It had worked 95% of the time when it was connected to Philips Hue Bridge but now it doesn’t.
The temperature sensor reports 24,5° (a flat line) for 2 days and the movement sensor doesn’t trigger any automation or show logbook events. And that’s even though the device was last seen 15 min ago according to the ZHA interface.
100th bug to fix for me in HA nice
HA version core-2022.5.5
supervisor-2023.11.6
Coordinator: Raspbee 2
apparently some other guy has this bug too and already did an insane amount of troubleshooting for it
Zigbee is extremely sensitively to EMF/EMI/RMI interference so normally I advise connecting the Zigbee Coordinator adapter via a long USB cable (shielded USB 2.0 extension cable) and not placing it close to any USB 3.0 ports/devices/peripherals as those are infamously known for interfering with Zigbee RF signals, but since you have a Raspbee which is an internal Zigbee radio module (which can not be moved and is based on an older radio chip) I am also going to advice you to start by buy a new Zigbee Coordiantor USB dongle that is based on a more modern Zigbee radio chip, such as example ITead’s Sonoff ZBDongle-P (USB radio adapter based on CC2652P and with an external antenna) → ITead's "Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus" (model "ZBDongle-P") based on Texas Instruments CC2652P +20dBm radio SoC/MCU
In addition, you really need to make sure that you have enough “known good” Zigbee Router devices (a.k.a. Zigbee siganl repeaters / Zigbee range extenders) between your Zigbee Coordinator and this or any other devices that are having issues. Zigbee has poor range and depends on having many Zigbee routers in its Zigbee network mesh to relay messages.
Not going to ask if you have replaced the battery and instead just state that you will need to replace the battery more often if you have issues with interference or lack of Zigbee Router devices as the messages will need to be resent if the Zigbee Coordinator or any devices have poor reception or are placed close to noise sources.
if this coordinator is that bad then why does it have overwhelmingly good reviews on amazon? I keep getting the recommendation of replacing it but I’m actually confused on why only people in the homeassistant forum are saying it.
On a side note, I can’t move the coordinator away from the USB slots but I did move away the RPIs’ SSD from the rest (because there was an issue with that, originally)
Will the coordinator your recommended allow me to keep my SSD near the RPi again?
How many meters away should my coordinator be from the RPi?
I have Ledvance P40 TW lights in each of the small rooms that bridge the gap between my coordinator and the sensor. Are these good though?
To be honest, this is pretty convoluted and it pisses me off to learn this stuff after having committed to buying stuff and setting it up. There seems to be no clear communication on this from devs and I don’t remember reviewers talking about this either so I feel played and as if my time is utterly disrespected
and to be honest checking out that guide is probably not worth it either because 1) it’s not the first Zigbee signal optimizing guide I followed without success and 2) iit’s not worth it in terms of time savings/utility I get out of it vs. time invested. Also, I’m currently in too deep with troubleshooting other things in my setup so I don’t want to add additional factors of uncertainty at this point
Isn’t there a simple solution that “just solves the problem”?
Move the Hue sensor back to the Hue bridge. You confirmed it worked 95% of the time with the Bridge.
Any other suggestion will require debugging effort and time that you have made clear you don’t have.
FWIW, all of my Philips devices continue to use the Bridge. Only three other (non Philips) Zigbee devices are currently connected to a separate coordinator (SONOFF Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus, TI CC2652P) via Zigbee2MQTT. As I gain more experience and confidence with it, I may transition the Philips devices to it (or not). So far, the two Zigbee networks work well and I haven’t experienced any anomalies that may suggest interference.