How I FIXED my ZIGBEE MESH (4 tips to try)

I hope this video helps you #fix your #zigbee #mesh frustrations!

I've left affiliate links below for any of the products used - if you decide to buy one, using the link will help me financially at no additional cost to you! Thanks!

-- Products in this video --

-- The Stuff behind me --

--Filming setup--
----
DISCLAIMER: This video and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you!

Join this channel to get access to perks:

Buy Me a Coffee if you want:

Website:

The socials:

[Rich]

You should have set the zigbee channel to a channel that is not interfered with by your wifi router. You can actually change the channel in ZHA now. I recently just changed from the default channel 15, to 23 since my wifi was broadcasting on channel 2 and that is close to channel 15 for zigbee. I only had to re-pair a few devices.

[heybravo]

You fixed my mesh network! Subscribed 😊

I thought I needed more repeaters, but what did the trick was "add devices via this device" for each battery sensor directly to each plug repeater.

[HATipsByLarry]

I added zigbee routers (singled smart plugs) in places in my house that i had poor zigbee communication. I did this over a year ago and have had no problems with devices lagging or dropping off. I do not have aqara devices as i had to many of them that dropped off the network even with a router close to it, but what you said in your video brings light (pun intended) to that subject. 😀. Just as a FYI the zigbee protocol is in the same bandwidth and even shares some channels with wifi which can be a contributing factor with zigbee devices falling off of the network.

[wdwork]

Great video! You did EVERYTHING that I did. One added benefit I've seen after adding new router and swapping out my Nortek with the SkyConnect was some devices having more than one connections to controllers. I love the idea of redundancy in case one router goes down, but I haven't quite figured out yet how to force that since the devices that have the redundant connections seems random. Regardless, stability is key and I don't have devices dropping off all the time like I used to! Btw, I enjoyed your subliminal message at 6:48 ;)

[andreassetterlind]

Also note that Silabs EZSP based Zigbee Coordinator adapters are not yet recommend for Zigbee2MQTT, so do not suggest using SkyConnect for Z2M, and instead get a CC2652P based adapter like Sonoff ZBDongle-P (not Sonoff ZBDongle-E) if going to use Zigbee2MQTT, as while a EZSP radio will work fine you will currently not get the backup and restore function or ability to update Zigbee Coordinator firmware from Z2M

[suzithewitch]

One thing that I did that made moving and re-pairing zigbee devices so much easier was that set up all my automations to use groups. So my automation to turn on lights when the front door opens has a group for the lights and a group for the front door contact. When I change my devices, I only need to update the devices in the group, instead of trying to make sure I get all the automations. It's been a big help when moving back and forth between zha and z2mqtt. 🙂

[RahulParmar]

Really helpful video! I have the Home Assistant Yellow so not sure if the Sky Connect would help my regular network problems?

[MikeHarris]

I had this issue with aqara devices. I was told in a forum they do not follow proper ZigBee protocol. So checkin always breaks after a few days. So switched to ZigBee for MQTT Md Nordic USB no longer works with it. So I had to get a conbee2. Rebuilt my entire network. All my devices also never used the router either. Only the coordinator.


Since moving to ZigBee4mqtt, my issues went away. Only sensors I still have issues with, is my water leak sensors

[MihaiKrieger]

Using the Sonoff Zigbee Dongle myself with Z2M and never had this problem. I have mostly aqara devices.
It is true, some devices might occasionally drop off the network or become unavailable (the latter mostly true), but in one year, I maybe had to re-pair three times in total across all my devices.

[bradfreeman]

Great timely video, I am just starting out with Zigbee using the SkyConnect coordinator and ZHA. I read somewhere that Thread only works with ZHA and not Z2M. Would be worth investigating before migrating. Keep up the great videos.

[brettautrey]

I went through the exact same thing. I added the Sonoff s40 lites. It helped but they still dropped off after several days. I ended up moving my HA Yellow device to a different wall of my house and mounted it high on the wall. I've been a week w/o dropping anything.

[BrentIngroumtv]

Something I’ve always wondered was whether or not the amount of connections to a router matters. i.e. can you potentially slow down your network by having too many devices on a router? Maybe create a choke point?

[plumbunion]

Great video! Thanks! I have a setup which looks eerily similar to yours. The Nortek coordinator, a cluster of sonoff zigbee plugs that act as routers and a bunch of aqara zigbee end devices. I have the same issue that you described: even when I connect end devices through a router, they seem to have a mind of their own. In total, I have around 40 zigbee devices (including the coordinator, router and end devices). What is odd is that the zigbee visualization shows several devices that seem to have no connections to either the coordinator or a router. But they still are connected to the network. Not sure if you've seen something like that. It'll be helpful to understand what this means. Also, some of my zigbee devices are hit or miss. They work around 80% of the time and despite being all local, seem to take some time to respond. For example, there is a definite delay in how quickly the motion sensors trigger. It'll be great to get some tips on how to improve performance and reliability. This is especially true for a couple of Aqara Opple switches that I got. They can't ever remain connected even if I put them right next to the coordinator or a router.

[Sistopha]

The Zigbee Aqara rabbit hole! I m buying an M2 hub and see if they keep dropping off

[dewroc]

Conbee 2 and 3 work with most zigbee brands …. Including 3rd reality and aqara and its local
Plugs into usb on home assistant device (with usb inputs)
Kinda cool device

[retromaniac]

Hey - great video! 😊
I recently migrated from Philips Hue Bridge to Sonoff Zigbee 3.0 Dongle Plus E and since then my (very old) LivingColors Iris stopped working reliably.
It works kind of well as long as it‘s like in the same room as the coordinator, but as soon as I move it out of the room, it stops working.
What bothers me about this is that it was flawlessly working with the Hue Bridge but with the Sonoff coordinator and z2m, the lamp has become basically useless for me.
As you suggested, I have many routers in the room in which I want to operate the lamp (like 6 different ones), but it still doesn’t work.
When I have it close to the coordinator, I see it only opens 3 connections: 1 to the coordinator and to two other routers. I assume it only has 3 connections because the lamp is quite old.
But again, as it worked with the Hue Bridge, I think (hope) it will be possible to get the lamp running with my new setup.
Any advice what I could try to fix it is appreciated.

[thegeckster]

Hi Aaron, thank you for the video. This helped my confidence in the technology decisions I've made. I'm starting out with home automation going home assistant, but went the route of the Sonoff dongle-e, which uses the same chipset as the Sky Connect. Since I'm starting out going to follow this to add Thread\Matter support follow the Smart Home Scene post How To Enable Thread And Matter Support On Sonoff ZBDongle-E. Have you heard anything about the Tradfri Repeater? Is this considered a "router" and just interchanging the terms? Going to spend time this weekend consuming your other videos. Thanks.

[antoniodecrisci]

Using SkyConnect for ZHA and multi-pan for a couple of thread devices on a single thread network and took me a week but finally it's back to being good. I have this one ikea 2 button remote in my shed that keeps going offline and chewing batteries even though it's about 10 feet from two routers also in my shed is the only device which is a pain so far.

[yashgupta]

After seeing the "add device via router" option in HomeAssistant I wish I had picked that instead of Hubitat.

[nickrusso]

Thank you for this video. It was very helpful. I've been having issues with Aqara devices for well over a year and didn't know about the colors on the visualization lines. Makes much more sense now.