I know it from experience. Iāve been trying to perfect my Zigbee mesh for the better part of 6 years now.
I did the same with my Nortek stick when I first got it. My house is fairly small (1150 sq ft) and at first it was status not being received properly. Then dropping devices and then my whole mesh went off the rails (sensors not responding, locks not responding, delayed messages when sending commands, etc). It wasnāt until I actually sat down and started reading the Zigbee spec docs that I understood where the issues were. I currently have ~10 Ikea bulbs, 7 Hue bulbs and some Gledopto outside floods alongside ~25 Sengled bulbs, along with various motion, contact, and moisture sensors as well. When I had all of them on my Nortek stick, I had issues. When I put the Ikea, Hue and Gledopto bulbs back on my Hue hub, my mesh healed itself and has been rock solid ever since; No incorrect statuses and none of my devices have dropped off (aside from dead batteries lol).
Most documentation doesnāt go into this kind of detail which, while I understand why, doesnāt help people who run into issues like this. I only know it because Iāve been researching this for years.
Impossible? Possibly. We are talking about core profile differences in the Zigbee protocol. While changes can be made at the software/firmware level, thatās not going to change the default behavior between ZLL and ZHA devices. The Zigbee 3.0 spec does address some of these things, but that requires firmware changes on both the coordinator (Conbee2/Nortek/Raspbee, etc) and also the devices themselves. I know that Ikea and Hue both have been steadily updating their devices with Zigbee 3.0 support, but Iām not sure on the coordinator side what (if any) progress has been made. I know for a fact that Hue in particular has made a lot of changes to their hub to support Zigbee 3.0. Ikea, last I saw, was planning on a Zigbee 3.0 rollout for their gateway in Q1/Q2 of 2019. I donāt know if that rollout ever happened though.
Hereās a white paper detailing the Zigbee 3.0 changes (worth the read, imho):
But what I donāt understand is, based on your description of the problem, who will NOT run into these issues if they use a generic zigbee usb stick and ZHA? People that do not use IKEA or Hue lights? Those are two of the biggest suppliers of zigbee stuff that people use.
To me, it seems as if this would sort of make the whole implementation of ZHA in HA pretty useless.
In a simple nutshell, people who avoid mixing ZLL and ZHA devices on the same mesh shouldnāt see these kinds of issues (repeating issues aside). Thereās also a lot of speculation that people who do run a mixed environment use a LOT of repeater devices and this also helps with stability (which is actually true; More repeaters means less of a chance for a ZLL device to miss a message). Itās basically an effort to ādrownā out the noisy bulb repeaters and force the coordinator and repeaters to use other ārealā repeaters as neighbors instead of the bulbs. This is the approach I take and it works very well, even though I donāt have any ZLL devices on my mesh.
While Hue and Ikea do produce a LOT of devices, I wouldnāt say they are the biggest suppliers when it comes to Zigbee devices. Sengled (which is my preferred bulb of choice because they specifically do not repeat messages) has a large market share as does Zemismart (they are growing in popularity lately). Thereās also Innr who are making some big strides in the market as well. Other non-Zigbee bulbs are also very prevalent (Yeelight, Tuya based lights, etc).
I disagree. Lighting is only a portion of the ZHA platform. For instance, I have about 15 motion sensors (mostly SmartThings, but also a couple of Zooz 4-in-1s and I think I still have one Aeotec hanging around somewhere), around 20 contact sensors (again, various brands) and 10 water leak sensors. These all work flawlessly as they are ZHA profile devices. With that said, there are some devices coming out that are ZLL profile devices, meaning they are meant to operate in the Ikea/Hue world. Ikea has had their outlets and repeaters for awhile (and those are actually ZHA devices). Hue is working with a couple of companies on further expanding their plugs and sensors with ZLL support.
Without ZHA in HA, I wouldnāt be able to have the smart home that I have today.
Iāve heard that before and to be honest, I have an Ikea gateway for the simple reason of being able to update firmware on my Ikea bulbs. In contrast, my Hue hub has been pretty flawless and supports more bulb manufacturers.
You might want to examine a bit higher in the topology to figure out if you have a problem with interference and/or lack of repeaters. Specifically look at your Zigbee channels and your 2.4ghz WiFi channels. Also, look at where you are placing your hub(s). Ideally, you want your Ikea/Hue/ZHA stick/hub placed as far as possible from your WiFi router as possible and have them as separated as you can channel-wise.
Sure, but thatās what I had before, using all the different brandās own hubs, and what I wanted to get away from. ZHA seemed brilliant, and also gives me one mesh instead of 2-3 different ones.
Sorry to butt in, but what exactly do you mean by a āZHA-Deviceā ?
ZLL means āZigbee Light Linkā which is a protocol (subset of Zigbee 3.0), and thus a āZLL Deviceā is a zigbee device designed to only support (use) the ZLL protocol (right?)
But ZHA means āZigbee Home Assistantā and as far as I know, this is not the name of a new and andvanced Zigbee protocol, but simply just a practical alias for an integration platform in HA (right?)
So, (assuming that Iām right) - there is no such thing as a āZHA Deviceā. No manufacturer has ever made a Zigbee device that is factory aware of Home Assistant (ZHA)?
So, I presume what you mean by this term is just a reference to a device that has been paired with and has acknowledged ZHA as its coordinator, right?
I mean, as an example; a zigbee device paired with an IKEA hub doesnāt thereby magically become an IKEA Device? My Namron Zigbee light switches remain Namronās whether they are paird with ZHA or IKEA or Phillips gateways, right?
Please feel free to correct me if Iām wrong - fully or partly.
Then (unless Iām wrong), whatās my point? Well, my point is that newbees (like myself) are getting increasingly confused by the days, as I read all these forum posts (attempting to learn), where people (experts and wannabeās alike) constantly make up new abbreviasjons and terms right out of thin air.
Consistency and accountability is evaporating as a result of such bad habits. People end up spending more time clearing up unfortunate misunderstandings among each other, instead of solving real life problems.
Well, maybe Iām wrong. Itās late. Please excuse me. My intention was not to point fingers in any particular direction. Just a general sigh. Your contributions here in this forum is unquestionable! I wish I had just a fraction of your knowledge about Automation. Good Night.
Thatās not correct. @code-in-progress is right here. ZHA stands for ZigBee Home Automation not ZigBee Home Assistant. These are different ZigBee application profiles and ZLL devices are not good repeaters for ZHA devices or they donāt work at all.
Indeed - I stand corrected on that. It was actually a typo. I meant to write Zigbee Home Automation.
But in any case, ZHA is a Home Assistant integration component (platform), right? And not the name of an open Zigbee Protocol extension of some kind, right?
Thus my point was that the term āZHA Deviceā doesnāt officially exist. One cannot grab a light bulb in a store and proclaim; āThis is a ZHA Deviceā!
Whereas you CAN grab one at the IKEA store and say; āThis is indeed a ZLL Deviceā
Am I right?
To add to the confusion : the Zigbee Light Link and the Zigbee Home Automation profiles are both Zigbee 1.2 protocols. Zigbee 3.0 unified them and is backwards compatible with both the Zigbee Light Link and the Zigbee Home Automation profile. And yes, you can grab some device in the store and say : this is a Zigbee Home Automation device.
I have to admit, I am bit confused by this. Mostly that Iāve never read anything about ZLL-devices (lights from Hue and IKEA, for instance) not being a 100% compatible with e.g. the Conbee II-usb stick.
Are there any generic (i.e., not Hue or IKEA hubs) usb-devices for ZLL-lights that I can use with Home Assistant?
ZLL devices work perfectly fine with the conbee stick itās just that they are not good repeaters for ZHA devices. For example a door sensor (ZHA device) which is far away from the conbee doesnāt route the traffic through the Hue bulb (ZLL device) all the time and this can lead to an unavailable door sensor.
āConfusedā is my middle name!
Now u/Francis also talkes about ZHA as some kind of Zigbee protocol / profile subset.
If I go into the integrations page in HA, and click on the big red + and then choose ZHA from the list of available integrations. Am I then adding a Zigbee profile /protocol??
Thatās not my experience. Still have incorrect status reports intermittently for random Hue and IKEA bulbs in my HA ZHA Conbee 2 setup. But then Iām even more confused, since my problem lies with bulbs and not what you call ZHA devices (door sensor) in your example.
The confusion is because of the abbreviations. In the zigbee world, ZHA means Zigbee Home Automation, and is a Zigbee 1.2 protocol. Home Assistant has a ZHA integration, but this has little to do with the Zigbee Home Automation protocol, except that it supports it.
Iāve been trying to perfect my Zigbee mesh for the better part of 6 years now.