C8- Surprising Zigbee Mesh Resiliency

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1

TL/DR- I tried to dismantle my zigbee mesh, but couldn't.

Since migrating from a C7, I've been curious as to why none of my zigbee end devices will connect directly to the hub. Even new pairings, less than a foot from the hub, will not connect directly. So last night after the wife went to bed, I decided to force the issue.

The hub was shut down and unplugged. I went around and unplugged all routing devices (2 XBees, 3 Environment sensors, 9 eWeLink based plugs), leaving 43 end devices (21 Iris V2 motion sensors, 22 Xiaomi/Aqara/Milia contact/leak/temp/light sensors). After about 45 minutes, I plugged the hub back in and began watching the zigbee logging. 10 minutes go by...nothing!

Manually triggering the sensors didn't register anything in the zigbee logs. "Oh boy, this is going to be bad." I plugged in the three Environment sensors and checked to see if they were communicating and was pleased to see they were, along with about a dozen end devices, as I am still manually triggering everything. Plugged in the XBees and got about 10 more back. Plugged in the nine plugs and got a bunch more back. Ran a scan in XCTU with an XBee and was shocked to find all devices accounted for.

Unfortunately, it seems that even the most drastic measures will not cause end devices to connect directly to the hub. I did gain quite a bit of confidence that the new hub (zigbee chip?) can handle anomalies well and allow my continued use of the non-standard devices that have served me well for five years.

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I find that the Zigbee mesh works well and is very fast so this should not be an issue. The antenna is much more important for Z-wave.

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My concern was being too "repeater reliant". In the past, after short power outages I would lose a sensor or two because the repeaters had been down. All the devices connected directly to the UPS powered hub survived.

My little test last night alleviated that concern.

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That is not something I have personally experienced. The antenna will help in those cases.

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Try turning your zig bee power back to 8. That solved my problems.

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I've been through all of the power settings without a change. It really shouldn't bother me as I don't have the issues others have. None of my devices have dropped, everything is snappy, and new devices pair with ease.

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