I've had my hubitat for years now but I've mostly used it for outdoor lights and the rule machine. Recently I bought a handful of smartthings outlets and some aqara buttons and it seems like my whole setup is less stable now? The outdoor lights tend to "not get the message" sometimes and I have to powercycle them. Also, the buttons randomly need to be redetected if they aren't used for a day or two.
Do I need to change some settings somewhere? Would lowering my presence timeout on the devices help? Or can I rule machine device refreshes? Or does zigbee just work 80% of the time and that's normal?
I'm guessing the issue is the Aqara stuff -- that stuff has a reputation for being hit-&-miss problematic in a zigbee mesh. There are numerous posts in the community here about Aqara stuff, so consider checking those out.
But I'd start with disabling those and seeing if things improve.
Some zigbee stuff follows the spec perfectly and other doesn't. I personally have avoided Aqara for this reason. There are also different flavors of zigbee.
I have a solid, reliable, all-zigbee C7...reliable except battery-powered buttons. I've now tried Smartthings, Sonoff, and Iris v2 and all of them drop off if not used. They're located in areas with plenty of hardwired zigbee devices surrounding them. I'm in the process of removing them and replacing with mains-powered zemismart 3-gang switches mounted in tabletop boxes. Like this; Zibgee Long Distance Mailbox Setup - #7 by rcjordan
Awesome. Thank you all. I'll try shutting down the Aqara buttons and see if things go back to normal. I suppose I should have known that looking decent at a cheap price would be an issue. These are the "WXKG11LM" buttons btw. The box just says "Zigbee" so I'm guessing they aren't the newer ones.
Interesting idea with mains powered switch. I hadn't even considered putting a wall switch in a box. Does it work well? I'd have to move things around, but I could make that work...
If you don't mind a little tinkering some members have used HomeAssistant (HA) to manage the Aqara devices and the HE/HA Bridge to bring them into HE for the ultimate home automation experience.
End devices (battery powered non-repeating) are not going to mess up your Zigbee mesh. But trying to pair them with a controller that is not compatible with them is going to give you unreliable results.
There’s a long standing myth that a certain generation of Aqara devices are themselves unreliable. This is not correct. They are very reliable, but only when joined to a compatible controller. The method linked to above using HA as a bridge for bringing Aqara devices into HE is proven stable. I and many others have been using it for a long time with exceptionally good reliability.
I can't find it now, but in a discussion with @mike.maxwell or Marcus, one of them mentioned even the Aqara end devices causing issues with the mesh. All I know is since I removed the Aqara WXKG11LM, and other Aqara devices my HE Zigbee mesh is better.
This is the issue with the Zigbee spec not being as controlled as Z-Wave. Zigbee allows large vendors to design their home automation environment and devices in a way they see fit potentially locking in users to their ecosystem while still touting compliance.
Also seems like a cautionary note about the upcoming Matter stuff which some are claiming is simply more of the same just in a somewhat nicer distributed package.
Yes, hasn't failed yet as a mail & package indicator, 2 more on order. I'll add that the one zemismart makes a soft, odd noise when active. I don't find it objectionable when using it as a button --in fact, I kind of like it as a button 'feature'. I don't think I'd feel the same if it was installed as a bedroom light switch.
