I have about 80 Zigbee devices connected to Home Assistant via deCONZ, radio Conbee II.
Most of my devices are Xiaomi and Ikea and I am overall very disappointed with the stability provided by deCONZ. Prior to deCONZ the Xiaomi devices (Aqara wall switches and others) were connected to three different Xiaomi gateways and the network was rock solid. I never had to reboot or reconnect a device in more than 2 years.
Since the migration to deCONZ (that I really regret now, but the original intent was to get rid of 3 Xiaomi gateways and 1 Philips Hue bridge), my switches and lights go often offline and commands get lost.
Before returning to the original Xiaomi gateways, do you have a recommendation for the “best” radio module to use with ZHA?
I read somewhere that the Silicon Labs EmberZNet based radios are better than ConBee II, but before investing time in reparing all the devices I would like to hear from those who have experience with these radios and ZHA.
May be another solution would be to have more than one gateway and split the devices.
I did exactly this at my home. I’ve one gateway on each floor (3).
I don’t have as many devices as you do but I like this solution.
I use Conbee II with deconz.
Besides you could have the same problems if you manage all 80 devices with only one Xiaomi gateway.
IMHO, your problem is mainly the Aqara devices used with generic zigbee gateway. They are not meant to do that. They are pretty good modules but designed only to be used with Xiaomi gateways and they do not respect 100% of the zigbee protocol, that causes stability issues.
That being said, you have options :
replace all you aqara devices
add powerfull routers
upgrade your coodinator (but Conbee 2 is already known to be a good one)
try out another zigbee integration : Zigbee2MQTT, ZHA,…
Run 2 zigbee networks : one dedicated to Aqara devices (maybe with a Xiaomi gateway), and another one for other stuff with your Conbee 2.
I have a completely different experience, I have a bit less devices than you do (60+) and mostly Xiaomi devices and the ConBee II (before it, the ConBee I) has been rock solid for me for 3 years + now.
Is the ConBee directly attached to the device or on an USB extension cord? Are there any USB 3.0 devices connected close to the ConBee (USB 3 can cause interference with ZigBee, Intel wrote an article about this some time ago). I experienced this on the first day with the ConBee II, I then plugged it into an extension cord to move it away from the device and then it worked flawless.
@makai, the ConBee II is connected to deCONZ (running in a docker container). Some other user said that there is better hardware than the ConBee II, to use with ZHA.
@antivirus68, my original setup was similar to yours: one Xiaomi Gateway on each floor (due to the devices limitation of the Xiaomi Gateways), plus the Hue Bridge to handle the Tradfri lights. I wanted to put all the devices on the same Zigbee network to have a single mesh and reduce interferences with the wifi.
@Shaad, I agree with you about the Aqara / Xiaomi devices working out of standard, but I think that the stability issue is due to one of the last deCONZ / ConBee II changes (source routing) implemented to handle the frequent drops of the Tradfri devices. Having said that, I think the latest firmware (available since yesterday) is a huge step forward and my network is stable for the first time in months.
I am also keen to add more router to the network, as the Aqara no neutral wall switches are not routers. Is there a “powerful router” that is 100% compatible with deCONZ?
@Burningstone, which firmware and deCONZ version you have? BTW, yes, I have an extension cord, but I will try to move away from other USB 3 devices (thanks for the tip).