Fwiw after nearly two years of zigbee mesh network issues here are my experiences. I hope this helps others avoid the immense frustration I’ve felt wasting time managing this god awful network instead of, you know, building helpful automations and making my life easier
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Aqara
Aqara battery devices repeatedly fall off the network. In particular, those devices that use a single 3v battery (contact or temp sensor) fared worse than those that use two batteries / are Zigbee 3.0 devices (TVOC / TRV E1 / motion P1 sensor). One exception, with my recent switch to Z2M the motion P1 has become a disaster, falling off the network all the time.
IKEA
After a year of using the IKEA signal repeater with no issues they have started to drop off my network and show as unavailable every week or so. This has also occurred with my IKEA LED drivers so it could be IKEA devices aren’t built to last although I’ve has zero issues with my IKEA tradfri bulbs (although the GU10 bulbs do get extremely hot, though that’s a separate concern).
IKEA battery devices repeatedly falling off the network, although not as frequently as the Aqara devices.
Sonoff
Sonoff battery devices were rock solid on ZHA, in particular the SNZB-02 temp sensor and SNZB-03 motion sensor, but with my recent switch to Z2M I’ve started to experience issues with the SNZB-01 button falling off the network.
TuYa
TuYa ZG-204ZL motion sensor and TuYa contact sensor have been rock solid
Not device specific issues
- Physical zigbee button presses OR clicking on entities in the Home Assistant app failing to result in a device executing an expected action e.g. opening blinds. In ZHA this was often accompanied by the log Failed to deliver message: <EmberStatus .DELIVERY_FAILED: 102>
- Light groups in Home Assistant responding inconsistently to commands after switching to Z2M, e.g. only 2 of 3 bulbs turn on or off
Steps taken
The issues I’ve described with zigbee have remained consistent across the following steps taken to address my network:
- Move from ZHA to Z2M
- Moving my zigbee channel from 15 to 25 and moving my 2.4 ghz wifi to channel 1 (none of my neighbours seem to use wifi channel 11)
- Changing my coordinator device from the Home Assistant Yellow to the Smlight SLZB-06 and moving it to a room away from my router (the router and Yellow are both in my understairs cupboard)
- Getting rid of all my 2.4 ghz wifi Ring cameras, having a separate SSID for 5 ghz wifi and connecting laptops, mobile phones, tablets and media devices to 5 ghz wifi
- Gradually building up the number of router devices to over 50 in a 140 m2 two story house plus garden, as well as using four dedicated repeater devices (2x IKEA repeaters, 1x Tuya TS0207, 1x Sonoff Dongle Plus P)
- Using a multimeter to test battery voltage and replacing all batteries that dipped below 2.9V in my 3V battery powered end devices
- Removing all ZHA groups and using Home Assistant groups instead so as to minimise zigbee broadcast signals
I’m now in the process of either (a) adding more Sonoff Dongle P repeaters and moving over to TuYa battery devices or (b) giving up entirely on my zigbee mesh…tbh I keep switching back and forth daily…it’s been two years of one zigbee issue after another and I’m beyond frustrated.
Fwiw, in contrast I’ve had zero issues with my zwave and bluetooth devices although to be fair I have very few of those devices.
(Just to clarify if anyone is wondering, my zigbee light bulbs are hardwired and all router devices are permanently on.)