#Force a Zigbee heal?

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

noble patio
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I have a…unique…environment. It’s one where interference is an extreme challenge that I’ve been at war with since I first set up my system. I’ve gotten it to a pretty good point, but it’s still an issue.

I have one device in my environment that causes the worst interference, so it always has to be turned on/off manually before ANYthing works.

The challenge that I need help with is that “off” time. After I turn it off, it can take literally 10-15 minutes before all my zigbee devices show as connected again.

Is there a way to force the zigbee network to “heal” itself (I don’t know the correct terms here)?

Other info: I’m using ZHA and an smlight coordinator. Let me know if there’s anything else that’s helpful.

steep moat
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Z-Wave have something like reconfigure mesh - so every device is asking for neighbors and their signals and based on this build optimized network. I don't know if Zigbee has it too, but it would definitely be useful.

What else I can tell you is to not send too many command / requests at once - I had automations that were supposed to close 28 blinds in an instant and something always didn't work and when I split it into smaller ones and at intervals it works.

gaunt meadow
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your problem will be all devices that only wake up when something happens. wall switches, motion sensors etc. many thermometers also wake up only when the temperature changes by some amount.

of course these devices also have to wake up once in a while to send info like battery level, but that does not happen often.

noble patio
# steep moat Z-Wave have something like reconfigure mesh - so every device is asking for neig...

It's sort of the opposite in ZigBee. I have a command that sends a single command to all devices to turn on and the network treats it as a single instruction. Before that I tried doling the commands out one at a time through a script with delays but it messed up all the time.

But this isn't the issue. The network is fine once that one device is off. That's where I need advice to get the devices talking again...

noble patio
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At some point the network works itself out. I just need to figure out how to make it happen faster when I need it to...

noble patio
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Would love to hear if @uneven field has input on this since he knows my environment 😅

uneven field
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Are the affected devices still the smart plugs?

noble patio
uneven field
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Did you try Z-Wave?

noble patio
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I've improved the wifi in the store quite a bit, so there's much less interference, but this one game is still killing the signal for several other games

noble patio
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I don't know if I can go ZWave at this point. It seems like an all or nothing situation. I can't just replace plugs for some games and not others. The ZigBee network will be even weaker

uneven field
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If it's a frequency thing you may want to give it a try, there are just environments that aren't good for low power 2.4GHz

noble patio
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Yeah that's gonna hurt lol

uneven field
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There's no real way to force the network to do much, it's self managing. You could try checking for OTA updates, that'll force them to check in

noble patio
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What do I need in order to transmit the ZWave signals? Is there a coordinator? It's been literally ten years since I've dealt with ZWave

noble patio
uneven field
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In the Update section of HA, there's a little icon on the top right

noble patio
noble patio
# uneven field In the Update section of HA, there's a little icon on the top right

I’m sorry to dig this thread back up, but I have a question about how all of this works.

See, IIRC, I created the Zigbee mesh by adding one device at a time, and doing so in my store’s off-hours while everything was off. My question is: while this certainly gives the devices the best chance to communicate, was this possibly setting them up for failure, because they were creating links that wouldn’t be possible once everything was turned on? My guess is that the answer is yes, but I don’t fully understand how this is all working so I don’t know.

If this is the case - and apologies if this is basically asking the same initial question again - is there any way to force the mesh network to re-route itself, and I try doing so after all the games are turned on?

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I haven’t tested ZWave yet, because this has all been pretty expensive so far. I have installed several Caseta devices I had lying around, and they - as I expected - work flawlessly. I would love to use their outdoor modules on everything, but that would get insanely expensive lol. It does show, however, that lower frequencies have better luck in this environment, so I might have to plan on going the zwave route at some point.

gaunt meadow
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do you see the issue as lower lqi between devices when all the noise generators are turned on? if you do that could help determine where the problems appear.

z2m has a nice map view that shows how the mesh looks. does zha have the same?

uneven field
noble patio
# uneven field For routing devices the re-meshing happens automatically, it shouldn't matter th...

But clearly the problem is that my environment has two binary states. High noise and low. I need to make sure the mesh is configured for the high noise environment, because right now it clearly isn't.

I get that my environment is as challenging as they come, but I still feel like it should be workable. I have a coordinator with a large antenna mounted at ~10', with mains power devices within 6' in two directions, and rarely more than 6-10' in between every single device in the network.

noble patio