How to add another coordinator / extend range?

Hardware
1

I recently built a garden office (20 metres from house) but any ZigBee devices (window sensors, buttons, switches etc) I try to use in there struggle to maintain a connection with the coordinator back at the house (26 metres in total) and go offline.

HA is running on a small Dell PC with a Conbee 2 in Zigbee2MQTT mode. I have around 50 zigbee devices (mainly powered bulbs and the like) and the mesh works perfectly in the house, never a dropout from any device.

I’ve tried various things already like adding an IKEA signal repeater in an outside enclosure, direct line of sight of the office, but many devices choose to ignore that and try to stay connected directly to the conbee 2 coordinator. Also tried adding some ZigBee plugs as they should act as a router but still no improvements.

I’ve also tries swapping to the Sonoff ZigBee 3.0 USB coordinator but it caused weird issues and dropouts with some devices whereas the Conbee 2 is rock solid, so I’ve reverted to that.

So I was wondering what else I can do… possibly adding another coordinator inside the office that only handles devices near it? I have ethernet in the office on the same network as HA, so maybe a LAN coordinator?

What I don’t want is for anything I add in the office to upset the house devices, i.e. don’t want them to try and hook on to that as the signal will be weak.

Thanks

James

2

Two choices:
a) add Zigbee devices which are also ‘routers’ - they pass the signals/messages along to the host.
b) buy a Sonoff Zigbee Dongle and flash it with ‘router’ firmware. More expensive, but more robust.

3

Thanks, but I’ve already tried the addition of “routers” by way of mains plugs or bulbs at the back of the house, closest place I can to the outside office.

For the sonoff dongle in router mode, what’s to guarantee that the end devices will choose that to connect to rather than the coordinator directly?

4

I had a similar problem and I solved installing another coordinator (conbee 2) with another Zigbee2MQTT server.
Then I added this new Zigbee2MQTT server to HA and everythings works fine.
The downside is that you need a RPi / NUC or server to run Zigbee2MQTT.
For example, I used a QNAP server that was already available.

5

The advantage to using another Sonoff dongle closer to the outside office is, it has a 3 dBi external antenna, providing greater signal strength and extended coverage. When you add this router dongle to Home Assistant, it becomes paired with your existing Zigbee network. So if end devices connect to it, it still routes back to Home Assistant. When using router firmware, it’s like any other Zigbee router device, only with better coverage.

6

I get the concept, but how can you “tell” devices in the office to only connect through the sonoff dongle rather than still try to reach the coordinator in the house with a low signal / LQI? Also, all my existing devices in the house will then sometimes route through the sonoff and might perform worse, where at present they are rock solid?

7

Would purchasing a LAN zigbee coordinator and adding that using ZHA (I use z2mqtt for the conbee 2 dongle) work, so it’s effectively managed independently but still on the same HA box?

8

Did you re-pair the devices when they were near the repeater? Some devices, such as Aqara, get fixated on one router and will not swap to another one with a better signal.

9

“I had a similar problem and I solved installing another coordinator (conbee 2) with another Zigbee2MQTT server.
Then I added this new Zigbee2MQTT server to HA and everythings works fine.”

this is interesting.

any links how I can integrate an external raspberry based M2Q server who is working well, in my main HA installation , which is on ZHA?