Greetings… Apologizing in advance for any bonehead or “read the docs” questions in advance… Switched from Smartthings, ran hass on a laptop in virtualbox on an old laptop… i eventually got it working, but it was slow and kludgy… so i’ve finally got this thing running on a 4gb pi model 4b… zooz s2 700 usb controller and a new sonoff zigbee stick that’s 3 feet away with an extension cable…
I’ve got about a dozen zwave devices that i’ve excluded with smartthings and gotten hooked to my new hass server… sometimes they go into the “interview” mode and seem to take an extraordinary amount of time… like over 30 minutes… is that normal? Sometimes, it farts around and says it is interviewing and then it shows the device is there and alive, but no switch to control it… seemingly, doing a re-interview rarely works… I’m unaware of any hops longer than 30-40 feet… they seem persnickety… i delete them and pair them again… they usually work eventually… I’ve healed the network a few times… is this sort of the nature of the beast because the data stream is so slow? or should i look for a problem?
several devices have updated firmware, so i’ll take that as a good sign, but again… soooooo slooowww…
In my experience that means it’s too far away from the stick. In fact I had this pop up on me this past weekend and I just moved the device closer and everything was good. It takes time for it to adjust to the Z-Wave network to find the best route, so moving it close ensures you have strong communications from the start, let it get all the details and then move it into position. This will become even worse on battery operated devices as they don’t have the power to be interviewed from a long distance.
Additionally, my own impromptu testing has left me with the opinion that most garden variety coordinator sticks (both ZWave and Zigbee) seem to have worse antennae /range than a SmartThings v2/v3/Aeotec hubs. (I’ve owned all three and about 5-6 various usb sticks of ZWave and Zigbee so far…) I had to pull in my first ZWave hop in by about 5 feet to maintain reliable connectivity after I moved off mine a few years ago. I changed my planning distance between hops to '25 feet because of it.
Also heal a node at a time not the network. Heal network doesn’t work like it does in ST And WILL hammer your network.
lol… somehow, somewhere, all of these places and devices need to figure out how essential antenna and placement is… this zooz stick can’t have much of an antenna inside of it… i’m guessing a trace on the board is working as the antenna… the sonoff stick does actually have an external antenna… i know at these high frequencies the signal tends to bounce around a lot… i’m just annoyed by this spinning circle that doesn’t change if the whole thing is locked up and not doing anything… once they are connected, they seem to do better… i just put a bunch of sengled zigbee bulbs in that i hope act as repeaters, and i understand Zwave also has repeaters in line powered stuff… i’m gonna play around with hub and antenna placement… dedicated range extenders seem like overkill if i get stuff layed out right…
We’ll about that. You picked the one bulb SPECIFICALLY that doesn’t. (and the exact same reason I do use the)
Edit:
I agree 100% on DEDICATED range extenders if you put in something chewing power you might as well get function from it besides store and forward…
Here’s what I use for both ZWave and Zigbee on Standard Northamerica balloon frame construction. If you have stucco, brick or plaster on lap you’ll need to adjust up. Especially stucco.
25’ between powered nodes build from the coordinator outward.
Use a usb extension (you have that covered) to avoid RF interference from your host device. Extreme cases may require comple isolation from the USB3 bus in which cases a powered USB2 hub can help. (turns out USB3 SSDs drives on the same usb bus as a Zigbee stick drives it nuts… And ZWave ones too!)
Identfy nearby sources of 2.5-3ghz interference. USB3 hard disks as mentioned (even on a desk in an external enclosure), some microwaves, Bluetooth transmitters, wifi 2.4Ghz transmitters. (the typical list) Avoid placement nearby and for WiFi 2.4Ghz ensure you know what channel you’re on and how it impacts your Zigbee channel selection (if you did nothing it’s probably 15)
And like @NathanCu said. Building a solid mesh from the start is different than just adding new devices. It’s best to start with a clean slate and pair your mains powered devices starting with the closest one to the stick and moving outward in a circle. Once all mains are done, go back and do battery powered devices in the same fashion. This is applicable for both Z stacks.
