@ cboehnkeBunk
Thanks for that info. THAT was a helpful and useful post!
I loaded the Sonoff Zigbee Bridge with ver 6.7.6, which was the latest when I loaded it 6 months ago. I never saw any alerts about the update of that ncp-uart firmware!
The README file says this fixes the bug that drains the batteries of IKEA devices.
ncp-uart-sw_6.7.6_115200.ota - original stable version for EZSP v8 compatible hosts, contains a bug that can cause battery of IKEA and Philips remotes to drain
ncp-uart-sw-6.7.8_115200.ota - NEW: recommended stable version for EZSP v8 compatible hosts.
Hi, just thought I would add my own experiences to this thread in case it might be helpful to others.
I experienced Zigbee devices dropping out and like others I downgraded from 9.3.0 back to 8.5.1 which I am still currently on. During my own testing my Tradrfi lamps were unresponsive so I restarted them and noticed that the battery powered Zigbee devices would come back some time later (the other option was to re-pair them). This made me think that the problem might be due to the lamps acting as repeaters and that the other devices being routed through them.
For my installation I came to the conclusion that the problem might not be due to the Sonoff Zigbee Bridge but more related to the Ikea devices I had added. I also have an Ikea dual button on-off switch (E1932) and the battery would keeping running down within a matter of a few days. I ended up removing this via the UI a few weeks ago and all my problems seem to have gone away. I intend to run like this for a couple more weeks and then I might try the upgrade again.
My original reason for upgrading was to move all my Tasmota devices to 9.2.x so that they could be picked up by the recent Tasmota Integration in HA although I am usure whether this would provide any benefit for the Sonoff Zigbee Bridge.
I had an Aqara Temperature/Humidity sensor go unavailable today so I tested my 4 Tradfri lamps and found that 1 of them was unresponsive. To fix the problem I did the following:
Turned the unresponsive lamp off/on.
Waited 5 mins for things to stablise.
Checked that all 4 lamps were now working from the UI.
Noted that the Aqara sensor was communicating again after 20 mins (this might have been the time needed for a temperature change to occur and be reported).
This appears to add weight to the theory that (in my case at least) it is an Ikea/Sonoff problem not just necessarily a problem with just the Sonoff Zigbee Bridge.
@ Jonah1970 thanks for the follow-up. That’s a good data point…Zigbee devices still coming disconnected even with ncp-uart-sw-6.7.8_115200.ota.
This is the kind of thing I kept seeing from October 2020 to March 2021 with ncp-uart-sw-6.7.6_115200.ota Zigbee radio firmware.
I saw my Sonoff SNZB-02 temp sensors, Sonoff SNZB-03 motion sensors and IKEA TRADFRI repeaters drop off the network nearly every week. The Sonoff Zigbee Bridge wasn’t even playing well with other Sonoff devices!
@ Hedda ok, understood.
That list has clearly not been updated for a while, and needs to take current knowledge into account!
I think it would make sense to move the Sonoff Zigbee Bridge to the EXPERIMENTAL list, and move the CC2531 USB sticks to the Known Working list.
I do understand there are stability and reliability issues with using wifi as part of the Zigbe signal chain. That is the reason for the warnings I’ve referenced.
I have not seen any how-to documents that detail how you can make the wifi stable and reliable for the bridge function.
I’m interested to know what steps or tweaks can be taken to make the wifi stable enough.
A further update on this problem in case it is of interest to anyone …
I found that occasional drop-outs of my Zigbee battery sensors continued to occur even with all my Tradfri lamps deleted from the network. The fix in each case would to re-pair the sensor but this gets annoying after a while.
I then tried deleting the ZHA Integration and then re-adding this but using my old Sonoff CC2531 USB dongle instead of the Sonoff Zigbee Bridge. Since then everything has been working great and the lamps are much more responsive so I assume that the Sonoff Zigbee Bridge (flashed with Tasmota) must have been the cause of the problem. Even the Tradfri firmware auto updates started working which is something I could never get to work previously.
I have a similar experience, while sonoff zigbee bridge is very powerful, i ad multiple occasions of battery powered sensors got disconnected. I rolled back cc2531 and my life is is better
I believe this is an issue of wifi connection of bridge but i could not find a way to make a serial connection to bridge.
FYI, It is also known that the antenna design used on the “SM-011 V1.0” Zigbee module by CoolKit is not properly designed and tuned causing poor Zigbee signal reception, and assume that the onboard Wi-Fi mounted close on the board without separation or shielding will also add further electromagnetic interference to the Zigbee radio.
It could have been a great hardware implementation of a Zigbee bridge/gateway if they had a better designed Zigbee module with a properly tuned antenna and only used wired Ethernet instead of WiFi.
ZB-GW03 uses same “SM-011 V1.0” Zigbee module by CoolKit but at least it also has wired Ethernet:
Just thought I’d throw in my $0.02. I have been running the Sonoff Zigbee Bridge on 9.3.1.2 since 04-05-21 and it has been ROCK SOLID. I do not see any devices drop off ever and I’m running 20+ zigbee devices. If anyone is thinking of using this for their zigbee coordinator, I would highly recommend it. Honestly, it’s been so good I forget about it because it and all of the connected devices just work. It might be worth mentioning that I am not using any IKEA devices. The majority of what I am using is all Aqara. Buttons, cubes, motion, and temp sensors.
I have the sonoff zigbee bridge (Not the Pro) and flushed it with Tasmota. Verry happy.
I was so happy and as I have 4 of the bridges, I started the next and flushed it as well, only to find out that I can only have one in ZHA . Is there another options for Home Assistant or should I revert to SonOff, sadly I do not have the original sonoff firmware?
. Is there another options for Home Assistant or should I revert to SonOff, sadly I do not have the original sonoff firmware?
