My experience with HE

going to go with 4 of the ebay zigbee repeaters vs the ikea ones. They are just too hard to source for this little HA mr. No they dont look great, yes they are on the blacklist by the WAF because they look dangerours, just means I will have to come up with creative locations to hide them so I can get my zigbee mesh off the ground and get the rest of these devices deployed.

Big hand to the HE team, sincerely.
I have been slowly chipping away at the HA world that is HE and its been daunting and i've been taking it intentionally slow to avoid my own frustrations.
I have 1 repeater so i've been adding devices in that section knowing the repeater is between the devices and the hub.
So ive added 3 ST door sensors and one iris MS. I had an ikea bulb in the garage still running its 2 motions sensors (door trigger and rollerdoor trigger) until I had enough courage to try and replace it with Rm4.. But I didn't.
I have the ST sensor on the garage door (the hinge trick) so if it opens during either 2 night modes (simple lighting) it will fire the garage light. I was about to fire off on the forum that that app would be perfect if it had a "light off after X time" - but when I clicked "off on close garage door" - up popped an option that turned the light off after X minutes and TA-DA!
Next i setup my first MS - used the motion lighting app - set it to fire during the 2 night modes and turn off after 3 minutes.
That was a piece-of-piss. Like, im really really stoked. Thank you HE for those apps, they are a lot more powerful than i thought them to be and keep me right well away from RM4. Win Win!

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Man, everytime I feel like I get 3 steps forward with this HA/HE - I have 2 steps back.
Got a UPS all tied in with my NAS and HE last night, wake up this morning and the hubs been locked up for 5hrs with the WAF going into the minus as she had friends over and couldnt turn any of the lights on etc etc.
Its soo annoying.

So my weekend was eventful.
I got a UPS on friday, super excited to get home, link it with my NAS and had an app for HE to grab the info from the NAS and create a nice little power safe setup for my shiny devices.

Woke up saturday, everything running normally, left the house at 8am.

got home after lunch to find the poor little HE going through a world of database issues.
ontop of that, all my yeelights (only) were dropping telnets and freaking out. A power cycle didnt help any of the situation.
Did a soft reset, after rushing through the instructions Missed the part to restore and clicked new, but must of been one step off completing it (which resets your radios and all devices associated) - so did a soft reset again.

Saturday night, all the database issues seem to have been resolved, but the yeelights are freaking out, all dropping in and out of telnet errors and reconnecting- sometimes, not fun. None of the wifes lights are working, shes pissed.

Sunday morning, no database issues (but I am fearful it will happen at 8am and I am out all day again), but the yeelights are still broken.
So im thinking, power cycle the lights, didnt fix it. Power cycled the 2.4 router I have them all connected to, didnt fix it. The only way it seems is to delete the bulb from HE and Yeelight app and re-add them.

(sorry - during this whole time the yeelights worked perfected in the yeelight app, just in HE they timed out and never reconnected).

sunday arvo for about 5hrs i delete every yeelight, both in HE and the yeelight app and have to re-add them to both, whilst also fixing their groups, scenes and other automations they were tied to.

Post mortum:
I "think" what happened was I powered down the Nas, HE, Router and switch.. but not the 2.4 router that controls the lights - that something fucked up. I then powered the router, switch, HE and NAS back up but forgot to plugin the phone line to the router (might not of be part of the problem).

Now friday night, when all of that was backup and working, all lights and modes worked no issue.

I know it was saturday after 8am because sat morning all modes and lights fired as usual. @bobbyD suggested disabling the app that I had just added by @ritchierich as that used telnet for the NAS application, after the soft reset that was the only other issue I was having, the yeelights with dropped telnets.
But after I deleted the driver and reset the hub, the telnet issue stayed.

As of this morning, I have 1 bulb that I reset that is still dropping its telnet (but after 1 or 2 retrys it connects again), but its one ive had issues with before (maybe its the furthest one from the 2.4 router - but by furthest I mean within 15m). The Modes started working again when i went in and clicked "done" on them. My hub still seems quite slow navigating the dashboards etc.

And to top it off one of my ST multisenors for the back door was stuck on open. Reset it and it now reads temp, acceleration and axis but not opened or closed. I reset it, battery pulled it, but I was so frustrated with the whole weekend I just ripped it off the wall, pulled the battery and threw it in the cupboard.

I know 100%, its probably something i did wrong, or the way I did it. But it really got me thinking is it worth all this frustration (my biggest personal flaw) for the fun that is HA if I dont really know what im doing.

Sorry to hear about all your troubles. To me there's nothing more frustrating than when something I consider to be a hobby designed to relieve frustrations becomes the source of it. I've been where you are and I think the worst part is when there are so many things that could cause the issue and you have no idea where to start.

Because I detest that feeling I have considerably slowed the pace of my "automating life". I now let each change settle before starting the next phase. Trust me, that is INCREDIBLY hard for someone like me....but this small change has made me enjoy automation more as of late. My list of things to do may have grown, but my list of halfway done things have pretty much disappeared and when something goes wrong I usually have a good idea of what may have caused it.

All of this to say...tackle one problem at a time and remove as many devices in your automating link as possible. If you have a Wifi repeater, consider investing in a better router that covers the whole house instead. It also sounds like Yee lights maybe a finicky integration. If you haven't invested too heavily already, consider switching to something more stable like Hue or Lutron switches. Simplifying can sometimes be a bit expensive up front but I consider time and frustration to be more expensive in the long run.

Good luck recovering from your recent system breakdown. I'm sure HE support and the community will get you sorted out

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thanks mate.
I am in the same frame of mind RE taking small bites and getting there slowly. I had like 40 devices to deploy but waited 3 weeks for some zigbee repeaters to arrive and deploy just so I had a better mesh for the devices to sit.

I have orbi mesh in my place, but I have a cheap 2.4ghz router there Just for the yeelights as the airport express i had before wouldnt let me single out the 2.4 and the yeelights dont work on 5.0 (not sure if my orbi will let me do that either, havent looked).
I have a hue hub, with some hue lights and ikea bulbs linked to the hue hub, I actually have some wemo bulbs in there as well (4 brands, probably not a good idea lol).

I "think" my power cycle down / up + a database issue + the telenet + "maybe" the UPS driver..

Yeah ive reserved to not touch it this week and let it, and myself settle down. Maybe we can start our relationship back up then lol.

The Yeelights should automatically connect to the 2.4 antenna of your Orbi. Having another router/bridge on your network can considerably complicate networking issues. If your Orbis cover your house you should be able to shutdown the 2.4 router. Just my opinion.

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:point_up_2:this is exactly what I did. I have installed Lutron Caseta throughout my house and now I have zero problems. Previously, my Z-wave switches and dimmers gave me a lot of grief. I also replaced my Cree and GE Link bulbs (poor Zigbee repeaters) with Sengled bulbs. Amazing how stable my system is now.

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I'll put this on the list :wink:

And reserve the IPs on your Yeelights...

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The 2 australian stockist for this brand look hella dodgy, and importing it might be an issue (no support/no warranty). #islandissues

Yep - other than the database issue of the hub, I think this is something i've overlooked and its bitten me on the ■■■, hard.

Oh yes... I forgot the Australia aspect to your home automation build out. Good luck. I am sure you will persevere and get everything sorted out eventually.

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Can I ask a question if anyone knows.
I have 4 of those zigbee repeaters setup. When I pair a new zigbee device, should I do it close to the HE - or should I pair it where it is going to live ?
My thinking is, if I do it where it lives, it will pair along the repeater line - then its not trying to get back to the hub after its joined.

Is that right ?

You should be able to pair a Zigbee device in place (I forget if it's Patrick or Mike, or maybe both, but they often say: if a device won't pair in place, it probably won't work in place, either). Zigbee is capable of pairing through the mesh. If you do pair it near the hub, Zigbee is also self-healing and should find a good route after it gets moved, too, but there's no need. Z-Wave Plus is similar, but if you have "classic" repeaters or a "classic" device, keep in mind that this is a feature new in Plus (and it's usually necessary to be near the hub for secure devices like locks and garage door openers regardless, though some have had luck without).

SmartThings used to recommended pairing everything near the hub. They still might; I haven't read their docs lately. I assume that's because it was a fairly safe option. But in most cases there's no need (I wouldn't be too worried about Zigbee in either case myself).

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perfect, thanks @bertabcd1234

I WISH I HAD THOUGHT TO DO THIS INSTEAD OF WASTING 4HRS GETTING THEM ALL BACK ONLINE ON THE 2.4 one...
smh - I have got the rogue bulb onto the orbi mesh, i'll keep an eye on the logs and see if that fixes the issue. Thanks for the idea to use my brain.

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As long as you keep your old router live I don't think it's helping. With all those 2.4G transmitters you are creating all kinds of interference problems. What channels are the AP's on? What channel is Hubitat Zigbee on? Placing one bulb over to a different router might slightly change, because of the power of the transmitter of that router, but as long as there is interference on the bands you will eventually run into problems.

I only have the orbi and one satellite. The tp link 2.4 is just a pi sized wifi router doing 2.4 - with passthrough from the modem. No idea what channels any of them are on, HE Zigbee is set to 20. 10 of my 12 yeelights were having telenet issues - ranging distances from the 2.4 router. Bulbs have been bulletproof until something I think I cause with my power down / powerup.

I moved the one bulb remaining with telenet issues from the 2.4 to my orbi - just waiting and watching to see if that fixes it. If it does, I will slowly migrate them over.

I added the problematic yeelight to my orbi - connected no issue but still having the telenet issue (after 1 day, but yesterday the issue wasnt there). So it might be the bulb, i'll keep an eye on it.

Does anyone know the URL for a manual hub shutdown ?
I have not loaded the UPS battery monitor driver back in but yesterday we had a power out and I have no way of manually shutting the HE down until I decide to try the UPS driver again. I will need a VB anyway so that I can RM the hub off down the road.

is this the right way to do it ?