Zigbee help

Hardware
1

Hi,

I’m struggling with my zigbee network, I’ve tried everything and can’t get a solution that works well. I have a sonoff bridge, sonoff bridge pro, sonoff dongle P and even a conbee II stick.

I also have Aquara hub

I’ve tried so many combinations, including deconz, zha and even zigbee2mqtt

Nothing seems to work well. The best I’ve had is using the sonoff bridge but this only works for sonoff sensors.

I have around 30 devices in total, but my house is massive. 10 bed, 2 floors

I have tried flashing the sonoffs and using them as routers

My ideal solution would be to use the sonoff zigbee stick with a few routers dotted around, but the devices connect to the routers and have 0 lqi - only a few meters away! The router has good connection to the coordinator.

I don’t care whether I use zigbee2mqtt or zha. (Not a fan of deconz)

Any suggestions? This is sending me crazy!

I’m ready for giving up with the zigbee devices as I’m fed up of repairing the things

2

Are you using an extender cable?

3

Yeah using a brand new 2m extender cable between the pi and the sonoff dongle

4

Do you have a good network of devices from the controller to the rooms you want to control? I try to keep my Zigbee devices within 30 feet or so of another, all the way back to the controller, and doing that has been pretty solid. Also, have you played with your WiFi channel to eliminate that as a potential interference with Zigbee since that can absolutely impact your reliability?

5

Devices are close together, but haven’t messed with the wifi… I’m using a Netgear Orbi mesh, which is solid and works everywhere… wifi automation devices are flawless.

I don’t want to mess with the wifi as I need that for work.

I may try changing the channel on the zigbee mesh and see if that helps.

I am not sure whether using more than one zigbee mesh may be causing issues too… I can’t connect some devices to home assistant using sonoff dongle at all (Aqara thermostats don’t work at all, neither does the Aqara cube)

6

I may try unplugging the other zigbee coordinators and see if that improves things?

The other problem I have is that many of my sonoff mini’s are in roof spaces and even in the walls - so reconnecting them is painful!

I’m reluctant to do reconfigure everything until I can get a stable connection

7

I also use Orbi, it won’t mess up your wifi as it’ll still work if you change channels, but I had someone nearby squatting on a channel and blowing up my wifi, one change to that channel and all was well and pretty much zero down time.

The multi-controller could also be an issue - I only use one so I have no experience with that but if they are stepping on each other then absolutely it could be a problem.

8

I’m lucky and have no neighbours or anyone else with any form of wifi for a significant distance.

I can try unplugging the other coordinator devices and see if that helps. Though not sure if their corresponding end devices may still interfere until they’re repaired

9

It could be a lot of reasons. Maybe it’s coordinator problem. I bought this and had zero issues with it. Forget topics about this guy. It’s ridiculous.
Now the problem might be interference with wifi network. I use channel 11 for zigbee and channel 6 for mesh wifi. It’s seems to me that this works well. I use z2m and have 80+ zigbee devices.
I also have big house made of reinforcement cement and thick walls everything is working fine.
Another problem might be choose of device because some devices doesn’t work very well with others.
I use mostly tuya zigbee devices, but there are some other Chinese manufactures and things are working fine.
Next problem could be bluetooth than can demolish zigbee connection.
And in the end, you maybe need to add more routers to your zigbee network. I have currently 20 routers but I’m planning to add some more.

10

I also use Sonoff Zigby dongle. Mine was working great for a while plugged into an external USB hub, but after I added a few bluetooth devices nearby it started misbehaving, and automations stopped working. I added an additional 1 meter cable between the hub and the dongle, and that made all the difference. I have 21 Zigby devices spread over two floors, and was about ready to give up too before that.

11

Thanks, this is something to try… the raspberry pi and dongle are close to a couple of laptops in my office which use Bluetooth…

I’ve relocated the pi and sonoff to another room, but it’s in one corner of the house, the signal doesn’t reach anywhere near the opposite corner of the house

I think I’m going to need some more routers on my network and I can’t seem to pair the sonoff mini zigbee’s to zigbee2mqtt, and these are the only thing which are powered and have the capability to run as routers

I have about half of my network now moved over but still a lot which won’t reach

12

So how many of the devices in your network are routers? It’s not just the distance between them that counts - the number is also important as a healthy mesh has to provide for lots of different paths between nodes.

Presumaby all your lights are zigbee? If the devices are mostly lightbulbs that might be contributing to the problem as they tend to have a weaker signal than, for example, wall sockets. If you want to cover the whole house you probably need to think in terms of at least one dedicated router as a “repeater” in every room, plus all the lights.

13

I have currently one router which is a sonoff bridge pro which I’ve flashed with router firmware…

I could have another 4 or 5 if I can figure a way to get the sonoff mini’s to join the network.

Then I have a sonoff bridge (non-pro) which ai should be able to flash as a router when I get the other sonoffs to join the network.

No lights are zigbee, all lights are controlled using sonoff minis (some are wifi, some are zigbee)

For a router in each room, I’d have to have 20 which isn’t going to work

14

I don’t know where you are from, probably from USA, but in EU this is the case.
Every smart light switch that use a neutral wire will act as a router, smart plugs, smart outlets and smart bulbs. This is what I have.

15

I’m from the uk… I have put smart relays in the light fittings (sonoff mini) so there’s no smart bulbs required. I can use the default light switch and normal bulbs.

Many of them are wifi based, so don’t extend the zigbee network. Though I have 4-5 which are zigbee but don’t like pairing with my zigbee2mqtt setup and fail the interview process

16

Well you need routers to extend your zigbee network. Maybe the best solution will be smart outlets. Smart plugs are basically ugly and smart bulbs are not that great.

17

Yup. As an example (I’m in the UK too), my house is only five rooms total, but I have a SkyConnect co-ordinator and about 20 router devices, mostly lightbulbs, plus aother 20 or so end devices like motion sensors. Everything connects easily, but I’m still getting a bit of drop out in the end devices so I’m in the process of adding a “repeater” in each room.

I’ve recently replaced my wall sockets with these, which are great - good strong router signal and they can be operated manually as well as remotely. Plus they look pretty much like a conventional socket, which I like.