Newbie to Zigbee with problems

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1

Sorry for the long read but I wanted to make sure I provided enough info for trouble shooting.

I have used Tasmotized devices for a number of years and was able to get them integrated with Hubitat when I started about 18 months ago. All my Tasmota devices are still working rock solid but when 3rd party community support for Tasmota left or was forced out of our community, I recently decided to try my hand at Zigbee devices to prepare for a possible time in the future when Hubitat would no longer work with Tasmota.

Keeping this in mind, about 6 months ago, I replaced four of my Tasmotized plug in (powered) outlets with Sengled Zigbee plug in outlets. Because they are used to switch some security devices (warning strobe light, outdoor security speaker amp for verbal warnings, SLA battery trickle charger, etc), they are all located within 5 feet of my hub. To keep their frequencies away from WiFi band interference, I am using Zigbee channel 25.

The Sengleds have been working great for the last 7 months and have not lost any connection. I have been monitoring them with Device Watchdog and have them automatically checked for a last activity report every hour. Today, my last good report was at 10am. All four of my devices went offline sometime after this. I checked to make sure it was not a problem with Device Watchdog by trying to switch on and off my Zigbee devices through my dashboard and also through each individual device page and sure enough, all four were not controllable through Hubitat so I am assuming that it is a problem on the Hub side.

I am running 2.3.1.134 on my 1 1/2 year old C7. I also monitor my hub with Hub Information Driver and my hub is cooled with a fan and runs at around 98 degrees F. (except when it is going through a reboot which is done about once a week when the free memory gets down to 300,000kb controlled automatically also through Hub Information and the temp gets up to 120 degrees). For these reasons, I don’t think it is a temperature related issue nor a free memory related issue.

The hub is on a UPS but there has not been any outtages recently.

When i click on my Zigbee logs, nothing shows up (I have all the log types checked on each of my Zigbee devices but I am assuming that since they are no longer connected that of course no log data shows up in the hub setting menu).

I tried the obvious things like unplugging and plugging my Sengleds back in. My Zigbee details page (under Settings) indicates that my Zigbee Network State is Online and my Zigbee Status shows as enabled. I tried rebooting the hub but still cannot connect to my Sengled outlets. Is there something I am missing? I am hoping that it is not a Zigbee radio hardware issue but I’m not sure how to check this as I can’t get any Zigbee log data.

Hoping someone can help a Zigbee noob out. Luckily, I only have four Zigbee devices at this time so I guess I can try to re-enroll each of them from scratch but even if that works, I am still concerned that the Zigbee connection would be lost to begin with and would like to learn how to best avoid a similar situation. At this point, I am reluctant to try and replace my other 30 or so Tasmota devices as they are all still working very reliably. Thank you in advance for any assistance anyone can provide.

2

Have you tried the manual switch on the plugs to see if they are still operational?
Have you tried unplugging any of them and plugging them back in?

3

As you mentioned I would try to reset (deconnect and reconnect to the ZigBee network) the switch. I'm not sure how to do it for sengled, but the very few time that I got similar problems (but never all the same time) this has works. If the device is not removed in the hub, when it will pair again, it will be automatically recognized and assign to this existing device.

4

You might want to try Zigbee channel 20. It is the channel most commonly used and recommended, even though its frequency falls between two commonly used 2.4 gig Wi Fi channels. I do not have any issues with channel 20, even though I have WiFi routers and two access points.

It is my understanding that some older devices are not compatible with channel 25-26, but I cannot confirm whether Sengled Zigbee plugs are affected as I do not have the devices. If you cannot get channel 25 to work, try channel 20.

To avoid interference with 2.4 gHz WiFi, hardwire as many devices as possible using Ethernet cable. Then use 5 gHz WiFi for all devices that have that capability. Reserve 2.4 gHz WiFi for only those devices that do not have 5 gHz capability. As long as your high bandwidth devices such as computers, video streamers, cell phones, and tablets are not on 2.4 gHz, you should not have trouble with congestion.

If you have a cell phone or tablet, there are WiFi analyzers that can tell you which WiFI channels are being used by your devices and any nearby neighbors.

5

Yes, manual switch on the plugs all work and I have tried unplugging and plugging them back in. Don”t think it is a outlet problem as they all stopped working at the same time. Hence this plea for help.

Was of course hoping to avoid this (luckily only 4 devices) but again, all 4 disconnected at same time so I suspect that the hub is the origin of the problem and I want to diagnose the problem and correct so that I minimize the chance of this happening in the future when I have more devices to contend with.

The Sengled outlets were working for close to 7 months on channel 25 so I’m sure they are capable of using channel 25.

All my devices that are capable are connected via Ethernet and other than my Tasmota light switches and some other wifi light switches, all other devices are connected via 5gHz. Only one device near my Sengled outlets (which are again less than 5 ft from my hub) is a 2.4 gHz wifi device (an Echo Flex which is used to send the voice signal to my small amp controlled by one of my Sengled outlets) and I selected Zigbee channel 25 because it was the furthest away from my wifi channel frequency.

I did a soft reboot of the hub but I wonder if I need to do a soft shutdown, followed by unplugging for several minutes, then rebooting similar to what is done to “reset” the Z-wave radio? Can anyone (perhaps one of the staff members here) give me some insight into how the Zigbee radio in the hub works or how I can diagnose and fix the problem?

I was able to get some logs off the Zigbee Logs yesterday (I originally could not get anything from logs but i guess I just had to let it run a long period of time) but I have no idea what any of the logs mean (I am the dictionary definition of a Zigbee noob when it comes to interpreting these things, lol). I will post screenshot of the limited log when I get a chance. Any help is appreciated.

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Again, thanks for any help.

7

If you haven't already, I would suggest to email support@hubitat.com to get a support ticket started on this.

Tagging @bobbyD

8

Unless you set your router not to go on channel 11, the Zigbee channel 25 can be affected by interference. Based on details you shared, it is possible that you have suffered a severe interference episode. Have you tried re-discovering the devices by running Zigbee discovery from the add device page? They should rejoin in place if they dropped off the mesh. I do not think you are dealing with a radio problem, as you would have seen the Zigbee Offline notification. But if you'd like us to take a look at your hub's engineering log to confirm that you do not have a hardware problem, please send me a PM and I'd be glad to further assist.

9

Thank you @bobbyD . I will try this later this evening when I get home (keeping my fingers crossed). Other than setting my router to not go to channel 11 to reduce the chances of interference, what non-hardware related issues could cause this type of severe interference problem (so I can minimize this from happening again)? I am correct in assuming that this interference affected primarily the hub as all devices went down at the same time (although they are all very near the hub)? Anyway, thanks for you suggestions.

10

An incident like yours, where all nodes drop off, is extremely rare and may not even be related to your router's interference. You may want to survey your location to identify what other 2.4ghz networks are present on channel 11. It could be that your neighbor has a new router that is running on top of your Zigbee. If you are Android, there are several good network analyzer apps in Google Play that you can use to screen your location.

11

Unlike the main logging page, the Zigbee logging page only shows 'live' events (there's no way to look at history) so it will always have nothing in it when you first view the page and will remain blank until some Zigbee message is received by the hub.

The Zigbee logs you posted show very good link quality (LQI indicates how well the hub receives messages generated by your plugs; 255 is top of the scale) with strong signal strength (RSSI values in the -50's are typical of a device with a strong signal in close proximity to the hub).

Are the Sengled plugs the only Zigbee devices connected to your hub? Trying to get a view of what the mesh might look like; it helps to know if you're dealing with 'end devices' (which must transmit directly to the hub or via parent repeaters) or if they are repeaters/routers (which are considered 'neighbors' of the hub).

The yourhubIP/hub/zigbee/getChildandRouteInfo page will list the plugs under 'Child Data' if they are end devices; otherwise they would show up in the neighbor table if they are first-hop repeaters. If they are neighbors, this page also shows additional information on the status of their radio links to the hub that will not be displayed for child devices.

I'm not familiar with Sengled plugs but read in one of the threads that only the Zigbee 3.0 variety Sengled plugs are repeaters. So if your Sengled plugs are non-3.0 (non-repeaters) and all dropped at the same time, it's likely that something disrupted their parent. This could be the hub if you don't have any other repeaters; otherwise it would be some other Zigbee repeater in your mesh that is parent to those devices.

12

Thank you very much @Tony, great information to have. This is what makes this community so great. Per my OP description (I know, too long, lol) these are the only 4 Zigbee devices I have at this time (among about 60-75 other non-Zigbee stuff) and they are I believe direct pathway to the hub (which is only about 5 feet away). No other repeating Zigbee devices either. LIke you suggested, that is why I was concerned that it was a hub radio issue but I will try @bobbyD ’s recommendation when I get home. Hopefully re-discovering the devices will solve the problem but what I am more concerned about is how to avoid these types of problems when I start replacing some of my Tasmota devices with Zigbee ones, not to mention I am starting to add Z-wave Plus devices also (been using the Ecolink Firefighter Z-wave Plus device and its been rock solid so far). Anyway, thank you very much for the info (I need to learn more about this Zigbee/Z-wave stuff as I was very much more informed about Tasmotized devices and LoRa devices.

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13

This may not apply but some brands of smart electric meters use 2.4ghz. Was your electric meter recently replaced?

14

Thanks for taking the time to make a suggestion as I am still at a loss (if this does indeed relate to interference) but no (with regards to a 2.4 gHz electric meter) and by chance, the location of my electrical meter happens to be on the complete opposite side of my home from where the hub is located. Still trying to figure this out.

15

Radio doesn't always follow the shortest path so don't rule out anything based on distance.

Example, I have a zigebee switch and contact sensor that route through an iris zigbee plug that is the absolute furthest distance from each other, and there are several other zigbee plugs that are nearly half the distance closer that they could route through.

I use Zigbee ch 25 also, no issues with any devices so far (3+ years) . I have a fair amount of zigebee motion, contact, sensor and plugs with out any issues. Zigbee is reliable you just need repeaters. I also have a some tasmotized devices and others using Hubduino.

I have just started using the Third Reality zigbee plugs and so far they are working great. And they function as repeaters.

16

Again, good to know (re: independence on distance etc) but no changes to any 2.4gHz devices. Thanks for the info. At any rate, I am learning something new with each post.

17

I have about 6 Zigbee plug/repeaters placed around the house even where I don't need them. I used Sonoff, in theory to help my Sonoff motion sensors, temperature sensors, and vibration sensors. I will give Third Reality a try if I need any more. I have no problems with my Zigbee devices.

18

Since nothing has helped so far (at least as far as I can tell), have you tried simply turning off the hub for 20m, then on again?

That will force your zigbee devices into panic mode, and when you power up the hub each device will rebuild its neighbor tables as it reconnects.

In the category of can't hurt, might help. :slight_smile:

I also can't resist suggesting moving to Zigbee channel 20 as well...I have had zero issues on SmartThings and Hubitat for many years running on Zigbee channel 20, with several different routers and configs, including basic routers, using range extenders (briefly - ugh!), a couple different mesh devices, and finally EdgeRouter w/Unifi AP...no problems w/Zigbee - router interference ever.

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19

Good morning!

Don't forget to warn @moh about the "dangerous button"!

Since my Z-Wave network just jumped into the volcano and I am a glutton for punishment I wonder if I should change my Zigbee network to another channel too? All my Zigbee devices are working perfectly now. I also use the UDMP for WiFi.

Thoughts?

20

Ain't broke.

Don't fix.

:smiley:

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