Newbie Question: Zigbee Status / Route Info

It does look better though you still have a couple high incosts and outcosts... how about channel interference overall? Might be you'll need to change either wifi or zigbee channels or both.

You can check the device and app logs and look for things that are causing high CPU but it can be a pain to track down. Do you have a lot of third party apps running? Those tend to be more of an issue.

Honestly I think I would go the Hue hub route and get all those bulbs off of there altogether and on a separate zigbee channel. Is a hue hub an option where you are?

Thanks for the reply. My Hubitat is on Zigbee 20. I have google WiFi and I’m told I cannot change the channel. Moreover I have 3 satellite units (for the lack of a better word) and I’m also told that each may choose a different channel

I don’t think I have any 3rd party apps running except the ones you download from the community.

The logs are like a foreign language I don’t know what to look for :cry:

Hue hub is an option I can buy one. I have Sengled and IKEA bulbs (mostly IKEA). Will I need to get new bulbs then?

Thanks again

Sengled bulbs should be OK where they are, connected directly to HE. I think the Ikea bulbs will work with a Hue hub but please double-check.

These are the ones I mean. Sometimes a third party or community supported app (with apologies to the many great developers out there) are not written with the rigor that HE apps are, and some of them can cause excessive CPU load. I'd say if the zigbee offline thing only happens once just let it be. If it starts to happen more often then it may be time to dig deeper.

That's a bummer. But not uncommon. Maybe just keep an eye on it, get the non-sengled bulbs off onto their own network (preferably different zigbee channel) and things will improve.

You might maybe consider getting HE to channel 25 - may help may not. But if you do change the channel it can take a while for all your zigbee devices to catch up.

TL;DR: You probably can't tell from a single snapshot of the neighbor table what the trend is... you may need to observe over a period of time to identify stable neighbors and determine if repeaters used as 'vias' fall into that category.

For a good Zigbee mesh, every repeater needs to have a few stable neighbors showing good inCost and outCost figures. And, to effectively extend the mesh as required, stable neighbors need connectivity to other stable neighbors out to the far ends of the mesh.

The only way to tell if the hub has any stable neighbors is to compare several snapshots of the getChildandRouteInfo page over a period of time (minutes to hours). HE provides no visibility into the neighbor tables of other repeaters, but in a typical H/A network virtually every routed message has the hub as origin or destination, so this is the most important table in the mesh.

A stable neighbor will appear in successive snapshots (though not necessarily on the same line of the table) with the same 4 hex digit short ID; meaning it has not left and rejoined the mesh.

It should have low (but nonzero) inCost and outCost numbers. You can safely ignore LQI (LQI and inCost are effectively redundant as a routing metric) and focus on inCost/outCost numbers; inCost is derived from the LQI computed at the hub end of the link (mapped from 0-255 range into a 1-7 figure to save a few bits) and similarly outCost is derived from the LQI seen by the receiver at the remote side of the link. inCost gets transmitted to the remote repeater and outCost gets transmitted from the remote repeater during the periodic link status exchanges. Lower cost paths get picked in preference to those with higher numbers (link costs are summed for multi-hop routes). Zero cost figures essentially mean 'no cost data exists'.

There will always be a few nearby repeaters that are borderline in terms of link quality; those will be the ones that pop in and out of the hub's neighbor table when you look at it every few minutes. Focus on the ones that remain in the table on a extended basis (hours or days apart). They will be the key repeaters for the hub and you want to see the best inCost outCost figures there. In my own mesh, the neighbor table's always full but only 8 repeaters are always present.

In addition to having stable neighbors with good inCost/outCost, they also need to be the ones that are useful in extending the mesh-- meaning they get used as 'first hops' in routing messages to the devices at the edge of the mesh. To determine that, you need to look at which repeaters appear as 'vias' in the route table entries. You can have a boatload of stable neighbors with good cost figures near the hub, but still have a scenario with a bunch of devices on the fringe of the mesh that must rely on a marginal neighbor that is the only one within their range.

This problem can be trickier to solve, since HE doesn't provide access to the other repeaters' neighbor tables; for that you need a mesh mapping tool like XCTU with an Xbee or Digi Xstick. But you can assume you may have issues if the 'via' repeaters that appear in the Route Table Entry section don't fall into the 'stable' category, and don't have low inCost/outCost numbers. Since this table isn't static (and depends on which devices are generating traffic at a given time) this is another case where repeated observation is necessary.

Looking at the traffic represented in the Route Table entries of your most recent screenshot, you've got a couple of good repeaters (3DD1 and C9D8) with excellent inCost/ouCost; however, the busiest (E6B7 and 991A) have mediocre inCost/outCost numbers. B89A is borderline, and at least one device, likely Kitchen 1 (null,1BD3) seems to be leaving/rejoining the network (it's appeared with a different shortID in your previous screenshots; Zigbee devices will get a new shortID with each rejoin).

The table @brad5 posted is a good example of what you want to see-- not only a lot of neighbors with inCost/outCost showing 1/1 but also a high number of those same devices actually being used as 'vias'... meaning they're all taking a share of traffic in the mesh.

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Thanks Tony! What do you think about getting those Ikea bulbs off and onto a separate Zigbee network, like a Hue hub?

My two cents... probably would help, definitely wouldn't hurt if better repeaters replaced them. Bulbs always seem to be suspect, either because of firmware (early Osrams, and probably Crees-- Osrams got firmware updates but I don't think Crees ever did) or just weak radio/antenna designs. Internally even the 'bad' ones used the same Cortex M0 SoC's as other common repeaters so it's not lack of hardware.

In small numbers they don't seem to cause a problem, especially if there are other good repeaters to supplement them. But I wouldn't want to rely on them as the primary devices in the neighbor table. There's also the ZLL/ZHA thing; another issue that shouldn't cause problems in a mesh (they're designed to coexist at the network level) but again that's if the firmware is bug free and actually working as the spec says it should.

I have three Crees in my basement and three Osrams elsewhere. An Osram will show up in the neighbor table now and then, even as a repeater; haven't seen any issues with that. Once or twice a month one of the basement Crees seems to miss a command and fail to turn off; I'm too lazy to replace it so I schedule a routine to see if it's in a state it shouldn't be and get it back in sync with the other two.

Edit: Oops.. I probably missed the point of your question. I don't have any experience with Hue or Ikea, but what I've read indicates that Ikea Zigbee bulbs will work fine with the Hue bridge.

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Thanks for such comprehensive replies @Tony and @brad5

I'm learning a lot. Importantly, I'm learning that all Zigbee bulbs are not created equal and while IKEA seemed to be a good option, perhaps they may not be the best?

So from what I surmise my options in sequential order would be:

  1. Move the HE hub away from the wifi router (done - it helped somewhat but still not great)
  2. Try getting a Hue hub and connect the IKEA bulbs to it and then see how the mesh functions
  3. Change bulbs and then route them to the Hue hub

Regarding #2 - does it matter WHERE I place the Hue hub? Next to the Hubitat? Or next to the router? I'm guessing it requires an ethernet connection, right?

Regarding #3 - I know Hue bulbs seem to be the most popular and well received in terms of reliability but they're really pricey. May be worth it in the end. I seem to be reading that the INNR bulbs seem to be better in terms of quality/realibility. They are available here in Singapore and not as costly. Can I get your thoughts on them?

Again, thanks

My opinion - place the hue hub as centrally as you can and not right next to a wifi access point. It does not matter how far it is from HE as long as they are on the same network but of course the same guidance applies there so they may end up being close. Mine are next to each other on a centrally located shelf. Both do require Ethernet. Try to configure them to be on separate zigbee channels.

Other than a brief early flirtation with cree bulbs mine are all hue. They are more expensive but they seem to be of high quality. Can’t speak to INNR though I have some of their zigbee outlets and they work well.

Though I have quite a few, I try to avoid smart bulbs unless I specifically need their functionality or I am putting them in a lamp. The biggest problem with them is the smartest bulb can be defeated by someone who turns off the Non-smart switch that controls power to them. When they’re off they’re not too smart and they don’t repeat :slight_smile: I can’t tell you how many times I notice one of my lamps not responding to a scene just to discover that someone has turned off the lamp itself. In one or two locations where I have no choice I cover the correspond switch with a safety cover. There are also smart switches designed to be used with smart bulbs but generally I find the $2 plastic cover works fine.

I have had some experience with INNR when they were in their startup phase. Basically a good and compatible alternative to Hue. Especially if it comes to brightness, an area where Hue only recently made bulbs with higher lumens available. You can connect the INNR devices directly to the hue hub, no problem. Similar with IKEA bulbs,

The downside of that (if it means anything to you) you wont be able to make use of any firmware updates of third party devices since Hue does not support that (yet or in the near future). For me that has always been a drawback of hybrid branded ecosystems.

Glad to see that Hubitat is changing this for the end users and some zigbee and zwave firmware updates are made available for us if and where needed.

Advice is always as helpfull als the experience one has and the use case of the one who is seeking the advice, but here you have my 2 (EU) cents

One slightly annoying compatibility thing to think about - though this may not be an issue for you.

Many zigbee bulbs, when power is restored after a loss, return to "on." Some are configurable and can be set to return to their previous state. These are much handier if you have power outages from time to time!

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This applies to 3.0 bulbs. ZLL 1.2 bulbs do not play well with ZHA zigbee devices (sensors and whatnot) because zigbee zll 1.2 make terrible repeaters and messengers. It is recommended that zll 1.2 stuff be isolated to their own mesh either using a Hue bridge or another hubitat.

Until someone turns them off with a dumb switch!

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