I am trying out an Aqara lock, which caused me to install an Aqara E1, which is, I believe, a closed-eco Zigbee system. Once set up, I see that it defaulted to channel 25.
Now I am wanting to implement a Sonoff ZDongle to add other Zigbee devices and I’ve read that channel 25 is a good choice. Can these two devices co-exist on channel 25? There won’t be a lot of traffic, if I should put the Sonoff on a different channel, what are some of the ideal channels to be on?
Thanks.
What integration are you using? If it’s ZHA you can get a report on channel usage.
On the integration page, click the “three dots” menu and select “Download Diagnostics”. Towards the end of the file you get you should see something like this:
"energy_scan": {
"11": 21.09014924761344,
"12": 70.89933442360993,
"13": 70.89933442360993,
"14": 7.659755505061292,
"15": 96.19660508390695,
"16": 6.789392891308996,
"17": 7.659755505061292,
"18": 6.011489450827149,
"19": 2.84844209578687,
"20": 84.164247274957,
"21": 85.82097888710312,
"22": 94.48255331375627,
"23": 88.70042934643088,
"24": 84.164247274957,
"25": 52.75969252664325,
"26": 23.33483723001185
},
The numbers are percentages, showing the amount of noise on each channel - including wi-fi and existing Zigbee traffic. Not all channels are suitable, though.
Avoid overlapping channels pick something at least ‘5’ channels away that’s non overlapping with your wifi
Use the links for zigbee troubleshooting for picking yihr channels. The Home Assistant Cookbook - Index
Thank you for the tip! In your example, suitability notwithstanding, does it mean that 19 has the least noise?
Do keep in mind that the effect of having two networks on the same channel is nearly* the same as having all those devices on one network: each device checks for other broadcasts on its channel before sending, so it doesn’t matter if it is a device on the same network or not that is interfering. So if you have one network with only a few devices I wouldn’t bother changing.
*This will be different if the devices are smart enough to adjust their transmit power and the meshes are different. I don’t know if they do.
That’s it.
