Do you have a good zigbee mesh, meaning lots of mains powered devices like bulbs or switches that act as repeaters?
I use the same sensors for around 2 years and not a single one of them ever became unavailable.
Just those 4 sensors so far. No repeater. A raspberry pi 4 Model B Rev 1.2 with a zzh! CC2652R
That may be your issue then. How far away are the sensors from the stick?
Other zigbee sensors probably won’t change the situation. One option to try would be to get one of the cheap IKEA repeaters and put them between the sensors and the stick.
The farthest one is 10-15m away.
I wouldn’t mind if it’s unavailable for a few minutes. The problem is, it’s unavailable for hours/days, until I reset the sensors / push the button to force it to send something. That solves the issues immediately.
I had the round ones (Mijia I think) and those went to some kind of “deep sleep” once in a while, indeed.
I had to “wake them up” by pressing the button, or even re-pair them altogether.
If they don’t have a good route back to the stick, they can be unavailable for ages and never find a good route again by themselves.
I have some of the round ones as well and I can’t confirm this behaviour, mine never got unavailable. I don’t know of any deep sleep or similar.
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Is there any way to determine the range / reach of a zigbee / zwave network? I know with traditional wifi you can get a cell phone signal tester, is there such a map for zigbee / zwave?
No, I don’t know of any such device.
I have those too. The went ‘unavailable’ twice: once when I replaced my CC2530+CC2591+esp01 with a tube zb ethernet/usb coordinator, and once when I had to replace the batteries.
I’ve been wanting to get Aqara sensors for a while now but I keep reading that they are not fully Zigbee 3.0 compliant and that they drop off the network requiring them to be reset. It was also my understanding that there was a new series coming out that has “T1” in the model name that fixes this issue. When I looked for those, they seemed to only be available in Asia.
I purchased the Aqara TVOC sensor since it explicitly said it was Zigbee 3.0 and it eats batteries like crazy, and drops off the network regularly. My Zigbee mesh has 90 devices and a large number of them are wired. This one sensor is in a room with 10 wired zigbee outlets so it is definitely not a mesh issue in my case.
I have been hunting for a zigbee humidity and temperature sensor for a while with no great options. The Aqara TVOC, while expensive, would have been good but humidity is reported very infrequently so there is often a mismatch between the screen and what HA shows. Temperature accuracy is ok and matches all my other sensors in the same spot (for test), while humidity is off several % points.
Would love to hear about Zigbee 3.0 (fully compliant) options!
I can’t confirm this issue, as I said mine never needed to be reset and only went unavailable after approx. 1.5 years when the batter was empty. It may also depend on the type of powered devices as the Xiaomi/Aqara ones are rsther picky in regards to repeaters.
In my office I have at least 10 wired outlets. Most of them are Smarthings plug in outlets, 1 is an older CentraLite, and another is a Jasco Energy Reporting zigbee outlet.
I believe the Aqara TVOC sensor has mostly dropped off the network when the zigbee mesh was down for a while for maintenance, power outage, etc. It simply never rejoins and it may also be that the batteries are drained during the period it is disconnected. I’ve only had the sensor for 2-3 months.
I’ve never used the TVOC one, so can’t say anything about it.
I have a Conbee2 and the map shows that my Xiaomi window/door sensors don’t communicate with/through the IKEA or Hue bulbs and sensors. I assume that the IKEA repeaters won’t be of any help. 10-15m could be too far away.
If things worked fine, you might want to take a look at your 2.4Ghz WiFi channel. Zigbee and 2.4Ghz WiFi do have an overlap in the spectrum. Especially during heavy traffic and week Zigbee signals (large distances), interference could just be the thing that makes your sensors unavailable.
Mine connect through the hue bulbs. With deconz there’s a trick, you can search for new lights instead of sensors when pairing the sensors. Then you have a higher probability of them routing traffic through the closest bulb.
You should set the ZigBee channel to one that is notnoverlapping with your WiFi channels, e.g. 1 and 11
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Interesting tip about the Xiaomi sensors, I’ll give it a try when I have time.
About the channels. I haven’t found a channel map/information that supports your advice. Looking at the link below, 15 makes sense, but channel 1? Do you have a good/better source than MetaGeek?
I’m sorry, I mixed it up, I meant channel 1 and 11.
There are many resources about this.
There is no Zigbee channel 1, or at least I cannot select it in DeConz and cannot find it online
Do you mean WiFi channel 1 and 11?
At this point, I have 2 in the living room, 2 in the bedroom, 1 in the kitchen, 1 on the landing, 1 in the spare room and one in the store room. They have never once gone unavailable for me. But I have 2 Zigbee bulbs and an RGB+CCT Zigbee LED strip in the same room as the Pi with the Conbee2 stick. Looking at the Zigbee Map on Zigbee2MQTT, it’s quite obvious that even the sensor just 20cm away from the Pi, is routed through a lightbulb rather than talking to the stick directly. It seems that sensors prefer to find a mains powered router. I even have a Lux sensor outside that happily manages to route back to the stick, despite there being 3-6ft thick stone walls on it’s route.