Multipart question

Now that I am retired, several of my smart devices have also decided to slack off

Feel free to offer help with one or more of these issues

Running a C7 with 2.3.0.124 firmware

  1. Our kitchen light has two Sengled Element Classic Edison zigbee bulbs. My wife has a habit of leaving lights on, hence smart bulbs with a motion detector. Once in a while one or the other bulb will not respond. I flip the wall switch off , wait a bit, flip the switch back on, wait a bit then they are back online. The hub is about 10 feet away from the kitchen light. There are two zigbee repeaters in the kitchen. One is the repeater that comes with IKEA blinds, and the other is a Centralite plug that controls a candle warmer. I have tried both the generic zigbee bulb driver and the Sengled Element Classic driver.

  2. All my motion detectors are Zooz 4-in-1. After reading about what batteries most people here prefer, I bought Panasonic CR123 from the Panasonic store on Amazon. These sensors seem to eat batteries. First tried rechargeable but those were unpredictable. Then i bought the Amazon Basics brand that only lasted a few weeks. When I replace a battery, I write down the date. The fresh Panasonic battery only lasted 2 months. I have temperature reporting disabled. Others report these batteries lasting a year.

  3. I have 4 Aqara buttons for my IKEA shades. These are also zigbee. Just like the Sengled bulbs, these drop off now and then. All I do to get them back online is start discovery again,, tap the pairing button on the Aqara button and the button comes right back . I read that Aqara has issues with HE, and their hub is recommended but the Aqara hub is not supported either.

These are very picky about which repeaters they work with. You're best off using zigbee 3.0 line-powered devices as repeaters. The Centralite plug I had was ZHA 1.2 and wouldn't work with Aqara.

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@TomG Is your 4-in-1 paired without security?

I'm with @aaiyar on the repeaters... The dude has done a lot of experimenting and his advice is usually spot on

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Not sure how to tell other than from the data section for the 4-in-1.

Might be looking in the wrong place.

Easiest place to know about security pairing is in the zwave settings page - find the row for that device, then look in the "Security" column (second-to-last).

Given that your device details have securePairingComplete=true and an S2 attribute, I'd say some sort of security is enabled.

While S2 is much more efficient than SO, there is still overhead for the encryption (which will drain the battery faster), and outside of access control devices like keypads and door locks, most feel it is unnecessary and advise to exclude/re-included without any security for other device types.

Post a screen shot of your z-wave details page

Thanks for the reply.
I bought these as zigbee repeaters for the Hampton Bay ceiling fan controls in each room. Learned the hard way the Hampton Bay receivers are very weak. Any recommendations for something that does work with Aqara?

I see it is S0

I like the Tuya usb zigbee 3.0 repeater. They’re small, and work well with all zigbee devices, and relatively inexpensive.

You’ll have to remove the Centralite plug from your zigbee network.

I purchased them for about $12 apiece on Aliexpress:

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/1005001459823340.html

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Probably want to pair this with no security. You might need a secondary controller for that.

Do you have the Zooz 4-in-1 ZSE40? (Not the ones with the 700 series chips.) These are not compatible with them C7 unfortunately. They work great with the C5 however.

I have several and tried pairing them on my C7. It seemed to work, but were really damaging to my Z-Wave mesh. They transmit way too much for some reason, which probably explains why they drain the batteries. This also floods the Z-Wave mesh, potentially causing major communication issues.

I moved them back to my C5 hub and have not had any issues since. I think I change the batteries about once a year.

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Yes, all 4 Zooz sensors are ZSE40.

If you want to keep them in your mesh, re pair them with a z-wave stick paired to the hubitat as secondary controller with security set to none. This will allow them to function fine in your mesh.

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Found them on aliexpress but they state the Tuya hub is required. Also, these are not on the list of compatible devices. What driver do you use?

You don't need a driver for a repeater for it to function as a repeater. However, if you want, you can use the "Ikea Tradfri repeater driver", which will let you see how it is functioning in a log window.

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@TomG

Also, the instructions that come with them are in Chinese. So I have written pairing and resetting instructions below:

  1. The adapters will come ready to pair. Put your Hubitat into zigbee pairing mode, and insert the Tuya repeater into a USB outlet. It will blink blue, and then turn steady blue when it is paired.
  2. To reset the Tuya repeater (i.e. put it into pairing mode), rapidly remove/insert into a USB outlet 3 times. On the third insertion, the blue light will start blinking, indicating it is ready to pair to a new coordinator.

Took me a while to figure out how to reset them .....

The instructions are also here:

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Thank you. I ordered 6 from AliExpress. Should be here sometime in March.

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Trying to decide whether to sell the 4 ZSE40 and get 4 new motion sensors, or buy a used C-5 hub. The hub seems like the best choice financially. But I can’t find any C-5 hubs on eBay. And the chances of the C-5 losing support is likely.

Just returned 3 Aqara motion sensors a month ago but still have one in the drawer. When the Tuya zigbee repeaters arrive, I will add the Aqara sensor and it behsves, I will get 3 more.

Just get a 700 series z-wave stick and pair them with that without security and they'll be fine

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Or any other secondary controller. Do you have an old Aeotec Minimote? Pair that to Hubitat and then use them to include your ZSE40s. They will pair with no security.

I actually like the Minimote to include devices because unlike a USB stick, you don't need any other software (or a PC) to use it.

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