Due to been unable to discovery my Xiaomi GW v3 on HA (still wasn’t able to find out root cause) bought 2 Conbee II usb sticks. It’s crucial integrate my Xiaomi door and windows sensors in HA.
Though would be more plug & play, but far from being right , after setting up deConz in HA still not able to pair the sensors. Process seems preatty basic, just go to sensor in Phoscon (after of course configuring ConBee II GW), choose “other”, finally have 3 minutes to pair.
On Xiaomi door sensor, press reset button for 10 seconds, sensor blue light starts blinking however not found in Phoscon. Doing process with sensor next to USB stick.
deConz / Phoscon / hass.io are installed within Synology DS916+, container based.
Another question, for sure noob, each ConBee II usb stick needs to be connect to Raspberry or any hardware containing Phoscon? Have 4 floors, hence need several sticks to cover all areas. Again, thought after initial pair process would just be needed to connect to any usb power on power outlet.
Just a comment:
I have found that the inclusion of Zigbee type light bulbs and wall sockets expand the range and coverage of my entire property of indoor and outdoor sensors and stuff. The Zigbee type devices that are hardwired (light bulbs, switches, outlets, etc.) act as relay hubs and have covered everything including my mailbox vibration sensor at the end of the driveway.
Bottom line, I run everything on a single Conbee stick.
If you cant seem to get it to pair please try a different zigbee channel. Some channels do not seem to work nicely with xiaomi stuff.
You can do this in the phoscon app and by going to gateway>advanced.
I use zigbee channel 25 for example which works fine with all my devices. I have tried other channels in the past but they did not seem to work for me. I suggest trying this.
Is the firmware of the ConBee stick up to date? You can check in the Phoscon app under gateway.
The Xiaomi sensor sometimes need a few tries to finally get them recognized. Do you have any light buöb or other main powered devices already in your ZigBee network? What works best for me to add new sensors is, pressing the button to search for new sensors, press the button on the Xiaomi sensor until it blinks 3 times, then open and close the door quickly a few times (battery powered sensors communicate only when they are active). If you have a light bulb included there is another method I can show you
All Conbee have firmware up to date. Also tried different channels without success, well just a few times was able to pair 1 or 2 sensors but seems like lucky, I’ll try open and closing the doors.
Do you have any main powered device? Could also be that the sensors are too far away from the stick and therefore lose connection. Try opening and closing during the whole pairing proces, even when you press the button if possible.
In general, no matter which Zigbee hardware you run there can only be one coordinator in a Zigbee network. You can have many routers and most devices that are connected to mains also operate as routers.
I advice against having two Conbee II sticks in the same house. It means that you split up the network in two separate mesh networks that do not help each other with coverage. On the contrary you risk interference if they run on same channel as each other or your wifi.
Best is to put the Conbee in the middle of your house. If you have 4 floors this means not in the basement and not at top floor. And then put router devices like bulbs and smartplugs above and below or in staircase. The more overlap and redundant paths the Zigbee mesh has, the better it works and the more resilliant it gets
Many choose to set the Zigbee channel to 25 and the Wifi 2.4 GHz network to Wifi channels 1 or 6. This way there is no overlap between your own Wifi and Zigbee.