My Zigbee Mesh makes me unhappy, what am I missing?

🎬 Get Started Novice Help
1

Hi guys,

I live in a house with two floors, roughly 200 square meter quite quadratic , no hard do reach zones in the house I think.
My hubitat is in the middle of one side of the house (entrance) where I also broadcast my Wifi, which works very nice.

Since I received my Hubitat last week I have added

  • Hue hub/bride (with 12 Hue bulbs) - my Hue setup works for a few years now
    Newly bought
  • 3 IKEA TRÅDFRI wireless outlets
  • 3 IKEA TRÅDFRI signal repeater
  • 1 Sonos speaker
  • 2 Smartthings motion sensor
  • 4 Osram outlets (which don't repeat)

Comments:
My Hue (Zigbee) network works quite flawlessly , it can reach my bulbs in the upper floor (although I only have 2).
2 of the TRÅDFRI wireless outlets are now downstairs, they can be reached by hubitat (can switch them on or off). The third outlet is upstairs and can't be reached (it's just one ceiling away from the 2 Tradfri outlets and in sight with Hue bulb.
My motion sensors are a disappointment, one of them does not seem to work though a wooden door otherwise in direct sight to hubitat hub or Tradfri outlet.
The other motion sensor is half upstairs (just 2-3 m away with a staircase blocking) and basically not reachable even though it's next to one of my Hue bulbs.

General questions:

  1. Will my zigbee devices automatically use Hue Zigbee network? (It does not seem to do that)
  2. How can I track my Zigbee network smartly (see what is online?) the hubitat webapp is a bit jibberish
  3. Can you recommend other hubs that I need in my setup? Do I need an IKEA hub or Smartthings hub?
  4. What am I missing? Can you think of something else what I can check or try? Maybe change the Zigbee channel?

Thanks guys

2

The Hue and HE networks are completely independent. The zigbee device communicates directly to the hub it is paired with.

http:// your hub ip/hub/zigbee/getChildAndRouteInfo
This will show your zigbee routing on your HE hub.

You shouldn't need any more hubs.

Have you paired your Tradfri outlets to you HE hub? These are excellent repeaters to have in your zigbee network but can only repeat devices that are on the same network.

2 Likes
3

Thank you very much Bobbles,

Excellent answers. I understand now that Hue can't repeat like that. If I want to keep my Hue scenes than it would be necessary to keep Hue separated , correct? Or is there a good alternative the Hue brigde? I enjoy Google home to switch on , off and change the color of my Hue bulbs . I wil ltry the link that you posted to get more info on my Zigbee network.

Blockquote Have you paired your Tradfri outlets to you HE hub? These are excellent repeaters to have in your zigbee network but can only repeat devices that are on the same network.

I have managed to pair them with HE hub directly. At this point I am a bit hopeless about the reach. Should I reset Zigbee? Maybe use a different channel?

4

Low power mesh networks like Zigbee and Zwave take a bit of work to get started. They really benefit from a planned install and the more devices you have the better. Start with line powered devices close to the hub and work out. Battery powered devices don't repeat signals and since you don't have many devices you will need to experiment with the outlets to find the ideal placement. Once you have more devices it will become easier and as long as you have supported devices, you should end up with a solid network. You can experiment with the Zigbee channel. Channel 20 could be a good place to start.
What motion sensors do you have?

1 Like
5

Thanks Zarthan,

Start with line powered devices close to the hub and work out. Battery powered devices don't repeat signals and since you don't have many devices you will need to experiment with the outlets to find the ideal placement.

I have started now with 6 outlets and will add some bulbs and more outlet in the mix.

What motion sensors do you have?

Smart Things Motion Sensor

6

Bulbs can be a problem with your ZigBee mesh. Most are bad repeaters and can actually spoil a good mesh. Sengled bulbs are known to be non repeaters and will play well on the HE hub. Using non repeater bulbs will not contribute to your mesh.

1 Like
7

Thank you so much!

Would you recommend to leave my Hue network separate then?

I was about to add some IKEA bulbs to my HE hub, but I also ordered some Innr SmartPlugs.

8

The Hue bridge should stay separate and can be included in HE with the Hue Bridge Integration app. I think the IKEA bulbs can be added to the Hue bridge. I would check the Compatible devices list before buying anything and searching the Community for those devices to see if there are any peculiarities.

2 Likes
9

Awesome, thank you

1 Like
10

This is the outpuf of my Zigbee.
Can you explain the values?
E.g. my outlet called "Plus Ikea 3" can't be switched on or off, so it seems not reachable

Parent child parameters
EzspGetParentChildParametersResponse [childCount=0, parentEui64=0000000000000000, parentNodeId=65535]

Child Data

Neighbor Table Entry
[plug usb 4, 009A], LQI:255, age:3, inCost:1, outCost:1
[Plug Ikea 1, 2379], LQI:254, age:3, inCost:1, outCost:1
[plug ikea 2, 3E06], LQI:244, age:3, inCost:5, outCost:1
[Bulb Ikea 1, 467C], LQI:254, age:3, inCost:1, outCost:0
[plus ikea 3, AADC], LQI:241, age:3, inCost:5, outCost:0

Route Table Entry
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused

11

On my setup, the child data shows my battery powered motion/contact/buttons etc.
image
My neighbor table shows my repeaters.
image
The route table shows the devices that are using the repeater.
I cuurently don't have anything using the repeater and from your screenshot, nor do you.

So from your printout I would say you have 5 devices that are capable of repeating.
You have no battery devices paired to your hub and therefore nothing using your repeaters.

12

Thank you very much. My Ikea 3 outlet behaves weirdly. I can't really switch it on or off. Will probably reset and see what happens.

13

Innr smartPlugs are excellent repeaters, I have 6 of them together with a bunch of Ubisys in-wall dimmers (also really nice) and my ZigBee mesh is rock solid.

1 Like
14

Thanks for all the help. It's a great community.

I have switched the channel of my Zigbee to 15 and all devices in my house started working over time, I don't think this was the trigger, but in that process I reinitialized some repeaters.

I will add Innr outlets and then my automation rules will be created. I already have 2 lame ones as my wife called them, but she will be nicely surprised if she comes to her room and will be nicely greeted in the morning. Or when the baby wakes up and triggers the multi sensor and this will be announced over the speaker.

Here is the output of the zigbee network, beautiful

Parent child parameters
EzspGetParentChildParametersResponse [childCount=0, parentEui64=0000000000000000, parentNodeId=65535]

Child Data

Neighbor Table Entry
[plug usb 4, 009A], LQI:255, age:3, inCost:1, outCost:1
[plus ikea 3, 04C0], LQI:255, age:3, inCost:1, outCost:1
[plug 1, 0C8A], LQI:87, age:1, inCost:7, outCost:7
[Plug Ikea 1, 2379], LQI:254, age:4, inCost:1, outCost:3
[plug ikea 2, 3E06], LQI:252, age:5, inCost:3, outCost:1
[Bulb Ikea 1, 467C], LQI:255, age:3, inCost:1, outCost:1
[Plus USB 3, 6346], LQI:254, age:3, inCost:1, outCost:7
[plug usb 2, C0DA], LQI:254, age:4, inCost:1, outCost:1
[Plug Ikea USB 1, CA2F], LQI:254, age:4, inCost:1, outCost:1
[Plug 3, E4C3], LQI:254, age:3, inCost:1, outCost:7
[kitchen, E855], LQI:254, age:4, inCost:1, outCost:7

Route Table Entry
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Bulb Ikea 1, 467C] via [plug usb 4, 009A]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [plug ikea 2, 3E06] via [Plug Ikea 1, 2379]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [plug 1, 0C8A] via [plug usb 4, 009A]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [motion hallway d, D464] via [plug usb 2, C0DA]
status:Unused