About a month ago a friend gifted me this USB dongle from SONOFF for Zigbee devices:
ZNP = Texas Instruments Z-Stack ZNP protocol: CC253x, CC26x2, CC13x2
I plugged it into my “docker” home assistant and it was detected after passing it through. I configured ZHA and was ready to go.
Then I bought two motion sensors for the floor (~3-4m ,1 wall, from the USB dongle):
SONOFF SNZB-03
I paired them and they worked fine, but the signal to the floor was very poor (20-30 LQI). They lost connection, I repaired and repaired, tried zigbee2mqtt instead, spent 2 or more weeks to figure it out. Trying channels 11,20 and 25 while always repairing them from scratch.
Zigbee2MQTT seems to keep them longer connected and working.
The battery reporting is just random on those devices, ranging from 0% to 100% over a day.
Then I bought this ZBMINI to put behind the light at the front door and act as a router (motion sensors are ~2m away behind 1 wall from the router):
SONOFF ZigBee Mini Smart Switch, 2 Way Light Switch
I hooked it up, it was detected by Zigbee2MQTT, set it up and it showed to work as a router (LQI ~120) for at least one of the end device motion sensors (LQI 105). Until I lost all motion sensors again and they stopped reporting after a day or so and finally also the ZBMINI was lost last night.
I now switched back to ZHA, repaired every device again (currently channel 20).
Q: Is SONOFF just not a good company? I thought buying all devices from the same company ensures they work together and they look rather sophisticated in the market.
Q: Is Zigbee with its “Openess” not the right protocol? I looked into Z-Wave, is it a better alternative, seems more controlled? But those are more expensive and I am at a point where I just do not trust these IoT protocols anymore and rather stick to WIFI.
Is your stick plugged directly in your pc, or do you use an extension cable ? Is it plugged into a USB-2 port, or in a USB-3 port ? Makes a lot of difference. Use a extension cable of at least a meter, and an USB-2 port. Your Zigbee network will show a lot of improvement.
If you do a search for those motion sensors (I have a few of them) here on the forum you will know that they are not ‘the best’.
I have a few sonoff wireless buttons and a zigbee coordinator and those work fine.
I had the Dongle in USB 3.1 (red) directly.
Changed now:
I use a USB 1.0 (white, I think this is USB 1.0) extension lead in a USB 2.0 (blue) port.
[ 2.048488] usb 1-4: Product: Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 USB Dongle Plus
One of the motion sensors reports LQI 76 directly connected to the controller now (~4m away through the wall).
The other does not have a connection in the visualisation but seems to work anyway.
Switched back to zigbee2mqtt.
I turned off 802.11b on the Cisco WLC for 2.4GHz and changed the channel to 25 for Zigbee, joined all again via zigbee2mqtt.
All connected to the controller, the motion sensors with ~30 LQI.
I don’t see where you stated the brand of the battery powered (assumption on my part) motion detector.My bad, I see you are using the SONOFF device, I’ve not worked with this particular SONOFF device, however I have a number of their temperature devices and they have been a mixed bag when it comes to connecting via routers. I have one SONOFF TH01 temperature sensor that has been reporting temp and humidity for 2+ years and has never shown a connection line (either direct or via a router) in my ZHA setup, go figure. I have had good success with the Third Reality battery powered motion detectors. Again sorry for my poor reading of your info. Does the zigbee mapping functions show the motion detector connecting via the install router device or directly back to the controller? While noise on USB cables and connectors and bandwidth fullness can have effects, from my experience far more likely is a end device that does properly connect via a router, or a router that does a poor job. Good hunting!
There are many users here that will claim the opposite.
Did you read the information behind the link about zigbee thoroughly?
Until 1 day ago, you made some serious errors against using zigbee, no wonder that your network was not stable.
If you understand how zigbee works and the things you have to be aware of, you might find out that it’s not the technology that fails.
Hope you get to a stable and good solution without much more frustration, I will agree with @Nick4 Zigbee works. My several (too many) Zigbee networks have been solid for years, however I have been battling a WiFi problem for six months. But I am sure I know where the problem is … PEBKAC
I am looking at your network diagram picture, and I will admit my understanding of how to read this information is far from knowledgeable. However, in comparing your diagram to the diagram of my zigbee2mqtt network, your light bulbs that seem all the same type, the ‘Innr’'s all have zero’s on one direction of their ‘routing’ links with other devices. In looking at my diagram, while I do not have any of that brand bulbs, none of my links show a zero value in one of the two directions. As I say, I do not know how to read those value, but it is very different from what I see in all the device on my zigbee2mqtt network…
Yes, these were the ones I initially bought and struggled to get a proper connection.
Now, the next day, the other even connected to one of the routers.
The Innr are the cheapest I could find, because I wasn’t sure if they work as a router. BUT, they connected in a split second to zygbee2mqtt, report their firmware version, I can rename the entity all working perfect.
Innr Smart Bulb White B22, Works with Philips Hue*, SmartThings, Alexa & Hey Google (Hub Required), 2700K Warm White, Bayonet, 3-Pack, by 266-3
