I have two Wi-Fi floor heaters, but why would they only interfere with two out of the 11 Iris V3 Zigbee sensors? Especially when I have two more in that same area of the Master Bathroom that work well?
I can try re-pairing from their final location... I've been given contradictory recommendations regarding that but it's something I haven't tried so far.
If it helps, I could try posting a floor plan of where everything is in case that might help with advice about repeater placement, etc.
2.4GHz wavelength sometimes makes important differences only moving inches or changing position. Specially indoors.
Zigbee only re-routes when the signal is lost, not when the signal has a better path or better repeater relay.
And yes, you are right, it is a bit of try and guess.
On a different thread I was advised to change the channel, of my Hubitat Zigbee network to avoid interference with Wi-Fi... just remembered that. Hopefully that would prevent this sort of problem?
If it is WiFi induced, yes it will.
OK, getting back to you all with some additional information.
My Hubitat Zigbee network is on channel 13 (which I believe is supposed to prevent interference from Wi-Fi)
Here is the Child & Route Info that @brad5 asked for:
Parent child parameters
EzspGetParentChildParametersResponse [childCount=3, parentEui64=0000000000000000, parentNodeId=65535]
Child Data
child:[Kids Bedroom Sensor, C33B, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
child:[Kids Bathroom Sensor, 70D2, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
child:[Master Closet Sensor, 463C, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
Neighbor Table Entry
[Holiday Lights Dining Room, 1C3F], LQI:253, age:4, inCost:3, outCost:5
[Tuya Zigbee Repeater, 3FDA], LQI:253, age:4, inCost:3, outCost:1
[Master Bedroom Diffuser, 5351], LQI:231, age:5, inCost:5, outCost:7
[Living Room Zigbee Outlet, 5597], LQI:231, age:7, inCost:5, outCost:0
[Foyer Zigbee Plug, 59A6], LQI:218, age:7, inCost:5, outCost:0
[Master Bathroom Diffuser, AAC4], LQI:68, age:7, inCost:7, outCost:0
[Theater Room Zigbee Plug, BDDB], LQI:254, age:7, inCost:1, outCost:0
[Game Room Table Light, C73B], LQI:251, age:4, inCost:3, outCost:3
[Holiday Lights Temple, CA89], LQI:22, age:7, inCost:7, outCost:0
[Holiday Lights Sun Room, F430], LQI:135, age:7, inCost:7, outCost:0
Route Table Entry
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Master Commode Sensor, AC60] via [Theater Room Zigbee Plug, BDDB]
status:Unused
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Theater Room Zigbee Plug, BDDB] via [Tuya Zigbee Repeater, 3FDA]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Master Bedroom Diffuser, 5351] via [Theater Room Zigbee Plug, BDDB]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Game Room Table Light, C73B] via [Theater Room Zigbee Plug, BDDB]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Living Room Zigbee Outlet, 5597] via [Tuya Zigbee Repeater, 3FDA]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Master Shower Sensor, 715A] via [Tuya Zigbee Repeater, 3FDA]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Holiday Lights Temple, CA89] via [Tuya Zigbee Repeater, 3FDA]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Holiday Lights Dining Room, 1C3F] via [Theater Room Zigbee Plug, BDDB]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Foyer Zigbee Plug, 59A6] via [Tuya Zigbee Repeater, 3FDA]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Master Bathroom Diffuser, AAC4] via [Tuya Zigbee Repeater, 3FDA]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Holiday Lights Sun Room, F430] via [Tuya Zigbee Repeater, 3FDA]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Play Room Sensor, 7C4E] via [Tuya Zigbee Repeater, 3FDA]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Garage Sensor, 4A46] via [Tuya Zigbee Repeater, 3FDA]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Kitchenette Sensor, C896] via [Theater Room Zigbee Plug, BDDB]
status:Active, age:64, routeRecordState:0, concentratorType:None, [Study Room Blinds, D882] via [Tuya Zigbee Repeater, 3FDA]
Channel 13 is not a good choice. That is basically the center channel for wifi channel 1. Use 15, 20, or 25. Don't use 26.
I could be mistaken, but I thought I previously determined that my Wi-Fi was using channel 11. Wouldn't that make Zigbee using channel 13 ok, based on that diagram? Because that was the one I was looking at some time ago when I was participating in a thread about Zigbee and my Philips Hue lights.
If you routinely do scans around you to verify your neighbors aren't using channel 1 wifi and you aren't using it then sure you should be ok, but you would better advised using one of the wifi side-lobed as a new wifi network won't kill your mesh. The default channel for wifi is channel 1 on most devices. Additionally routers have the ability to search for less congested channels so even if your neighbors aren't using channel 1 now, it doesn't mean they won't in the future. Channel 15 ZigBee has the same benefit of being out of the wifi channel 13 but not exposed to potential center channel interference which is often much worse than side lobe interference since the power is so much lower in the lobes.
I also see about 20 cars around me that have AP's and all their channels change randomly. I use wifi channel 1, 6, and 11 in my house and don't have any interference issues using channel 25.
I have the additional problem of four Philips Hue Bridges that I have to avoid clashing with each other and with Wi-Fi. They are set to use channels 11, 15, 20, and 25 and are locked into using only those channels. I could probably have two bridges use the same channel, like the fourth one use 20 to leave 25 open, but I don't even know what kind of other problems that might create.
I don't know if this matters, but the side of my house where the sensors aren't working is a side facing the street, so there ought to be more physical distance from an interfering neighbor's Wi-Fi network.
Well that's why center channel is so bad, the power output is so much higher there. Think of signal power like sound. The difference between 35 db which is about ambient level for a quiet room, 45 being a whisper, 55 being regular conversation level of a few people, 85 about as loud as a lawn mower, 110 being a rock concert front row. If you can even half the db level, the interference drop is huge.
Imagine your house is a rectangle, you could put a hub in each corner and apposing corners could use the same channel to cut down on your channel usage, even if you just share one channel, I'd bet you'd see a difference.
Side lobe power drops drastically with range too so even less interference.
I'm by no means an expert but I have some pretty extensive experience dealing with wifi and how to overcome signal issues basically my whole career.
I'd also recommend a channel change. If you do decide to go that direction it can take a while (thinking overnight) for everything to catch up. You also have two devices on the neighbors list with pretty low link quality. Not sure if it matters or not but it does pop out. One is the master bathroom diffuser, which to me indicates (shocking) a signal strength issue in the master bathroom. Not news but at least it confirms.
You should pair your zigbee devices to the hub in the location where you intend to use them.
Certain older z-wave devices might benefit from that pairing strategy of bringing it next to the hub, but not zigbee.
This is good advice. Zigbee was designed with 'pair in place' from the beginning; any Zigbee repeater in-range (that has an established link to the hub) is capable of joining a new device.
The cost figures showing in the neighbor table entries tell you how good the RF links are from the hub to/from those devices. Ideally you want to see low (but nonzero) cost figures here.
The age counters are telling you how many status intervals have elapsed since the hub has received valid link status from the neighbor-- Zigbee routers exchange info on how well they hear their neighbor roughly 4x a minute; when the age counter exceeds 6, the link is presumed stale and can get evicted from the table in favor of a better one (the hub and each router all maintain their own neighbor tables and always track the status of their neighbor links; you can only see the hub's neighbor table on this page so it doesn't give you a complete view of the mesh).
So those showing double digit LQI's (which get mapped to high inCost numbers that get sent to the neighbor) indicate the hub isn't getting a strong signal from the remote device; those with 0 or high (>5) outCosts means that the remote devices are seeing high error rates/weak signal on links to the hub (0 means 6 intervals have elapsed since link status has been received). If you refresh this page you're likely to see the numbers (especially age counters) changing.
It's not uncommon to see a high age counter or a couple of the neighbor's showing zero outCost; you are dealing with a mesh and the routing algorithm is smart enough to avoid low quality links when it chooses routing paths. But when a majority of the links are showing poor figures, the mesh isn't going to perform well.
Thanks for the advice so far. Some quick updates:
Changing the channel from 13 to 15 did not work.
Re-pairing the troublesome sensors in their respective final locations, though quick and easy, also did not work.
But every other sensor I have, all of the same time, include two in the very same area, are working just fine....
I just now enabled logging for my Master Bathroom sensor and watch what happens:
There's some stuff there about Lutron Telnet being offline or whatever but I think it's irrelevant. What caught my attention is that it said that the sensor is active and then said inactive shortly after I left that room.
So it's sensing me and telling Hubitat that it is. But shouldn't the log include some kind of mention of a message sent to turn on the corresponding light as per my rule?
Logging isn't enabled in your rule. Logging also might not be enabled on the light.
Sorry, still clueless about this whole logging thing. OK, I enabled it for my rule and also had it enabled for my light. Here is what happened when I walked into that room:
SO I'm seeing that the sensor becomes active, the rules gets triggered, and there is an action to turn on the master bathroom sink lights and now it's waiting for the sensor to be inactive for 5 minutes before it turns off the lights.
Except that the light never turned on. And BTW, light is on one of those ultra-reliable Lutron switches which turns on every time when I issue the Alexa command.
As an aside, I feel like I'm doing something stupid here. Like something so elementary that only I could possibly have overlooked it. But it's driving me crazy that I don't know what it is...
Download the Hubitat app
