Neighbor table's showing which repeaters the hub is tracking, but being in the table doesn't imply they have a good enough signal to make them viable. If they have poor connections to the hub they'll be designated as 'high cost' paths to allow them to be avoided when routing messages (repeaters exchange status info at 15 second intervals with the hub and other neighbor repeaters). The worst rank is 7, indicating links with weak signals/high error rates.
Devices showing outCost=0 failed to send valid status info for several check-in intervals, so the hub won't use them to send routed messages. This could be due to signal blockage or interference; if you can, experiment with relocating a repeater to see if you can get a few more neighbors showing low (but nonzero) inCost/OutCost numbers.
The fact that there are repeaters in the neighbor table that have been unplugged shouldn't have any affect on routing since the hub knows (from the zero outCost) that they aren't communicating. They would normally be 'evicted' from the table if there were more than 16 in-range repeaters and you'd see another repeater taking their slot.
If your battery devices have chosen a parent repeater that is a'poor' neighbor, it will need to route through another repeater with a better connection to the hub (as it stands you only have two viable neighbors showing up in your table: Floor Fan and Owl Lamp-- the only two devices showing up as 'via's in the route table enries).
Zigbee range in real world environments (attenuated by walls and furniture) is much less than the 'free air' number you might see quoted.
When the hub initializes its Zigbee network for the first time, its supposed to do an energy scan and pick the clearest channel. Before overriding its choice with one from a wifi scan tool, try adding or relocating repeaters first. One thing you won't know from a wifi scan is that there may be other unknown Zigbee networks in your vicinity that the hub has chosen its channel expressly to avoid. If you've got an Amazon Echo Show (even if they haven't been configured to use Zigbee), smart electric meters, or even cable box remotes they all can have actively broadcasting Zigbee networks. I found that I have 3 Zigbee networks in my vicinity besides my hub; one is on my Echo Show 10 (I don't use it and AFAIK it can't be turned off); other two are still mysteries.
True. I have a half dozen original Xiaomi round buttons; they require careful pairing through a compatible repeater or they'll drop off within an hour. However, with Markus's drivers (and the proper choice of parent when joined) they're trouble free on my network. Not saying that I recommend their use for someone not familiar with their mesh or these devices' special quirks....
Same here. I used to use ikea repeaters but have switched to Tuya and have never looked back. Also it helps that I moved all my plugs to zigbee2mqtt and lighting to hue or Z2M (tip: smartthings/aotec plugs don't work well with xiaomi stuff)
I use a couple of @iharyadi 's environment sensors for my Xiaomi's parent devices. Xiaomi's also work fine if you can get them paired directly as child devices of the hub (but its radio is so weak you literally need to shut off every other repeater nearby when you join them or they'll be attracted to it like a magnet). Initially it was a frustrating nightmare getting them stable but as long as they keep working it's more trouble to change my automations to swap in new ones.
@aaiyar Do you have recommendations? If they're simply okay but not the best, then I'd like to use them since I already have them for free from when my parent's had Iris. But if they'll actively make the mesh worse then I'll ditch them.
@rocketwiz I'm aware that these are two unrelated issues. I combined them in the topic I guess somewhat unwisely while I was typing this and having the blood pounding in my ears after having yet another "solution" to unreliable temp sensors fail me and waste my money.
I don't believe I actually checked for that error in the logs and I'm not seeing that if I scroll back. I may have installed the driver before waiting for that error message. So should I delete the Ecowitt devices from my Hubitat and start from the beginning?
I have completely removed the Washing machine and 615 wakeup plugs from HE. They've been unplugged for weeks now anyway, but now they're removed from the system altogether.
For the battery, I wasn't sure if the suggestion that the batteries were possibly dead was being attributed to me as opposed to a suggestion from someone else (which it was). If I can find another newer CR2023 kicking around then I will install it, but in the meantime, do you happen to know if there's a way to know if these "maxell asia product" cr2032 batteries are actually lithium vs something else? It doesn't say lithium on it, so I want to be sure before I spend money on more batteries when I literally have a sack of potentially good ones in the closet.
@Tony Does reliability of a router device indicate anything in regards to how it actually functions at passing along messages from other devices? For instance, the couch lamp that seems to be absolute garbage at passing along messages is pretty reliable when manually or automatically turned on and off. But I'm assuming that means that it's just doing its own thing while the HE hub knows it's a bad router? The corner where I have the Couch Lamp and Litter Night Light is in the farthest spot in my apartment from the hub, so that would make sense, and I can replace the S31 Litter Light with an Iris Gen 1 plug and move the S31 to a better position, but I'd like to hear @aaiyar 's take on the Iris situation before I plug something back in and make things worse.
Since you have them already, I would use them. I know they are Xiaomi-compatible. Just follow @Tony's recommendations on building your mesh carefully, ensuring that Xiaomi/Aqara devices are paired either directly to the hub, or through repeaters that are Xiaomi-compatible. And don't unplug repeating devices ......
Personally, I've gone the @rocketwiz route - all my repeaters are Xiaomi/Aqara-compatible USB Devices that are on backup power.
Since I'd like to use the Ecowitts more than the Aqaras at this point, I will try to redo the mesh later on. Would a valid plan of attack be
rearrange routers in a better manner to minimize distance while unplugged
plug in the compatible ones
shut the hub down again for 20 minutes to reset the zigbee mesh and give it a day to build itself
do a fresh pairing of the Aqaras while only compatible ones are plugged in
plug in the rest
Also not that I think I'm financially capable of going this route, but how are you supplying backup power to those repeaters? Just a bunch of UPSs scattered around the house?
If you're seeing your 'garbage' devices (based on their link stats) working reliably when individually controlled, I'd reckon it's because of retries (the lower levels of the protocol don't get logged ) that mitigate their poor connectivity. There would be extra latency you might measure but it must be pretty low if you're seeing good response. Still, Zigbee's smart enough to know that they shouldn't be given preference for routing multi-hop paths if there are alternatives available.
Not everything in the neighbor table needs to have great stats (since they won't get blindly used as routers), you just need enough neighbor routing devices to make the mesh perform acceptably well.
Don't quote me but this advice is probably relevant to huge networks (the 100K+ Zigbee device Aria hotel complex in Las Vegas comes to mind). You should see dramatic improvements in minutes for a relatively small mesh..
@Tony I'm assuming the retries are just fast enough for me to think it's working quickly? Also 100K zigbee devices is insane. I can only imagine trying to get that to work properly all the time.
@rlithgow1 I get that removing them will cause issues, but unplugging and moving things around would be specifically for trying to get a specific "path" for the aqaras to get all paired up, which they theoretically won't diverge from again, then putting the other ones back in that aren't so picky about which path they take. Basically trying to optimize the mesh for them with the existing paired repeaters in new locations then after they're settled, putting the other less friendly ones back into play in less central places. But I'd still like to focus on getting the Ecowitts working properly before worrying about the aqaras, so to me it's a moot point until the Ecowitts are written off (but I don't think they will be). And I just reread the documentation on building a zigbee mesh, and I think I've followed it pretty well. As of right now, I just think my problem with the Aqaras may have been because I pulled something from it's path to the hub, making a gap with lousy signal and didn't realize it is likely to refuse to pick a new one from the remaining routers.
Yes, it would happen fast enough to be unnoticeable. Retries are pretty much inevitable in RF networks.
Re: Aria, I agree it sounds incredible. Doesn't seem to get a lot of press but Zigbee's widely used in municipal and industrial lighting, process automation, hospitality (and hospital) environments and a host of under-the-radar applications like smart meters and cableco set top boxes. Wifi interference appears to be a non-issue much less a showstopper; it's designed to tolerate it (with retries and increased latency rather than flat out failure). Likely these applications use custom profiles (not consumer oriented HA 1.2) but they're in applications that you'd consider mission critical.
Interesting video promoting the Aria's application (from 9 years ago when it was only 70,000 Zigbee devices in 6,000 rooms ): Zigbee Case Study in Large Node Network
Several years ago the Z-Wave Alliance touted a 65,000 device Z-Wave installation in 2,000 rooms of the Wynn; according to this reddit thread the company that installed it no longer exists and the installation now uses Zigbee. The Alliance's Z-Wave showcase is now a 90 room resort hotel somehwere in Italy.
I browsed that and didn't seem like there was stuff there that would help me, so now I'm on the main Ecowitt integration thread. Thank you for the help!
For those that find this thread later on, it seems like it just eventually solved itself. I signed up for ecowitt.net and verified that it was indeed sending info regularly and at some point overnight it started getting regular updates to my hubitat. No idea why.
