C8 Zigbee Radio Turning Off/On Multiple Times a Day

I would suggest that @gopher.ny , or @bobbyD need to take a look at your hub. In my experience, it’s not a zigbee issue causing the offline events, but something else stressing the hub.

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Mine as well.

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Appreciate the update. I had problems with the C8 with the zigbee radio going on and off and went back to the C7 as a result. Was cautious of biting the bullet and trying the C8 Pro in case the same problems happened again (which looks like they are).

Just to confirm - is C7 the same as C5 with zigbee radio? I get confused. I have a C7 on the shelf so I might start using that. I would like to have a simple chart comparing models.

C8 & C8 Pro are the same in terms of Zigbee, so they should operate the same in that area.

@simon4 - see below for Hubitat HW history...

Detailed summary of Hubitat hub hardware revs

  • Generational changes highlighted

• C-5
○ Amlogic A113X SOC
-- CPU: Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A53
○ 1GB RAM and 1.5 GHz CPU clock
○ 500 series Z-Wave module, single frequency for US
-- Other Z-Wave regions need an external dongle
○ Zigbee 1.2 chip.

• C-7
○ Amlogic A113X SOC
-- CPU: Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A53
○ 1GB RAM and 1.5 GHz CPU clock
700 series Z-Wave module covering all regions
○ Zigbee 1.2 chip
○ Matter Support

• C-8
○ Amlogic A113X SOC
--CPU: Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A53
○ 1GB RAM and 1.5 GHz CPU clock
800 series Z-Wave module covering all regions
Zigbee 3.0 chip
External Z-Wave & Zigbee antennas
○ Matter Support

• C-8 Pro
Amlogic A113X2 SOC
-- 64-bit Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A55)
2 GB RAM and 2.0 GHz clock.
○ C-8 Pro boot time is almost twice as fast as C-8 boot time.
○ 800 series Z-Wave module covering all regions
○ Zigbee 3.0 chip
○ External Z-Wave & Zigbee antennas
○ Matter Support

@simon4 FWIW -- I have had a boatload of problems with Zigbee on my C8 (see thread here: Zigbee Storm) -- it took a long time to isolate the problem, but ultimately it was a bad GE/JASCO outlet that was taking my Zigbee network down.

NOTE: This is a device that worked just fine on my C4, C5, & C7s previously.

HOWEVER -- Devices go bad. As it turns out, I've had at least 3 of these GE/JASCO Zigbee outlets go bad. While this problem occurred somewhat coincidentally in time with my swap of the C7s to the C8s -- despite appearances I'm confident it has nothing to do with the hub itself.

I'd suggest that since you have a C7 handy, and a problematic device -- try swapping Zigbee devices to the C7 (one at a time) and see if the problem disappears or follows a device.

I do suspect that a "bad" Zigbee device can work "OK" on a lightly loaded hub, but it's problems may cause ore disruption on a dense network, and it's even possible that in a lightly populated network, a "bad" Zigbee device may cause NO overt problems. Hard to say though.

S.

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I don't think my issue is an errant device but I am on the lookout for all issues.

But I was running fine on the C5. Then went to C8 and zigbee radio starting acting up. So went back to the C5 and everything was fine. A year goes by, I get a C8-Pro. I move from the C5 to the C8-Pro and problems start again.

Unless an errant device started misbehaving at the exact same time I switched to the C8 or the C8Pro and decided to behave when on the C5 before and in-between then I think my issue is radio/firmware related? Or a device that responds differently to the different radio/firmware?

It's been three days since I had a radio crash so watching and waiting.

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Smartplugs and outlets tend to be the most problematic devices. Battery powered devices tend to be stable as long as battery power remains. With devices that plug into the electric mains, everytime there is a voltage spike on the line, the low voltage electronics in the device can be affected. That might occur with electric motors such as air conditioner compressors and refrigerators. However, the biggest problem can come with spikes on the power grid. I have lost a number of smart plugs due to power surges, so I keep a few spares on hand. Cheap plugs might not have quality voltage regulation and filters.

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100% agreed.

I also agree that typically this would be due to a voltage spike/surge -- and initially that's what I thought, so after I lost the first two, I put a fancy Intermatic Surge Suppression system in.

I had initially thought that the Tesla PowerWall and Inverter system between the meter and my Main breaker would act as regulation, but the more I think on the way it's hooked up the more I doubt that, so your point is very well made.

So too, it's also likely that the outlet I located recently was damaged some time ago (e.g when the other two were), and only recently degraded to a state that caused dramatic results on my network.

...and having said that...now I think I need to go check the Intermatic.

S.

It's entirely possible that some device on your network just doesn't play well with the newer Zigbee radio in the C8s. And like you, my devices all ran fine on the C5 an C7 -- I can't explain it. However incompatability is not out of the question at all.

I also suspect a device could be bad for quite a while and not be detected due to mesh configuration, traffic patterns, or even traffic density.

This is a difficult thing to nail down -- I've had periods of many days without any zigbee radio up/down messages, and then out of the blue they show up.

Good luck with your troubleshooting! Let me know if I can help in any way!

S.

Oh Joy. Woke up this morning and the shades didn't go up. Took a look at the hub and the zigbee radio said "initialising". I am pretty sure it used an "s" which I take as a nod to my birth country.

I tried all of the usual - rebooting radio, rebooting hub, nothing. Tried soft reset and before restore the radio would not come up. Finally got a soft reset of the hub to come up and radio online. Restored the backup and it got stuck in a death cycle of rebooting.

At this point I could have done a full reset - but knowing that the radio was likely to cause problems when I had restored and rebuilt everything - I took the C5 out of the shelf.

Restored a backup on the C5, it's up and running with zigbee radio online. Now have to go back around and reconnect the zigbee devices.

My plan now is to setup a spare C7 I have and start moving zigbee devices to it and using it only for zigbee. Then when the C5 has no zigbee devices on it - switching it back to the C8Pro again.

The C8/C8-Pro have definitely been more touchy about Zigbee than Z-Wave for me as well.

You may not need to put yourself through the process of re-joining all of your Zigbee devices to your C5, etc. If you are going to split things up, my somewhat simpler process was to gradually move "troublesome" Zigbee devices from my C8 back to my C7. Basically when a Zigbee device didn't run well on the C8 I would move it back to the C7, share to the C8 via mesh and swap it back into the automations. Over time I moved about 1/3 of my Zigbee devices back to my C7 and ended w/stability on both C7 and C8. Something to consider.

Regarding the "Initialising" state of the Zigbee radio - you can try a shut down, pull power, wait 30s, restart jig to see if that helps. Good luck w/this!

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also on one i was having this issue a soft reset and restore fixed it.

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Good point. Although wouldn't it be better over time to move all of the devices to the C7 to create a stronger mesh?

The relatively new option to rebuild the hub database on reboot makes that easy:

image

Good point - that does depend on your environment and mix of devices/repeaters. On my C7 I have a SonOff USB Dongle and Iris plugs, Ikea plugs, and Linptech mmWave mains powered sensors. They keep things running smoothly on my C7. If I was starting from scratch and just wanted to add a few repeaters to my C7 I would use the Tiny Tuya USB repeaters and the SonOff USB Dongles as my first choices for repeaters. The Tuya are great in that they are very small/easy to hide. Depending on how many repeaters you have on your C8 you may be able to rob Peter to pay Paul... :slight_smile:

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Wow, that must be extremely frustrating.

Have you tried power cycle by Shutting down hub, then when led turns red unplug the hub for a minute before plugging it back?

That would make no difference, except for the time you'd need to spend to fix everything.

That shouldn't be the solution. Your C-8 Pro is a better hub than C-7. I would try to narrow down what's eating your C-8 Pro. If you need help, please send me a PM and we will look for clues in your hub's engineering log. For certain we would like to learn more about what is causing the C-8 Pro radio to go offline.

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i went a little different route.. i put in better repeaters.. (aka zigbee 3.0) the sonoff dongles as mentioned with their own antenna.. and also i put usb ups on them so they stay up during power outages.
and also a couple of the tuya mini dongles as also mentioned and it stabalized my zigbee on my c8..

but the newer c8 zigbee seems to be pickier about what works..

and i have a fairly complex zigbee mesh with 51 devices.. all working well on my c8 pro.

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Hi @bobbyD I have been having issues with Zigbee since adding my first C8. I have no doubt that this could be a bad actor in the network but so far I haven't found it.

I already have all of my zwave devices running on two separate C8s. My house is too big and I was able to position these to get nice mesh coverage on all floors.

And I plan to move my zigbee devices one by one from my C5 to my C7. Then connect each device from my C7 back to my C5 using hub mesh. Once I have moved all zigbee devices to the C7 I will backup the C5 and replace it with my C8Pro.

So it will look like the image below.

From everything I read, running on the older zigbee chip is not going to handicap my setup? Thanks.

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how big is your house? your really shouldnt need 4 hubs unless you have like 15000 feet.

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