Everything Xbee

Is there a way to force specific device to connect to Xbee? I have ST arrival sensor, which all the time connects to Osram light strip and dropping off the network every 5 minutes. Tried to turn off hub for half of hour . Did not help.

I have 3 SmartThings arrival sensors
I don't have any strips just a few Osram bulbs
The Osram light strip is outside I take it.
Xbee PL is set to 4
I put one Xbee3 in a front upstairs window with a 12 dbi high gain antenna I had from some old 2.4 wifi projects.
You could try unplugging the light strips and place the hub in discovery mode and rejoin the arrival sensors until they route through the Xbee
After they join the Xbee power the strips back on.

Well, those of you with bets on my getting it after Christmas; you lost. :wink:
It finally arrived. I originally ordered on June 27 from DigiKey, with a comment, "I'm not in a rush" (little did I know...). Cancelled that order on September 13 and re-ordered with Mouser, just to wait another two and a half months!

So, first question...Apparently these are vey static sensitive? Came in a box with anti-static foam and warning labels, and that box was in an anti-static bag with warning labels, and that was in a very large box, with anti-static bubble wrap. I'm sensing a message here :rofl:

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Well congrats on your early Christmas gift! So... You are not going to rub your hair and touch it I guess?

Something tells me...bad idea!

And we're up and running. That was a whole lot simpler than I thought. @bertabcd1234, are you still having issues with it finishing initialization with the hub? I was having the same problem, and then realized I accidentally skipped over adding the standard home automation key. I added it, reset and it tried again with success after pushing the commissioning button on my adapter card.

It looks like the Trådfri outlets are a perfect fit for the Xiaomi devices, so if anyone just wants to have a simple, very inexpensive and readily available router, then the Trådfri appear to be what you should get. I wanted to be able to map my network and play with whatever other potential uses the Xbee has, but I will keep the Trådfri outlets as routers since they're working with every Zigbee device I have and all I had to do was plug them in.

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Would you mind posting a picture of the finished setup? Curious what it looks like and if you are putting it in any sort of box.

Sure no problem. But I won't be putting mine in a box for a while. I'm just using it for mapping at this point and since the Trådfri outlets seem to work well as repeaters for not only my Xiaomi, but all my Zigbee devices, I plan to just use the two that I have to keep the Zigbee mesh healthy.

I will probably find an appropriate size project box for it at some point to prevent it from being damaged by mishandling. I have an old mac laptop that runs various Node.js applications, VLC Player, and also serves as my secured remote access to the hub. That seems like a logical place to install it permanently just to be able to easily monitor the network health, but I don't know if it's necessary. I also don't know if it's a good idea to install it so close to the hub and my Hue Bridge.

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Here's the setup for XCTU I'm using. It's basically what @NoWon listed in the first post, but I had to use the search for each value. They don't seem to follow the same order. I'm on Mac maybe it's a difference in the software, or maybe I'm just imagining that. Anyway, if this is helpful to someone else, then it was worth the effort to stitch these screenshots together.

NOTE: Download it. It's too long to display properly here.

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I am, and I'm pretty sure I added the ZHA key during setup of the device, but since XCTU can't read the KY register (where this is set), I guess I'll never know until I try again. :slight_smile: Someone else said to try adding it as an end device first and then changing it to a router after it's added, which I also haven't tried (and can't see why Hubitat would really care, but I guess I'm not sure how it would join at all--which it does seem to--without the key either, so it's a mystery to me either way).

Both my second XBee (current is an S2C, this one's a 3) and my Trådfri Outlet arrived last week, but I haven't had time to play around with either yet. I'll see if my new XBee also has this problem and if I can do anything to help, and hopefully use one of them to confirm that Xiaomi devices successfully route through them for me (did I see that some are saying they do now?).

The Trådfri are indeed routing my Xiaomi devices and all my other Zigbee devices as well.
Maybe they're not strong enough for a big house. My place is a small. But they're so inexpensive, If you had a large place you could just by several of them. In Canada they're $15 CAD each. My Xbee and the USB adapter was $75 CAD for one, and it still needs power and a box to put it in. Not complaining about that. Repeater is what I originally had in mind for the Xbee, but I'm already finding problem devices on my network thanks to it. I'm only planning to use mine for monitoring the network for issues. The Trådfri seem to be serving the role of repeater quite well so far, and the XBee has helped me confirm that.

In regard to the setting the XBee to end device, I did not have to do that. In fact, I first set mine with the Coordinator Verification (JV) set to enabled, but then switched it to disabled and I was able to still pair with the hub. The image of my setup in my previous post was exactly how it was set when i paired it and I have not changed the setup since.

Is it possible to use an Xbee only for monitoring, without it being a repeating part of the mesh?

I assume that if you join it with "end device" rather than "router" settings (not sure if that's documented here on the ST forum threads on the same topic), it should do that. I haven't tried it, so I can't say for sure, but you should still be able to use it with XCTU to map your network.

I definitely don't mind having them as repeaters, however. They're pretty cheap (the Grove dev board I used during its setup wasn't, but I'm hoping this $6 USB board works for regular use after that) and even the PCB antennas non the non-Pro models seem to work quite well, plus they're one of few routing devices that play well with Xiaomi. All wins in my book (and aside from possibly Xiaomi--I'm not convinced they change routes easily if at all--even if you add the XBee as a router, most ZigBee devices should find another path back to the hub if they are otherwise in range of it or another repeater, so having it offline shouldn't cause problems).

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Xbees tend to end up the main router for Zigbee meshes, correct? I'm reading a 2-mile radius. I'm also reading that normal Zigbee devices max out at 60 feet, so I'm not sure if it's a power limitation or a protocol limitation.

My XBee does seem to be a popular choice for ZigBee routing on my network, but I'm not sure if that's the case for everyone. My hub itself seems to be the last choice, with only Xiaomi devices I originally paired next to the hub still on it. I have an ST Outlet (I think a CentraLite 3-something?) that also routes and is the next less popular route. My "Environment Sensor" (created by a user in another thread) and XBee are about equally tied for the remaining routes, serving about 10 each. I'm about to add an IKEA Trådfri outlet and another XBee, so we'll see how that changes. :slight_smile:

I'm guessing XBees are indeed popular routes on most networks due to the fact that they're pretty much just an exposed circuit board (that you can cover up if you want to) but is otherwise a low-voltage device intended explicitly for communication and includes a well-designed antenna or the ability to connect your own (PCB works great for me, though). The Pro versions use higher power and should have greater range (may be illegal in some places), but both of mine are the "regular" versions and they work so well I don't think I'd get anything else. The 2-mile radius sounds maybe like a Pro thing if you have line of sight (and on a ZHA network you're likely to be dealing with battery powered devices that themselves won't be able to send that far regardless). An old Digi document lists the indoor range for one of the non-Pro S2C modules as about 100 ft indoors or 300 ft outdoors, which seems on par with the theoretical ZigBee device range.

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Thank you. I just placed an order from Arrow since Digikey is out of stock again. They offer free next day shipping too.

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You're fortunate to have the options. I had DigiKey and Mouser. No other options in Canada, and expensive vs US pricing for the USB adapter, which cost me more than the Xbee.

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What would be the reason you wouldn't want to repeat the signal?

@SmartHomePrimer
Any signal strength improved after you add Xbee? Besides HE zigbee log, any tool can be used to check real time signal strength? XCTU has this feature?

I just added my XBee last night, so I won't be able to comment on improvements, but many others here have said yes, there was an improvement in stability. I've had Trådfri outlets in place for a week or so, and they're handling the majority of the routing.

Since you'd be repeating with the XBee, you'd have to look at the signal quality from the repeater to the end device. XCTU can run a scan and you can see the updates. I'm not sure if there's a way to look at in a list, but I'm too green with XCTU to know at this point. You can see signal strength when you mouseover the line between the repeater and end device, or hub and the end device. Probably can watch it updating when you're looking at the network map in grid view. Other views move around too much for that. You have to pause scanning to look at their values.

For the most part, real-time seems to me like it would be unimportant. An occasional verification should suffice. That's probably were a list view would be ideal. I know you can click on the repeaters and they'll display a list of the devices they are routing, and the signal quality by color. There are lots of tools in there I have yet to discover.

Here's what it looks like when you mouse over. I've had mine less than 24 hours and I've already confirmed a bulb that I suspected had a faulty Zigbee radio since day one, indeed does have an issue. I've started the RMA process on it.

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