Sonoff ZBDongle-P range

Configuration Zigbee
1

I know that the answer to queries about Zigbee range is usually “add more repeaters”, but my range seems really bad.

I’ve just set up a Sonoff ZBDongle-P on Zigbee2MQTT. I’ve paired a bunch of devices with it and have pretty low LQIs all round so I’ve been doing some experimenting.

I have a TuYa TS0201 battery powered temperature sensor positioned 190cm away from the dongle. It has a line of sight and is reporting an LQI of around 50. I’ve got no prior experience of Zigbee, but reading around, that sounds like a terrible LQI.

I also have a pair of Tuya TS0001 mains powered switch modules about 5 metres away (but on the other side of a couple of brick & breeze block walls) which get LQIs of under 30 and intermittently lose their connection.

Here’s what I’ve tried:

  • Turned off my Wifi for all of these tests
  • Upgraded the dongle firmware to the latest
  • Turned up the dongle power to 20dBm
  • Tried channels 11, 15, 20 and 25.

Nothing seems to make much difference to the reported LQIs. The dongle is plugged into a USB 2 port via a 1 metre USB cable.

2

That makes the dongle shout louder, but it does not listen better.

1 Like
3

When you say ‘paired a bunch of devices’, any manufacture other than TuYa?

LQI is at best a marginal tool.

Brick walls can be tough.

I’ve read some reports that some Sonoff dongles had some quality issues, I’ve used 3 or 4 of the P version with no issues. But you could have drawn the short straw and it is a single point of failure.

You might try a non Tuya mains powered device somewhere as a router to the coordinator and then pair some of your devices ‘via’ this router rather than the coordinator and see if you get some different performance.

Good hunting!

4

All my devices are TuYa unfortunately - that’s what seems to be easily available. I’m going to add a few routers and see if they help matters…