I installed a generic Zigbee motion-sensor, CentraLite model: 3326-L, in a room. I set up a simple rule to turn on two LIFX bulbs when motion is sensed. It worked flawlessly until a recent update. Now, it fails to turn on the bulbs but will trigger other actions. I've tried to do some diagnostics and found that:
- Changing the rule to a simple notification instead of a "lights on" action works.
- The bulbs can be turned on within the device attribute screen
- Changing the rule to a "lights on" action instead of notification only, fails.
- A different brand motion sensor in another room with a similar rule still works fine.
I have rebooted the hub with no improvement. I'm a new HE user so I am still learning. Should I try removing and re-pairing the motion sensor and start from scratch?
If you feel comfortable, sharing a screenshot of your rule might help. It sounds like you've done a lot of reasonable troubleshooting (making sure the motion sensor itself accurately reports events and making sure you can control the lights from the device page). It's odd that an update would have broken this, but there have been changes to Motion Lighting (if that's the kind of "rule" you're using) in the last couple hotfixes.
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I don't mind posting a screenshot of my rule, but I am stuck now because I removed the sensor from the available resources to try reinstalling from scratch. I set the motion sensor back to factory settings and tried rediscovering it. My HE finds the device, starts initializing it, but never finishes. I tried shutting down the hub, pulling the power for a bit, re-powering it, and starting the discovery process from scratch. It still finds it, but fails to complete initialization.
I was able to pair the device with the hub. When I was first trying to pair it after uninstalling it, I think I was too far from the hub. After moving closer and starting the discovery process, the motion sensor was detected, identified, and installed. I updated my lighting rule to redesignate the trigger device to the newly installed sensor and it works! I suspect I might have to go through the same process with my other two CentraLite 3326-Ls as they don't seem to be sending triggers. I will investigate further, but to sum up.
- Possibly due to my upgrading my hub to 2.1.5.124, my CentraLite, 3326-L motion sensors stopped triggering the actions in their rules.
- I focused on one of them and tried removing it and re-pairing but the device failed to initialize.
- I moved the motion sensor closer to the hub and pairing was successful.
- After designating it as the trigger device in my lighting rule, it worked perfectly.
- I discovered that my two remaining CentraLite motion sensors were also not working.
- Repeating the process with each of them resulted in their working properly again.
This could be the clue as to why the problem began. I would certainly make sure info logging is turned on for these motion sensors, so if it happens again, you can see if the motion events are actually being received.
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Do you have any ZLL bulbs (Cree, Hue, etc) on your zigbee mesh (aka. connected directly to Hubitat)? Upgrading your hub means that the hub would turn itself off for a short period of time while upgrading but it might have been long enough for your mesh network to go into Panic Mode which means when the hub came back some devices might have rebuilt their routes to the hub. If the motion sensor is trying to route itself through a ZLL bulb, the messages might be getting lost.
Also, if your device can't pair in place (and isn't a secure Z-Wave device that needs to be), then it's unlikely to work in place either. Perhaps you need more repeaters (but not bulbs, as noted above).
Yes. I am going to do that. Thanks for the suggestion.
The only bulbs I have are LIFX.
What other zigbee devices do you have in your mesh network?
Not much really. My Zigbee devices are a generic outlet switch and four motion sensors. They are pretty evenly spaced throughout my house and none are very far from each other. My HE hub is kind of in the center of the mesh. My LAN is running on an EERO mesh network also.
Zigbee is sometimes a very strange beast when it comes to the distance the radios are from each other. What is in between them can matter a lot more than distance. I have found that one sensor routes through a repeater that is twice as far from the hub than another repeater but the further one is through less walls than the closer one.
With battery powered zigbee devices it seems very important to have a strong mesh with enough repeaters to get the signal all the way from the sensor to the Hub. You can see this by the fact that moving the sensor closer to the hub makes the sensor work correctly.
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My fourth motion sensor, an old SmartThings one, was also affected and had to be removed and re-paired.
That's good to know. Thanks for sharing your insight into Zigbee devices. i am learning and that helps me understand their peculiarities.
