I’ve been running into this problem for a while and I can now start to attack the problem. Whenever I get some kind of Home Assistant update (says Home Assistant in it’s name) I loose all access to the ZigBee devices (36 devices) until I add one of the existing devices. Home Assistant sees 36 devices but can reach them. After I add the one device it then ‘learns’ most of the rest of the devices. Some devices are never found.
I have a Sonoff 3.0 USB dongle:
Coordinator
by Texas Instruments
Firmware: Z-Stack 20220219
Zigbee info
IEEE: 00:12:4b:00:25:e1:5d:f5
Nwk: 0x0000
Device Type: Coordinator
LQI: Unknown
RSSI: Unknown
Last seen: 2024-05-06T09:38:05
Power source: Mains
Hi,
To help us help you, we’re going to need some more detail.
The first question is are you using ZHA or Z2MQTT? Both are Zigbee controller integrations, but work a but differently.
Next, what hardware is running HASS? Here’s why…
My guess is HAOS and HASS Core updates restart the Zigbee integration, which in turn recalculates the radio mesh when it restarts. This increase in RF traffic could be exposing an underlying issue with the radio mesh - e.g. not enough mains-powered devices near the USB coordinator, or other interference.
I’d suggest reading general troubleshooting guides as my suspicion is there’s an issue all of the time, but it only gets noticed on a reload:
HP EliteDesk, on Ethernet (cable, 1G)
~ # uname -a
Linux a0d7b954-ssh 6.6.25-haos #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Apr 11 09:46:29 UTC 2024 x86_64 Linux
~ #
ZHA
Okay, that was an ugly video (RF wise). Hmm, PC is near a WiFi AP. I’ll see if I can move the AP. The dongle is on a short USB cable to get it up above the PC.
My general experience is not to do the usual network tech pattern of analysing traffic too much - just add more mains-powered Zigbee devices to create a better mesh.
I think ZHA had some recent upgrades in 2024.05 for mesh graphing - the diagram is supposed to show RF strength as distance (not tried it). The pain is walls never have the RF permeability you expect which can make logical analysis can be a bit futile.
Before moving to a Yellow, I used a Sonoff 3.0 - the aerial is quite big which is good (but also means more sensitivity to noise as well as signal - bloody engineering tradeoffs!).
When I started with ZHA with only a handful of devices, it did some odd point-to-point mesh choices. Adding nodes to get >10 devices made this go away including nodes in the same room as HASS.
IMHO, you can get into the weeds of EIRP / RSSI, or spend £12 per node in IKEA for a mains switch! (search for other posts about this)
I’m guessing an EliteDesk might have “blue” USB-3 ports, so your short cable might already be helping. “black” USB-2 ports give off less RF noise - as the video demonstrates with a RPi4. I forget which 2.4GHz WLAN bands hit Zigbee - it depends on your region as well - search might bring up the band diagram.
Adding more mains nodes also increases battery life as the sensors can reduce their transmit power, so think you can think of it as investment in saving CR2032’s!
Sorry for the slow response. Seems I need to fight with my Dongle. I’m going to open a new post and try to find out why I can’t change the channel on my Sonoff 3 ZigBee stick.
this post!