Random question that I even feel dumb asking as it doesn’t seem logical but I’ll ask.
Would HA Core running on Pi 4 have different Ranges for Zigbee and Bluetooth vs running HA OS on a Pi 4?
Long story short, SD card died Friday. Went out and bought an external SSD to replace. I didn’t have a backup so I just went ahead and started fresh with HA OS instead of Core this time.
Well I have two devices (one Zigbee one Bluetooth) in my basement that worked fine never had connectivity issues. Now with the new system, they are out of range. No physical device has changed location. Pulling my hair out.
Only difference, I had ZigbeeMQTT now I’m using the ZHA built into HA. (Started with Homebridge long time ago and added containers, hence the HA core version). This time figured I’m starting with HA I’ll use the software available.
Strange to me I had no issues but now all of sudden they are out of range.
You changed a bunch of things at once (Installation type, SSD vs SD & Z2M vs ZHA), so it makes it quite hard to isolate a single culprit.
However, If I had to guess, I’d narrow it down to 2 things:
Power issues. SSDs require more power, and whatever 5v adapter you were happily using before just doesn’t have enough juice to run the Pi, 2 dongles AND an SSD reliably.
Interference issues. I’m guessing you plugged in the SSD (or one of the dongles) to a USB3 port, given that the Pi4 only has 2 USB2 ports. USB3 is a massive source of interference for radio waves (like zigbee & bluetooth). The only way to get around it is to use a USB2 extension cable for both dongles and move them as far away as possible from the Pi and the SSD.
TLDR: It’s not a software issue. What you have is most certainly a hardware issue.
it is theoretically possible but I would be a touch surprised if it was due to the os vs core change. the software could conceivably change the power levels of either bth or ZigBee tx/rx, and they both run on 2.4 GHz so they can theoretically interfere. but still, I would be a little surprised. I would first suspect things like physical placement if the antenna, since you moved to a physical external drive vs internal SD card, the external drive and even a cable to the drive could potentially interfere with the signal and reduce its range a bit… and could also be timing coincidence… if something changed with your wifi… if your wifi has channel optimization where it adjusts itself, it isn’t aware of your ZigBee devices and might self adjust for WiFi to be spread but collide with ZigBee…
I did read on the power supply issues with running a SSD. Was going to see if I had issues before buying new. Sounds like it’s a possibility. Basically the original power supply is now powering; Pi, sonoff Zigbee, and SSD. Utilizing the internal Bluetooth of the pi still as this was sufficient up until today so no additional dongle there.
You are correct, SSD is plugged into the USB 3 port. However, I already had the Zigbee stick on an extension.
I will look into a new power source. Imagine that’s probably cheaper than starting to add a bunch of hubs/extenders around the house for a handful of devices.