merely acts as a router {repeater} So it’s a bridge per the definition of bridge in the ZLL specification. The end devices don’t need the bridge in order…