Does anybody else find the Aqara temperature sensors to be incredibly poor at staying on the Zigbee network?
I’m using Zigbee2MQTT and a Conbee II controller and I swear these devices are the only ones out of around 70 that keep dropping off. Not only that, but repairing them is a pain, taking at least 5-10 attempts before they’ll join.
Have I just got really unlucky with a bunch, or should I just give in and replace them with ESP32s?
Oddly I have the opposite issue. Mine are rock solid!
How do they connect to the coordinator? Are they directly connected or they are connected over router?
They are rock stable for me. Conbee II and Deconz. But they are known to stick to one route and won’t reroute when that route is unavailable. So if you have routers in between that are taken off power from time to time you will have trouble.
What wifi channel do you use, and what Zigbee channel? And is your Conbee on a (not too long) extension cord to keep it away from USB3 interference?
I don’t have their temp sensors directly, but the temp sensor built into their contact sensor doesn’t seem to be the most accurate.
Hmmm, interesting. The ones that keep dropping off are at the far end of a (very weird) long apartment from the coordinator, with lots of routers in-between.
The ones that keep dropping off are at the far end of a (very weird) long apartment from the coordinator, with lots of routers in-between. But they’re all lights that are constantly powered.
The Zigbee network is on channel 11. The Conbee is on a USB extension away from the host Pi.
(Zigbee2MQTT, Mosquitto, HA are all running as containers on the Pi, and administered via Ansible).
Then you can expect the most interference if your wifi (or close neighbors) are on wifi channel 1. If yours is, maybe try switching Wifi channels? But then again, where I live nothing is safe on the 2.4 band.
I recommend reading this Hubitat post. Aqara works well some of the time but if it connects to certain devices, they will drop offline because of some timing incompatibility. I added a few Ikea outlets and pair with those and they are more likely to stay online now.
Good idea, and thank you for taking the time to suggest a solution, but I don’t think it’s this. I tried to minimise 2.4Ghz overlap when initially setting the mesh up. The only strong wifi network here (mine) is on channel 7.
Ah, interesting. I didn’t realise there were issues with Aqara devices and multiple routers until you, and others, mentioned it. Which is a shame because they’re at the opposite end of a long apartment from the controller. 
Most of my household is Ikea and Phillips, so no go there. BUT I like the suggested idea on that site of having a dedicated Aqara/Xiaomi controller. I will investigate that possibility!
I ended up buying a second Conbee II stick, adding it to the same host (but on a different channel), and running a second container instance of Zigbee2MQTT.
It took a while to move over the Xiaomi/Aqara devices to the new network but since doing it both networks have become rock solid. No more dropouts, and all devices reporting correctly.
I said I run everything via Ansible, so here’s the Playbook that I use to maintain my Home Automation Pi, in case anyone else finds it useful!