automation to turn off all lights in an area doesn't work well with groups

[strange oar]

I have an automation to turn off all lights in several rooms. It all works well except with groups of lights. I have these GU10 spotlights which are grouped as one light. When the automation runs they will randomly be on/off and they wouldn't even show up with the correct status in HA. I will see them as off but they clearly are not, so I have to toggle from their button on a dashboard to turn them on (which does nothing) and then off (which finally turns them off for real).

In one case all the GU10s are IKEA ones, which are connected to HA through ZHA. In another case there's also Philips Hue ones involved through the Hue hub. However I have a feeling it is the IKEA ones that are the issue.

I was wondering if anybody has experienced anything similar relating to groups of lights controlled over ZHA? Where do you think I should start with to try to figure this out?

[hollow mango]

How are you creating the Group? Is it a Group created in ZHA or Group created as a Helper?

See here:

[strange oar]

It is a group created as a helper

I will look into ZHA groups

[strange oar]

On that note, do you think it makes sense to keep the Philips Hue lights on their own hub. I've had it since before I had a HA setup and its own zigbee radio. One of the lights in those groups is a Hue one, so I will probably migrate it to the HA ZHA, but I was wondering if there's any benefit to keep the Hue hub or just move all of them to HA ZHA

[hollow mango]

No, there is no benefit to keeping the Hue Hub and it could in fact be detrimental. Each Zigbee network can only have one co-ordinator and hence you should understand WiFi channels and zigbee channels if you run multiple networks.

Have a look at https://community.home-assistant.io/t/zigbee-network-optimization-a-how-to-guide-for-avoiding-radio-frequency-interference-adding-zigbee-router-devices-repeaters-extenders-to-get-a-stable-zigbee-network-mesh-with-best-possible-range-and-coverage-by-fully-utilizing-zigbee-mesh-networking/515752

[strange oar]

Thank you very much! This is very informative. I was thinking maybe some proprietary functionality that Philips is keeping but I didn't think about it from the RF perspective. It will really simplify the setup and remove one device from an overburdened network cabinet 🙂

[hollow mango]

Since you will need to repair the devices currently connected to the Hue, you may want to consider switching to Zigbee2Mqtt. I'm only suggesting this because I have found using Zigbee2Mqtt groups to be better.

You haven't mentioned how you run HA, but another thing to consider is that if you do not use the Add-on for zigbee2mqtt but either a seperate docker host or an lxc in Proxmox then an HA Restart doesn't take down you zigbee network - should mean your Mesh is more stable.

[strange oar]

I didn't know any details about the difference between ZHA and Z2M when deciding this. It was more instinctive like "why involve one more bus, like mqtt" 😄 I will read into what are the practical differences, but will probably first try the Zigbee groups with my current setup. How I run HA is on a HA Green box, before that it was on an older machine which I was using for other stuff and breaking all the time, so I separated it on its own dedicated small box and I must say it was worth it.

And now it dawns on me that in reality I have three Zigbee networks. Silly me! I have an aqara hub as well for some cameras and some aqara sensors are still connected to the hub 😄

[hollow mango]

There is nothing wrong with running multiple Zigbee / WiFi networks - just make sure you set the channels properly so they do not overlap

Since you are on HA Green, I would say sticking with ZHA is fine. Since you would be using Add-ons to run Zigbee2mqtt and an mqtt broker - which means an HA restart will also reload those add-ons.

[strange oar]

yeah, it just doesn't make sense for the aqara one to exist since it is battery devices only and sometimes it can be difficult with range behind concrete walls. It seems it would benefit to be part of one big home mesh

Thanks again, you have given me a lot of food for thought. I should have thought about all of this in advance but it has been sporadic bursts of enthusiasms that has set it all up so far 🙂

[hollow mango]

If they are battery devices, then you really should move them off the Aqara hub.

You may be able to re-use the Aqara hub if you start looking at Matter in the future.

[strange oar]

Yeah, currently they are all exposed to HA as matter devices, but for now I guess it will be better to move them off it and keep the Aqara hub for the camera support (and the pretty ring light 🙂 )

[hollow mango]

Matter is not the same as Zigbee

Personally I haven't used Matter or Thread, so can't offer much advice on that.

[strange oar]

Yeah, I am aware but haven't delved much in detail. Matter is more on the sofwtare side so to say, and thread is the actual radio protocol. I have a thread router as well but with only 1 device, which is then exposed as a matter device. And I must say - thread has been the most unreliable thing so far (less than a year). Hopefully it becomes more stable later on.