ZigBee unusable in area with saturated Wi-Fi from neighbors - Seeking advice on 433MHz as an alternative

Hardware
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I have recently started my local-control smart home journey over the past couple weeks. It’s been fun setting up HA and other software on my Rasperry Pis, but I’m having terrible luck with ZigBee.

Given my issues with ZigBee (described in detail below), I’ve just about given up on it and am preparing to switch to 433MHz RF for battery-operated devices. I realize this eliminates two-way communication and connectivity status, but I’m not sure important that is anyway for these small sensors which don’t receive commands.

A few questions I have:

  • Is 433MHz a good alternative to ZigBee in this situation where my home seems to be highly saturated with neighbors’ Wi-Fi networks?
  • Does anyone have 433MHz sensors working reliably with HA?
  • Can anyone recommend some good RF bridges and RF door/temperature/motion sensors?
    • Ideally I want the sensors to regularly report their current status even if unchanged. This would help ensure HA always knows the current state even if a change event is missed.

I found the Sonoff RF Bridge, but learned that the newest iteration of it is no longer supported by the custom Portisch firmware. What I am not clear on is whether this bridge can be controlled locally without Portisch. I would be grateful to hear anyone’s experiences with the latest Sonoff RF bridge.

Note: I’ve also considered Z-Wave but it’s more expensive and availability seems to be an issue (i.e. hardly any Z-Wave bulbs exist?).

Details about my ZigBee setup and issues

Using ZHA (tried zigbee2mqtt also).

ZigBee Devices: Sonoff USB Dongle, 4 Sengled Element Classic bulbs, 2 Sonoff S31 Lite smart plugs, and 3 Xfinity door sensors (XHS2-UE).

I live in a condo end unit with another condo below and another to the side. My condo has 2 levels, with 2 door sensors and a Sonoff smart plug being on the lower level. The coordinator, my HA machine, and all other devices are on the main upper level. My HA is running on an RPi 3 and connected via Ethernet.

Originally, I could pair my door sensors, but they would suddenly go offline after some time and required the full re-pairing process before HA would pick them up again. Worse yet, both the sensors and lightbulbs would sometimes not even show as offline in HA but were in fact disconnected. The doorbell sensors also won’t pair now after adding the Sonoff smart plugs. When I had most devices connected, zigbee2mqtt UI showed LQIs as all below 100, even on devices just one room over.

I’ve done a bit of reading on ZigBee and understand that 2.4GHz Wi-Fi overpowers ZigBee. (ZigBee and Wi-Fi Coexistence | MetaGeek). I did a Wi-Fi scan with the macOS Wireless Diagnostics tools and found that there are several networks around me spread across channels 1-11.

Latest scan results (my network highlighted):

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Things I have tried:

  • 2 different models of Sonoff ZigBee 3.0 dongles (P and E). I originally started with the “E” model, then found that people have had issues with it so I ordered the “P” model; same issues.
  • ZHA and zigbee2mqtt
  • 6ft USB extension cable between my HA RPI and the dongle
  • Adding the 2 S31 Lite smart plugs (repeaters)
  • Changing my Wi-Fi channel and changing ZigBee channels to reduce interference. Currently: Wi-Fi channel 11, ZigBee channel 11 (Wi-Fi 11 corresponds to ZigBee 20-26). I’ve tried most of the other combinations, too.

Interestingly, changing ZigBee to channel 20 and 25 (and my Wi-Fi to 1 or 6) caused some of the ZigBee devices to not even be able to pair, despite those channels being less busy.

At this point I am mostly looking for advice on 433MHz, but happy to hear any suggestions on ZigBee. I could be doing something totally wrong :slight_smile:

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No. 433 is an old protocol. Point to point, not mesh, most devices only allow control without state feedback (are my blinds really closed?).

Regarding your zigbee woes, I have four access points in my house using wifi channels 1, 6 and 11 on high power. I have no issues with zigbee coverage anywhere (currently 43 devices and about to double that). The more zigbee devices you have the better your network will be.

If I were you I’d ditch the Sonoff coordinators all together and go for one of these: https://tubeszb.com/ but if you really have given up on zigbbe have a look at zwave instead. It does not operate in the wifi band and does not suffer the drawbacks of 433MHz devices.

1 Like
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There are plenty of other alternatives that are not 433 if zigbee isn’t your thing. I agree with Tom that it may be fixable with the right troubleshooting but… If not.

ZWave, esp32 based esphome devices. Matter.

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Sub Gigahertz is a fine frequency for long life window and door opening functions. There is a lot of these devices out in the world for alarm systems and more.

433 Mhz is not a good solution for much else, maybe weather sensors. While there are several vendors and groups that make product for some lighting and power control function using sub gig, however, it’s pretty limited. And I think it will limit your opportunities to expand and enjoy modern home automation.

I feel for you for all the steps and pain you have gone thru to this point. That said, when I hear someone say that there zigbee system is failing due to interference, I raise a very skeptical eye. I’m not saying that it cannot happen, however there are many many other problems that are far more likely to be causing your zigbee system to fail.

Unless your neighbors are running torrent upload server and/or have multiple kids streaming/gaming on 2.4 GHz 7/24. IMHO it is rare that the 2.4 GHz range is that ‘full’. You do not say if your scanned the 5 GHz range, if there are not 5 GHz capable access points around you then I might give a little more credence to your 2.4 GHz being busy.

One thing that does pop out with your zigbee devices, you are using some equipment that has considerable ‘baggage’. Points:

  1. Those Xfinity devices are pretty dated, I pretty sure if you watch carefully on the opening scene of 2001, one of the cave entrances has those mounted :wink: .
  2. You Sengled bulbs are not zigbee routers as I understand.
  3. If you google, there seems to be mixed opinion as to whether the Sonoff S31 Lite devices act as routers. You can verify if they are acting as routers or end devices in your network thru either the ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT consoles.
  4. Even if they are routers, from my look at the FCC docs on them, the appear to use a pretty old and low power zigbee chip, a clone of the TI 2530. And with a internal antenna. Not the best for a router. I do used 253x devices for routers, however I use a amplified version with an external antenna .
  5. So, I’m not sure you have a very robust zigbee mesh. Often one of the top caused of the type problems you are having.
  6. More googling on the Sonoff S31 Lite devices will find a number of posts on folks have issues with these devices playing nicely in zigbee networks.

I would seriously take a step back and have a couple :beer: :beer: and see if you not take another pass at setting up a stable zigbee mesh with some different (and maybe a couple more) router devices. I find the USA version of the Third reality Power Monitoring plug to be pretty good routers. Hue Bulbs as well. The first you can pickup for only couple coins more than your Sonoff’s, yes the Hue’s are bit spendy, however ‘top shelf’ on all dimensions.

Good hunting!

2 Likes
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They do not. It’s why I use them.

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A couple of thoughts:

I had similar issues with Zigbee using the cheap sticks, especially once it grew. Then I got a stick from slae about four or five years ago and suddenly everything started working and has carried on doing so, using z2mqtt. However, I don’t have anywhere near that many wifi signals, so my experience may not translate as well for you.

Alternatively, have you thought of esphome? I’d probably replace many of my PIR, Temperatures, Humidities and other Zigbee sensors with that if I started over. One esp8266 can run a lot of sensors, and I’ve got several outbuildings now running them and they work brilliantly. The overall cost is way cheaper than zigbee too and reliability is solid. (Even though they use wifi, the protocol isn’t low power so competes like any other wifi device)

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I’m gonna come over to your house one day with a six pack and bag of smart wall switches and help you replace all those manual wall switching you have in front of your smart bulbs :wink: .

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If you have a spare USB stick now, having replaced the model, you can reflash the old one to be a router.
When I first tried Zigbee it was very unstable. A stick router in the lounge made all the difference.

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I have zero manual switches in front of smart bulbs these are in table lamps etc that do not have switches. And exactly why they get Sengleds.

My mom is 72 and I’m not explaining how smart bulbs work to her. I’ll turn them back on.

And I’m draconian about my setup I prefer to know my routers cannot be turned off.

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Point taken :studio_microphone: :droplet: , I had a similar ‘customer’ at one time. :wink:

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Did you get any useful insights from the Network Visualisation in the ZHA integration? It is kinda hidden in the configuration area, but I found it useful during debugging.

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My mileage too.

The advantage of WiFi or disadvantage of zigbee!

I ditched all my zigbee devices in favor of esphome WiFi devices. And what I can say? Installed and they directly work! And they just continue to work! No sudden loss of devices, no repairings, no weekends blindly trying getting this zigbee mesh stable… just a big relief!

Not sure but what I can suggest are BLE devices as esphome nodes (esp32 based) can just act as BLE proxy and get broadcast from thermometers for example.

So for example my sonoff m5 wallswitches just also act as “bridge” (proxy) and capture data from my cheap xiaomi devices

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@nathan815 -
Would not recommend 433MHz.

If I were you, I would try to fix your zigbee mesh, and if you just want out and have nothing to do with zigbee…

I would try z-wave, wifi-based devices with ESPHome (so not any wifi-based), or BLE, or Matter

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Yeah, my thinking was to use 433MHz just for the battery operated sensors like door contact sensors and maybe some temp and motion sensors.

I am fine with using Wi-Fi (Matter/MQTT/etc.) for everything powered. I can see how important ability to retrieve current state for anything that receives commands like bulbs, switches, and blinds.

I could try that nicer tubeszb coordinator, but worry about running into the same issues and then it becomes another item I have to return :laughing:

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ESP32 and Matter* would generally require Wi-Fi so are not an option for battery-operated sensors right? The only option for battery-operated sensors are Zigbee, Z-wave, and 433?

I was thinking of using 433 only for battery sensors and Wi-Fi (Matter) for everything else. I could give Z-wave a shot if I can find some Z-wave sensors. My main concern with Z-wave was the cost, but I don’t need a ton of these sensors anyway.

*edit: I realized Matter can be done over the newer low power Thread too, but this seems pretty early phase still

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Sub Gigahertz is a fine frequency for long life window and door opening functions. There is a lot of these devices out in the world for alarm systems and more.

That’s good to know. This is really what I was thinking for as a use case for 433, and just using Wi-Fi for everything else.

IMHO it is rare that the 2.4 GHz range is that ‘full’. You do not say if your scanned the 5 GHz range, if there are not 5 GHz capable access points around you then I might give a little more credence to your 2.4 GHz being busy.

Got it! I did scan 5 GHz as well, and there are quite a few of them. So there could be some other issue going on here.

  1. Those Xfinity devices are pretty dated, I pretty sure if you watch carefully on the opening scene of 2001, one of the cave entrances has those mounted :wink: .

Ha. When I used to have Xfinity security several years ago they gave me the same kind of sensors. FWIW, they seemed to work good at least with Xfinity’s system.

  1. You Sengled bulbs are not zigbee routers as I understand.

Yep that is correct and that is why I got the smart plugs to act as routers.

  1. If you google, there seems to be mixed opinion as to whether the Sonoff S31 Lite devices act as routers. You can verify if they are acting as routers or end devices in your network thru either the ZHA or Zigbee2MQTT consoles.

They do show up as routers in ZHA and zigbee2mqtt. At one point, one of the plugs was connecting through the other.

In zigbee2mqtt I had trouble getting multiple devices to join through the S31 plugs after clicking Permit join (S31 Plug). So maybe these S31s aren’t good ZB routers, after all.

I will go ahead and keep trying to troubleshoot this Zigbee issue a bit more and try with some better routers. I am reaching the end of the return window soon for some of the ZB devices, so I’ll have to hurry :smiley:

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Interesting that is another stick to try too. I thought the Sonoff stick (~$35) was considered good; is it not?

I could do esphome, too. I’m definitely going to explore that more. I was thinking 433 mostly for the low power sensors like door/window. And Wi-Fi based for everything else.

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I purchased a 4-pack of Third Reality Zigbee smart plugs recently for about $40 on Amazon. They work pretty well as routers and can help extend your mesh. Even if you don’t use the smart plug function, having them scattered around your house helps make your Zigbee mesh more resilient.

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I ditched all my zigbee devices in favor of esphome WiFi devices.

Do you have any door/window sensors? How do you handle these with esphome?

I guess if the door sensor is BLE, it would be a similar setup: BLE Sensor → esphome → HA? Now will need to figure out whether a BLE door sensor even exists… will do some searching.

So for example my sonoff m5 wallswitches just also act as “bridge” (proxy) and capture data from my cheap xiaomi devices

So the xiaomi devices are BLE, and your wallswitches are running esphome?

FWIW, I have a couple of Govee BLE temp/humidty sensors connected directly to my HA rasp pi and those have been working very well so far.

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Actually yes - on my post box I have a 433Mhz window sensor! The receiver is a esp8266 paired with a cheap receiver running esphome.

Exactly - the wallswitches do everything they do plus acting as a bluetooth proxy for HA!