As I wrote before, I prepared a new Home Assistant installation for operation on my parents’ plot. In the process, I also paired the first Zigbee devices (OSRAM/Ledvance Smart+ lights and outlets). Today I transported everything to my parents.
What was meant to be a gift with easy handling turned out to be a complicated case (again).
Lamps and sockets were first tested in sockets in the house and were available unchanged. The distance between the Raspberry and the Zigbee devices was 6m max.
When I moved the devices to their final position in the garden, they could no longer be checked by HA. They are currently partially unavailable or are available but not responding. The distance between the Raspberry and the next device is about 12m.
I have left all devices connected, hoping that the Zigbee network will reorganize itself. But even after 12h this is still not the case.
What should I do now? Where do I start troubleshooting?
I use HA Core 2020.12.2 in Docker on Raspbian with a Raspbee II add-on-card and the ZHA integration. Wifi, Bluetooth are disabled on that RPi and no USB 3.x device is within close range (they cause interferences).
Never pair devices in one place and then move them. That’s like zigbee 101. Put the device where it is going and then pair it. If its a whole new mesh, start with the powered device closest to the hub, then work outwards for all the other powered devices, then do the nearest battery device to the hub, then work outwards for the other devices.
Why is that? When I paired all devices initially, they were “connected” to the Raspbee II module directly. Now, I would assume that the closest device (the outdoor plug) remains directly connected, while the smart bulbs might use the plug as a hub. Shouldn’t be the plug at least be still available?
How can I restore functionality? Do I need to factory-reset all devices or can I move them close to the Raspberry hoping they re-appear, so I can unpair them?
Also - to avoid this error in the future: How to archive paring for devices that are in some distance to the coordinator? Use the closest. already paired device to connect the new device?
Because when you first pair the device they look for a route to the hub, then at various times they get information from the hub about other devices on the network and they create a mesh so that they can all talk to the hub.
If you move the devices, the routes change. Some devices will be fine because they can find a new one, others will not because all the routes they knew about are broken.
So, in their final position, the outdoor plug will probably the first device to get paired (because it is closest to the Raspberry with the Raspbee module). Then the bulbs will be paired using the plug as a hub (using “Add device via this device” option in the ZHA integration) and so forth.
What if the plug dies? Does the entire network go down or will they learn alternative routes over time? Should I start with a couple of “long range routers” outside beforehand?
I don’t use zha so I don’t know what "Add device via this device” does, but tbh it sounds like it is a bit of an odd option, because it implies that (as you say) if that plug dies then other things will stop working
All I would say is that trying to work out the routes and ‘guess’ what devices are going to be talking to which other devices is not as easy as you would expect. Here is a chunk of my current zigbee2mqtt map…
Note that I’ve got 3 motion sensors connected to the light ‘k2’? All 3 of those sensors are far closer to other bulbs that you would expect them to be routing through, in fact the attic sensor is 4 or 5 bulbs away!
But if I check the map tomorrow they’ll be talking to different devices again. The point being that if I moved the bathroom light to a different room it would probably be OK, but if I moved the K2 light I’d be gambling losing those 3 motion sensors. If I moved any of the sensors, then I’d be risking losing it in the process.
But obviously at any arbitrary time, it could just as easily be the other way round.
Hi all. Very interested in range and mesh networking with zigbee. Considering setting up zigbee on my pi with a raspbee II.
I’m keen to use one of IKEA’s shortcuts buttons and intending for it to ‘roam’ around the network - it sounds like that might not be possible with the above comments? Can anyone confirm?
Thanks