I have a bedroom with two night stands connected each to a zigbee switch and a zigbee light bulb in the opposite side of bedroom. I put a zigbee switch that is not connected to anything other than power in the wall and i am able to turn on the lights reliably from the wall switch, but sometimes needs two trials. Initially was not reliable but once i put all the devices in a group it seems to always work as if one device fails it turns the other two reliably. Now i have an Alexa device connected through nabucasa. I exposed the wall switch to alexa so alexa can turn on the switch and then the switch controls its lights as usual. That way if user turns up manually or via alexa both can keep the switch on correct state regardless of user preference. But 30-40% of the time alexa says cannot access the device or simply won’t turn the lights.
Any suggestion to make alexa control these devices more reliably.
Ignore Alexa for a moment. This is the issue. If HA cannot turn on/off get state correctly then passing through to Alexa I’d only as good as that connection. So first fix your Zigbee reliability issue. THEN move on to Alexa if the problem remains.
That said. What coordinator stick, what devices, are you using ZHA, Zigbee2MQTT or something else? What kind of endpoint devices. How far from the coordinator are they? Do you have your coordinator stick directly plugged into the box or is it on an extension cord or USB hub? What wifi2. 4Ghz channel do you use and what zigbee channel does your setup use?
Thank you for the insights. I am using ZHA as coordinator. I did not change any of the default configurations. So reading about this ZHA should be in channel 15. The coordinator stick is in my office downstairs in a closet (For wife approval concerns) Running on a mini PC. The coordinator is attached to USB cord. Most of my home devices were in the 2.4 GHZ; but following your post I entered my Oamada controller and change most of them to the 5 GHZ to see if that helps. Most of my neighbors are in channels 6 and 11 and Omada auto-assigned me to channel 1.
I have about 7 hard wired zigbee devices downstairs and 10 upstairs for which 3 are in the bedroom of concern. Most of them are either wall switches or zigbee plugs. There is a few end devices 6 in the form of motion, humidity and temperature sensors.
According to the rest of your configuration - your zigbee (in the red lobe listed as 15) sits in the sideband of Channel 1 (if 20Mhz) - of your wifi’s current 2.4Ghz channel.
If some of these problem devices are near some of your Wi-Fi antennae (including clients transmitting back) - that could be the problem.
EXACTLY what Manufacturer and model they are matters, some devices dont play well with others and how far apart they are matters.
How far are THESE:
From the nearest other line-powered Zigbee device that is NOT a Sengled bulb.
And finally - what do your logs say when you have problems with these devices?
@andresrdz I had so many connection issues that are similar to what you are describing. I had the latest SONOFF Zigbee controller running with ZHA. After a ton of research, I actually went with the older SONOFF Coordinator (ZBdongle-P) controlled by Zigbee2MQTT. All my connection issues went away and I run a lot of Zigbee devices.
I’m also using a Hue bridge for my exterior lighting with no interference. My dongle is CURRENTLY plugged in to the micro PC and sits by the router with no issues. I tried all the advice (USB cord, limit 2.4GHZ etc…) prior to the conversion I just described and nothing wroked.
Posting here to see if helps others. So far for two days is working very reliably. Thanks NathanCu optimizing the network did huge improvement. Even Alexa is behaving reliably.
Steps taken. I moved my wireless network to a less congested channel. My omada wireless AP found neighbors where in channel 6 and 11 and moved my network to channel 1. I went to the AP settings and made it favor 5GHZ band to most devices except if the device will not be compatible. Omada seems to have the ability to automatically scan your network. Not sure if something people recommend or only when trouble again. I was entertaining change my zigbee channel but it says that i will have to rebuild my zigbee network which seems like daunting task.
I have a combination GE/Jasco wall switches (these make most of my network downstairs and upstairs) zonoff plugs and a couple of cheap Amazon plugs. Most end devices are zonoff temperature sensors, humidity or motion sensors. I also have a few Ikea buttons and motion sensors. Not sure if uniformity matters. I am usually trying to just buy what is on sale at the time.
