I'm not aware of anything that will make this easier. I do not recommend channel 26 for zigbee. 25 is ideal if nothing else uses 25.
Everything should follow over to 25 after you make the change, it can take 24 hours for all devices to check in. If a device hasn't made the switch it might be necessary to just wake up the device, typically a button push, or removing and re-adding the battery. Last resort, do that same thing but with the hub in discovery. It won't show anything but the device should come back in.
The best thing is to give it time. Too often people want it right now and Zigbee mesh's take time to update their routes.
Each environment is different, Zigbee channel selection depends on if you have anything else running on other zigbee channels. Hue bridge, other hubs, cable box remotes (looking at you dish...), Nest thermostats (yes they have a zigbee radio you can't shut off) and anything else.
25 is my personal favorite and use for my primary hub. Since there is no overlap with wifi channels.
I currently have 7 different zigbee meshes running. So they can co-exist but do need proper mesh build outs.
I read back a bit you have ZLL bulbs connected too. These make horrible routers and will eventually drop packets. I put all my bulbs on a hue bridge and that works very well for me.
The last thing we can't rule out is build quality of the hampton bay zigbee units. I've heard others have problems with them but others they work just fine, like mine.
I have two Cree bulbs but I powered them down with no help. I have my ST hub still on (with no devices) no Nest or Hue. So, wide open zigbee. I am running AC wifi so, most of my high speed devices are on that. I am in a wifi saturated zone though. Lots of wifi networks over lapping.
Without knowing how your mesh is setup, the only thing I can recommend is now remedying the potential source of issues, I personally would remove the device completely and reset it and re-pair it. If that still fails, can't rule out out a bad device or antenna.
Well, I can rule out a bad device since it works correctly in ST. I also have 2 of them purchased at different times, so the odds of both of them just going bad at the same time when I switched to HE is rather slim. When you say, "you don't know how my mesh is set up", I'm not sure I understand. The light component is working perfectly. And the fan responds to commands correctly. If there was a problem with the signal strength, wouldn't it affect those? The hub is literally 4 feet from the device through 1 ceiling. It isn't even inside the fan cowl. When you say "repair it" what exactly do you mean? I can do a factory reset but that's about it as far as I know.
Repair as in Re-pair. As in pair again. Not as in fix it. Oh boy.....this technology needs to expand it's vocabulary. I thought he meant like Z-wave repair. Like some new zigbee thing I hadn't heard about yet. LOL. GRRR.
A re-pair with ZWave means removing all the unique addressing, and acquiring all new.
Zigbee devices can be put into pairing mode (Click a button 3 times in <3 seconds; remove a battery, press and hold a button, install battery; etc.) Because the unique addressing is fixed in a Zigbee device (vs assigned by the Z-Stick with ZWave) the device goes right back into the same place in the Hub's config.
If you're in a restaurant and the wait staff asks you "would you like a refill, sir?" you mock them?
I said "Hope this helps" -- clearly knowing that it might not. But will it help the other guy reading this? Yea, it Might. Why be so disdainful of offerings of help?
Mock? I just suggested re-reading to understand what was actually being discussed. That's all. Why are you being so disdainful of offers of help?
I would like to clarify something though, now that you bring it up. What exactly do you mean by:
This seems to suggest that repairing a zigbee device doesn't mean you'd have to rebuild any automation using that device. Is that what you meant to imply?