Hello, giving a bit of context, I have a ZigBee network of around 20 IKEA tradfri bulbs and a few roller blinds and remotes. I’m using ZHA and the sonoff ZigBee dongle Plus E on a raspberry pi 5.
I’ve bought one of the aqara door and window sensor which was widely recommended, so I got the model MCCGQ11LM which also is listed as working with zha. I’ve then bought it, paired easily and it just works. But then it stops after a couple of hours, not updating the state at all and eventually moving to unavailable after around 7 hours. If I click on show ZigBee network it shows it not connected to any router.
I’ve seen the discussions about aqara devices having trouble with some routers, but tradfri bulbs seem to be listed as working. And it does work perfectly with no hiccups just after pairing, which is also quick and seamless. I’ve also tried repairing a couple of times and the behaviour is exactly the same.
The sensor is on the inside of my utility room, which is less than 2m away from the coordinator and less than 10cm from an IKEA tradfri bulb. The seamless pairing and how it works perfectly after pairing makes me think it’s not interference.
Did anyone go through this and solved it? I’m almost returning it, a simple contact sensor should not be the thing I lose the most time configuring when everything else in the network is rock solid.
Can’t help with an answer, I’m afraid, but I’ve been seeing similar. FWIW an Aqara temp sensor in roughly the same location seems to make an ok connection for me. The contact sensor works fine for a bit, then seems to shift to saying that it’s always ‘closed’, then eventually becomes ‘Unavailable’.
I’ve just shifted my Wifi and Zigbee channels round in the hope of less interference and was contemplating whether to stick an Ikea zigbee plug somewhere nearby to give it a bit of a signal boost.
Interesting that you’ve seen the exact behaviour. I’m surprised that lots of people are recommending the contact sensor as the best option and the compatible list for ZHA just lists some minor problems with specific routers.
I wonder what’s a more stable solution, it’s doesn’t seem that a contact sensor is something that complicated.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been running that same model sensor in Z2MQTT for the past 2 years with 0 issues.
It’s the farthest device on my ZigBee network, yet it has performed reliability and always detects my front door opening & closing.
Start with the easy stuff - replace the battery with a new one. That model of contact sensor has been out for years, and god knows how old your particular model is.
If that doesn’t work, pair it to the coordinator directly & see if it holds.
So far I’ve tested everything else than buying another battery and the behaviour is exactly the same. I’ve tried pairing next to the coordinator and leaving it there for a couple of hours and again it becomes unavailable in 7h. Tried leaving in different rooms and the same.
I definitely believe that it’s a hardware/firmware issue. I wonder if some new firmware made it incompatible with ZHA.
I can try a different battery, but if it’s about increasing the price from it by 30% (CR1632 are pretty rare on stores and Amazon will only sell me bundles or a single for a price of the bundle) just to test if it works, might be better to return and get another one.
Problem is that there’s no single contact sensor with good reviews I can find. I thought this was going to be the easiest, but it’s turning out to be the hardest.
If anyone’s reading this thinking on buying one I will recommend against it until someone figure out what’s happening.
Update, I’ve tried changing the battery, shutting down the IKEA bulb and pairing him 5cm to the coordinator and the same thing happened.
I can only think that either the aqara contact sensor is incompatible with all my routers (IKEA tradfri bulbs and sonoff dongle E) or the unit or the firmware is defective or incompatible with ZHA.
In the same time I bought a sonoff contact sensor for less than half the price and it works great. It takes a second to trigger the event change, but I don’t mind it.
I’m returning the Aqara and will not buy other sensors from them that are but fully ZigBee complaint.
So I seem to have improved things and appear to have it working reliably. I moved the Sonoff Controller’s antenna a bit so that it now gets a strong signal to the sensor. I’m still running Z2M. It gets a regular ‘checking in’ signal from the sensor now.
My guess is there are a couple of things with the Aqara sensors to be aware of:
If they pair to a router, they don’t seem to like roaming to a different one, so make sure you pair it to the one that you want it to be able to see.
They send some sort of regular handshake signal letting the controller know that they’re still there. If that signal doesn’t make it for some reason (or there’s no acknowledgement or something), they are a bit aggressive about assuming the network has gone down. Certainly it looks a lot like if they miss a signal, then they seem to just shut down and stop sending.
FYI, Aqara and Xiaomi (and Tuya) are all infamously known for making firmware that does not exactly follow all the Zigbee specifications and especially infamous for not working well with (some) other brands of Zigbee Router devices (mains-powered Zigbee devices paired/joined on your network that act as Zigbee repeaters/extenders).
Start by following all the generic tips in this guide with best practice tips should be following regardless:
To start with, before troubleshooting any further suggest begin by upgrading firmware on your Zigbee Coordinator adapter, and more importantly if you have not already make sure to connect the Zigbee Coordinator via a long USB extension cable to a USB 2.0 port (and not a USB 3.0 port) or connect it via a USB 2.0 hub, and get it farther away from all known sources of EMI/RMI/EMF.
Anyway, that guide also including a link to an other guide with loads of specific tips for Aqara and Xiaomi:
I think the best tip from there is to at least not use " Zigbee repeaters reported NOT to work with Xiaomi devices" and instead only use " Zigbee repeaters reported to work with Xiaomi devices".
Another tip specific to Aqara and Xiaomi mentioned there is that Aqara and Xiaomi devices are infamously known for not automatically moving to a better Zigbee Router device if you add such later, so you will need to manually re-pair each and every Aqara and Xiaomi device after you added more Zigbee Router devices for them to connect via a closer Zigbee repeater/extender.
While it does not help, the saying “you get what you pay for” do apply to Aqara and Xiaomi (and Tuya), however many others are successfully using them just fine, especially those following all those tips.
I’m running a bunch of those Aqara devices and others (Temp and Humidity) and they have been solid. One issue they seem to have is that once they create their route to the coordinator, then they will not re-route if they are going through a repeater like a smart bulb, and that device is offline. (Normally a zigbee device should just find another route).
I’ve returned the sensor now, so can’t do more testing. But I did go through all the available information on how to make the ZigBee network better and how to try to make the aqara devices more reliable by forcing them to connect to the coordinator.
The hubitat post seems to be not updated, my theory here is that the IKEA tradfri bulbs and the sonoff dongle-E, which are all the routers I have, both don’t work well with the aqara door sensor, which is not true with their motion sensor that I got (and seems to be ZigBee 3 compliant).
It’s a shame we don’t have access to the T1 model which should be ZigBee 3 compliant. It might have worked for me.