So I recently came from smartthings because smartthings sucks. However one thing I never had a problem with was keeping my aqara motion sensors connected. I had them on my smartthings hub for 6-7 months and they didn’t ever disconnect/stop reporting motion. Now over all I am 100% happier with my Hubitat other than these motion sensors. I haven’t been able to keep them up and running for more than 2-3 days at a time before I have to reset/repair them to the hub. I have checked and insured that my wife router and zigbee radio are on channels that shouldn’t interfere with each other and I have changed the batteries neither of which has seemed to help. I have read that these sensors are picky about the repeaters they may be connecting to however I don’t see that being the problem, they worked perfectly with the same repeaters on the smartthings hub. Any ideas on where to go from here would be fantastic. The driver I am using is the xiaomi aqara motion sensor by veeceeoh.
Perhaps when they were on SmartThings, they connected directly to the zigbee coordinator (i.e. your SmartThings hub). But with Hubitat they're going through routers that are not Aqara-compatible.
So, could you identify the zigbee routers/repeaters that you're using?
FWIW, I should add that I had a large collection of Aqara sensors on Hubitat (with confirmed Aqara-compatible repeaters). In the end, it was just more stable/reliable (and therefore convenient) to remove them from Hubitat and use a different zigbee coordinator that works with Aqara devices.
P.S. I'd recommend using the universal Aqara driver that is written by @chirpy. @veeceeoh's drivers are no longer maintained.
I have some innr outlets and some sylvania bulbs. Other than the motion sensors that’s the only things I have that are zigbee. Everything else is zwave and a few WiFi devices
Sylvania/Osram bulbs definitely do not repeat for Aqara devices. And funny that you should mention Innr outlets. I just posted something about them recently.
I'm using zigbee2mqtt for my Aqara devices now with 14 repeaters. 10 of them are Tradfi plugs/USB repeaters. The final four are Innr plugs (SP 224). The topology of the repeaters (in blue) and coordinator (in red) is shown below. The lines moving away from the repeaters/coordinator are to Aqara end-devices.
The 4 Innr SP224 plugs are highlighted in red rectangles. There's only two Aqara devices that use them. The vast majority prefer the coordinator or Tradfri devices.
So while Innr plugs do repeat for Aqara devices, my experience suggests they are not a repeater of choice for Aqara devices.
So these sensors were the last things I have added to my setup. Even when I was using the smartthings hub. So wouldn’t they have been going threw these repeaters in that case also?
Maybe, maybe not. The routes chosen by zigbee devices are a mystery to me. And can change arbitrarily. Also, HE and ST don't use the same zigbee radio.
Man I wish I would have known these aqara sensors were so finicky before I picked them up.
I have found once you get the stable, and on a good repeater that they like, that they are pretty decent. In my case, they really like my Gledopto LED controllers.
Do these show up in the routing table? (not everything will) Are their signal strengths good if they do?
[your hub IP]/hub/zigbee/getChildAndRouteInfo
I have on one of the led controllers also. I forgot about that one. Actually now that I think about it that is the most direct route from one of my sensors to my hub. At least physically speaking
They're a tough nut to crack. It's possible, but finicky. You have to be really careful about which repeaters you use, can't have repeating bulbs on the same Zigbee network, and you may still get occasional drops.
There are a few Xiaomi devices I still have on my hub, and over time I found the right placement for the repeaters that keeps them from dropping. All the Xiaomi contact sensors and motion sensors (with one exception) are on an Aqara Gateway. I use HE virtual switches and Homebridge to sync them to the Aqara gateway via HomeKit automations. Just like @aaiyar 's setup with zigbee2mgtt, it's not for everybody.
If it's just a few sensors, might just be better to replace them. If it's a lot of them, you might look at the option of a second gateway to support them. It just depends on their value for you. For me, I really like their size, performance and battery life. And when they're on their own gateway, they're solid. I was already an iOS user and Apple TV 4 owner, so it wasn't hard, and didn't cost extra money other than the $40 gateway to have stable access to those sensors.
But there are other sensor options, and they don't have to be expensive. If it ever came down to what was more important, it's the hub, not the cheap sensors.
I feel I need to add a positive statement about Xiaomi/Aqara sensors.
I’ve been using Xia/Aq motion, door, temperature/humidity, light sensors for some years now.
I’ve recently switched from ST to HE.
On ST these things were fairly reliable, but even a relatively infrequent drop-off can be infuriating. Regardless, I bought more and more of these things (directly from China) as they are generally 80% cheaper than the stuff I can get over here.
When I switched from ST to HE, I decided to switch to primarily zigbee devices. (That was a great move, for so many reasons!)
I read threads about these Chinese sensors and how to give yourself the best chance of success with them.
Now I have taken the time to set up my system accordingly, they are pretty rock solid.
I have a (seemingly) solid zigbee mesh around the house now (primarily attained by use of IKEA plugs, ST plugs and some Sonoff mains powered in-line switches dotted around the house).
So it seems if you have a good mesh, these things can be very reliable indeed and can save you a lot of money.
I have pretty good zigbee coverage. I have a small house and devices in every room and outside. I never had a single problem when I ran the smartthings hub, but they will not stay connected for mare that a day or so on the Hubitat. Now I’m wondering if I’m gonna run into this problem with other sensors/devices and I don’t really understand why they worked so well with smartthings and so poorly with Hubitat. I don’t think it’s a repeater problem (it apparently wasn’t a problem before) and one of them is only 15 or so feet away away from the Hubitat.
You will not have an issue if you stick with devices that are standard zha 1.2 or zigbee 3.0.
The Aqara sensors are neither.
This is the most important part of your post. And I too do use some Xiaomi devices directly on HE, but after dealing with dropping so many times, I always hold a strong YMMV stance with them.
I’ve been syncing Xiaomi sensors back to my hubs via HomeKit for two years with perfect results. They absolutely do not drop from their own gateway. But HomeKit has it’s own limits for this, beyond just the fact you need to be an iOS user to sync with an official HomeKit hub.
There’s a new community project in its early stages, but it’s showing very promising results. It is very easy to setup, and doesn’t require anything more than a spare computer, or RPi and a $20 Mijia Multitimode Gateway with HomeKit compatibility.
You don’t need to be an iOS or Mac user, and you won’t need to configure anything after the initial setup. You just add sensors to the Xiaomi bridge and they’ll show up in HE upon first active state.
so i decided to try some different motion sensors. I picked up a couple of the v2 iris motions sensors. they paired easily, responded quickly and for a week they were awesome. Then suddenly a couple mornings ago i woke up to my internet down which mnay be unrelated but after i got everything back up my sensors disconnected in about 20-30 minutes. now everytime i repair them they stay on for 10-20 minutes and disconnect. I don't understand why i cant get motion sensors to work.....oh the head ache.
