I have a Philips Hue hub with about 25 lights and some dimmers connected. t works well. It is on Zigbee Channel 25.
Then just today I installed a Sonoff Dongle-P and one Sonoff motion detector using ZHA. I use it to turn on some lights and it seems to be working for ther last couple hours. I notice it too is on channel 25.
My question is if they both should be on the same channel. I think maybe there could be some interferance especailly if I add more devices to the Sonoff dongle. But on the other handI wonder of the Sonoff motion detector can take advantage of the Hue lights as routers. But then I read someplace the Huie lights do not route non-hue zigbee.
What’s best, both on 25 or move the Sonoff dongle to some other channel?
If it makes a difference, I plan on installing 6 or 10 Tuya (Moes) zigbee “no neural” switches as the entire 2nd floor has no nuetral wires in the boxes.
How do I know if the zigbee and Wifi 2.5 GHz signals are using the same frequecy?
I think it’s a very bad idea to have two coordinators on the same channel. Maybe the bigger question is…why install a 2nd coordinator at all?
I use many Hue zigbee devices but I’m not familliar with Hue specific integration. I’m using the Deconz coordinator & integration. For the Hue hub & Hue integration, does it support pairing non-Hue devices, like your Sonoff device? Is the Hue platform for HA a walled garden?
I can’t speak to the pros/cons of using the Hue integration with a Hue hub versus something like ZHA, but i’m pretty confident in saying you really really don’t want to run multiple zigbee networks at the same time.
Having said all that, perhaps the Sonoff dongle can made to run as a router so that it’s only participating in your exsting zigbee network & not trying to compete with it.
The two networks can not work together, but the question if they should be on the same or separate networks depends on how the frequency spectrum is used otherwise.
If the other channels are used by WiFi, then it is better to let the two Zigbee networks share, because they are low bandwidth networks, but if your channels are free then split them up.
Remember that the frequency spectrum is not private, so any close neighbor might use the channels too and those need to be taken into consideration too.
For best performance, you want each ZigBee network and WiFi separated. For example, I have a Sonoff dongle with Z2M on channel 15, Hue bridge on 25, and all WiFi APs are on channel 1, 6, or 11.
Remember that the WiFi channel picture is a bit outdated.
It should a 802.11G network, but a 802.11N network is not that uncommon in the 2.4Ghz range today and the picture of a 802.11N WiFi network will be with the spaces between the bubbles filled up, so there will be a flat line from the top of channel one directly to the top of channel 11.
Besides that the picture also shows the 802.11G network with 22Mhz channels, but many use 40Mhz channels and then there is no free space between the bubbles, only a bit lower saturation.
Correct…sort of. The infographic depicts 20 MHz channel widths. Those can be used regardless of 802.11 spec. The different specs just hit the max channel width supported. The general approach still resounds. Deconflicting the ZigBee channels based on center freq of the WiFi channel is the best approach.
In a perfect world, yes.
If the neighbors are having WiFi routers with auto-configuration on channel settings, then they might have chosen channel 15 or 20.
A Wifi scanner like WiFi Analyzer can help figure out how the frequency spectrum is used. (No such app exist on iPhone due to Apple restrictions!).
I’m not sure what we’re debating here. My recommendation is to deconflict the ZigBee channels with the current WiFi environment using the chart as a reference point and to help understand the difference between WiFi and ZigBee channels. E.g. there is no WiFi channel 15/20 but there are ZigBee channels 15/20.
Don’t disagree about using a WiFi scanning app but that doesn’t help with immediately knowing how the frequency bands are shared, which was OPs question. Both are needed.
Why two? Because the Philips app works very well and can do things HA can’t but it only works with a Philips hub. Also I have Tuya zigbee devices that don’t work with the Philips hub. There is also a perfomance issue. If you do the lighting control all within the Philips hardware, there is no percievable delay, Hue is also the “gold standard” for reliabilty.
I’d have to agree! There are certain bulbs that still lack support on Z2M and other devices like the Tap Dial that need additional programming to work as smooth as they do on the Hue hub.
90% of my Hue devices (70+) are using Z2M, but I still have a few reason to keep the hub alive for the red headed step children that don’t play well.
I am trying to say that moving the Zigbee networks might not be a good idea, because of WiFi networks and the picture you posted is probably not showing the right situation.
There is pictures with 40Mhz bands instead and then the OP still need to take neighbors into consideration too. The best picture is probably the WiFi Analyzer app on Android.
Two Zigbee networks sharing the channel will always be better than a Zigbee network sharing a channel with a WiFi network.
THank you all. I am running a network analyser on my Mac. It shows that my two Asus routers which are configured as a mesh are using WiFi channel 8. They are configured to “auto select” and had select 8 on theor own. This is clear of Zigbee 25. So All I had to do has hard code the WiFi to remain on 8.
It seems the neighbors do have WiFi too. but none of them are in WiFi 11. Perhap every router auto selects channels and my Zigbee network is causing them all to not use 11. THis is in a single famly residence so there are no WiFi just the other side of a wall. They are all down by at least 30db
I have not found a way to look at what frquencies the Thred network is using
I’d still look to move one of the Zigbee networks on a different channel. Like 15. You wouldn’t want to run both Zigbee networks on the same channel unless you absolutely have to; and even then you’d like have them interfering with each other.
