Zigbee sensors reconnect after power outage

Hi All

I am fresh in home automation and IoT and seeking some comments and advice from you guys.
My setup is HA on QNAP in VM, linked to tasmotized Sonoff Zigbee bridge and Sonoff RF bridge.
My bridges are linked to zigbee2mqtt edge version as this is the only one i found, which supports Sonoff Zigbee Bridge.

For the time being except from couple of Tradfri bulbs which are connected by Ikea Gate I set up 4 Aqara temperature sensors plus one Aqara door sensor.
Sensors are nice looking and they work without problems (with Zigbee2MQTT through Sonoff Bridge) except for the situation of longer power loss. After some longer disconnection from bridge sensors cannot reconnect and it is required to push them manually to connect. This makes all Aqara sensors unusable in more serious applications.

It is already known issue, I found a lot of reference on many forums that this is the common problem for Aqara stuff (i wish I knew it before)
I even ordered Conbee II stick (will come next days), but found also evidence that this case is also present with it.

So finally are questions:

  • is Aqara Bridge or any other bridge better for Aqara sensors, with more reliable reconnection?
  • are Sonoff sensors like SNZB-0X better behaving?
    I have to sort it out before investing more money and time in setup of my sensor network and automations.

Thanks for your answers.
T.

I have close to 50 Aqara/Xiaomi ZigBee devices (routers and endpoints) connected to a Conbee II stick running deconz and they are stable.

Couple of things to check.
Between the sensors do you have any devices that act a routers (those lights u mention would act a routers if part of the same ZigBee network.
The more devices that can act as routers you have the more stable the mesh will be.
It maybe a distance thing or interference from WIFI. see the following link about ZigBee and WIFI co-existence.
[ZigBee and WiFi Coexistence (https://support.metageek.com/hc/en-us/articles/203845040-ZigBee-and-WiFi-Coexistence)

Have you tried connecting your Conbee dongle to a USB extension cable?

Adrian,
Thanks for your answer. Currently all sensors are conecting directly to brige with LQI higher than 100 (no routers in beetween). I know lamps could act as the bridge, but with my current setup of Sonoff and zigbee2mqtt I had some strange lamps behaviour and I could not pair remotes so Tradfri stuff is still on the native gate.
My Conbee stick came only today and I will try to set it up in the evening (CET). Was just wondering if I may expect better reconnection experience.

Did you ever find a good solution?
I also see my aqara temperature and humidity sensor not reconnecting after I switched off the home assistant server (with conbee 2).
My conbee 2 version is up to date.

For a zigbee network to be stable, ensure that you have some mains “bulbs, plugs or other stuff with power”. I have a number of aqara plugs, and my aqara sensors are stable, even if coordinator is of for some time.

I have some permanent powered ikea tradfri lights so that should be sufficient.
The problem is only with the temperature and humidity sensor. Other sensors like the aqara door sensor and aqara water sensor come back online without any problem or intervention from me.
You said it was always stable, but do you also have the aqara temperature and humidity sensor?

Yes, I have 4 of them, using Z2M with a sonoff 3.0 dongle. Fully stable.
I also have several aqara door, aqara motion and aqara plugs. All work well. I have read about the problems with aqara, not having problems.
My personal theory, not based on anything. Using aqara plugs (I have 8 plugs used for different things) make the aqara battery devices more stable.

Only problem with aqara, they will only move between routers if their router are totally gone. If the router is in the zigbee network they will try and connect to it, even if they can not reach it,

Hence, always put the aqara in the final place before pairing, and do not turn off power to the routers.

Ok next time I’m gonna try to power off all available routers in my network and see if they come back online somehow. Otherwise perhaps it’s time for me to try zigbee2mqtt :thinking:

My Aqara sensors don’t come online until there is a change (i.e. temp, lux, motion). I found it unnerving at first but after watching everything come back on it’s own when things inevitably changed… I calmed down.

Same situation here.
I have an Aqara ZigBee temperature and humidity sensor linked with the Sonoff ZigBee bridge/gateway flashed with Tasmota running on HA via zigbee2mqtt. On every power outage, the sensor won’t reconnect to the hub and i had to manually reconnect it.
But, finally, i solved that situation by enabling the option always “Permit join” in zigbee2mqtt → web ui → settings → Main.
aqara_sonoff_bridge_reconnect
Now after the power outage, the sensor automatically reconnects to the bridge.