How to change Zigbee channel?

Yea, I’m going to try something like that. First up, defining multiple Alexa Dimmer groups in Hubitat and then defining a group within the Alexa app itself so that I can send the commands multiple times.

Does the Zigbee logging page show anything interesting in terms of last hop RSSI for the problematic devices? In the absence of any mapping tools you might get an insight into how your devices are routing by comparing the last hop RSSI for your reliable repeaters to that of the bulbs that aren’t working well. It may show some routing surprises that you might be able to address.

For example, I have a couple of Osram bulbs about 6 feet apart from each other (but one indoors and one outdoors) and both about 20 feet from my hub. The indoor one (over the kitchen sink and slightly closer to the hub) is showing its last hop RSSI at -80 (-100 is the lowest reported value AFAIK) while the one outdoors on the deck is reporting -56 for its last hop (both are working fine). I also have an Iris Zigbee repeating plug located about 8 feet from the hub reporting -56 (located on the side of the house opposite the other Zigbee devices). I have an Iris contact sensor reporting the temperature of my freezer that shows -64 when it is inside the freezer and -56 when it is moved to within a foot of the hub. I can deduce from this that the outdoor deck bulb is routing through the Iris plug ( for the last hop) instead of the closer indoor kitchen sink bulb, and the kitchen sink bulb and freezer contact sensor are not routing through the repeater. I have mapped the mesh with the Digi stick and verified these assumptions.

I’ve noticed that in addition to their routing issues, the Osram bulbs seem to have weak radios compared to the iris plugs (probably why my outdoor bulb picked an indoor Iris repeater twice as far away from it as the indoor Osram bulb which was much closer to it). Interestingly, this bulb chose to route through the Iris plug instead of joining directly to the hub itself which was also slightly closer-- another indication that the Iris Zigbee radio might be providing a stronger signal path than the hub itself.

Tony,

Thanks for that detailed reply. I will definitely try looking at the signal strength details when I have a free weekend. I am so annoyed with these Osram bulbs at the moment. One light bulb out of three failed to turn off a few minutes ago. These bulbs are only 10 feet line of sight from the hub itself.

@Tony, thanks for adding this little bit about forcing a reconnection after a zigbee channel change. I've been messing with this home automation stuff for more than 3 years beginning with Wink and then through V1 and V2 of STs and now with Hubitat and can't remember ever reading about this little forcing a reconnect detail.

I'd changed the Zigbee channel 24 hours ago and reconnected my plug module repeaters to the network. After this light bulbs still were not playing along with the channel change. My Cree bulbs did not force reconnect but I had 3 Sengled bulbs that one after another did force reconnect.

I've got my wifi access point set to channel 6 with a ST hub on channel 19 and now my Hubitat hub is on channel 23. These 3 pieces are each in separate rooms and even with the Cree bulbs in the same room with the Hubitat hub, they won't rejoin. Are there any known issues with Cree bulbs that prevent them from rejoining after a channel change? Any other tricks worth trying or is it time to reset and re-pair?

This will almost certainly work. Don't delete them from Hubitat, and when they rejoin they will be reconnected with their database entries. Reseting is a pain until you get the timing right, but once reset, they join easily in my experience.

After changing the zigbe channel on my hub, I reset and repaired a crew bulb to the hub without incident. As @bravenel said, don’t remove it from the hub just do the physical reset process on the bulb (the timing is indeed tricky) and then rediscover it.

When they were part of my ST network, I had an issue with Cree bulbs not re-joining after a Zigbee heal which I was only able to fix by resetting them. I don't know why but I'd have to suspect they have some firmware issues that have never been addressed.

The timing on the Cree reset is indeed tricky; I found that saying the word 'alligator' is a good way to count seconds in doing the quadruple 1 second on / two seconds off reset sequence (for some reason a lot of Google searches indicate 2 seconds on / 2 seconds off which does not work reliably, in my experience).

Yes the 2 second on and 2 off is not reliable while 1 on 2 off almost always gets it in either 3 or 4 cycles.

In my experience with both Cree and GE bulbs they both would drop off network every few weeks and I'd have to reset and rejoin. I've never had that issue with the Sengled bulbs and in my use cases I can do without dimming that those inexpensive Sengled don't have.

Sengled bulbs have both advantages and disadvantage is – – they are very different than all the others zigbee bulbs that I'm aware of.

The Sengled s act strictly as child devices. ( The manufacturer has said that this is intentional, so that if someone turns off power at the switch, the network doesn't lose a repeater.)

That means that not only do they not repeat for other zigbee devices on your network, they use up a child slot on your other zigbee parents. If you have a whole bunch of these bulbs, you may be forcing your other zigbee devices like sensors to have to choose less desirable parents because there are no child slots available on the closer ones.

It's not a disqualifying feature, it's just something to be aware of when you lay out your zigbee backbone. :skull:

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@JDRoberts do you happen to know how many child slots a GE Zigbee Dimmer has?

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Sorry, I don't. You could write Jasco support and ask.

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Doesn't work

Four year old thread. What "doesn't work", besides cryptic posts on old threads.

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Sorry thought I was replying to your instruction on how to change the Zigbee channel.

So what doesn't work? Changing the Zigbee channel? It does work, however, you have to be careful, and it can take a very long time for all devices to find the new channel. The channel must be free from significant WiFi interference.

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In addition, some devices may require repairing.
As well, some devices (eg Konke) will only work on SOME channels.

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