Xbee stick for dummies

[mboisson]

Hello,
I was recommended to use an Xbee stick with wire shark to try to find a problematic Zigbee device on my network. I know nothing about wireshark, or Xbee, but I do have a background on Linux.

Anyone has a guide to doing this for dummies ? Starting with: what is a Xbee stick ? What do I need to buy (with Amazon links or vendor/models for example) ? Once I have it, I assume I plug it on a Linux box, then what ? Any guide for dummies on using wire shark ? On using it in particular to find a problematic Zigbee device ?

Thanks

[Navat604]

Not sure what kind of zigbee problem you are having but here's a link to building one.

Everything Xbee

Since Xbee devices were taking the Xiaomi devices - are they pairing / staying connected for you? thread off track and info is scattered between here and the SmartThings forum. I figured I would create a thread for everything Xbee related. You can display Xbee zigbee network scans as a graph like this [Xbee%20graph] or a table like this [Xbee%20table] These are great little devices to use as routers to extend your network and for mapping out your zigbee network. They have made my Xiaomi…

[mboisson]

@Navat604

building

building ?

[jtp10181]

Yeah I wanted to play around with one also, saw all the info in that thread and gave up. The parts were hard to find and expensive now as well. Quickly lost interest.

[mboisson]

Yeah, if it’s more complicated than sticking it in a USB port or a PCI slot and installing some software, I’m out.

[Navat604]

So what's your problem with zigbee?

[mboisson]

Apparently, a misbehaving Zigbee device in my network that is nuking my hub’s Zigbee radio every so often, and apparently, the only way to find out which one it is without going through months and months of trial and error, is to « sniff the frames »… or so I am told

[Navat604]

oh ok. I guess you are looking for a Zigbee sniffer. like link below.
Maybe the best route is contacting support first. They will definitely figure something out first before going the sniffing route. I have 100+ Zigbee devices and really don't need a sniffer to sort out my most of my issues. Usually a Zigbee repeater offline or wifi interferences is the cause.
I have a 4 Xbee modules but they are mostly just for repeaters/visual and fun but not really for real troubleshooting.

Zigbee Packet Sniffer-Cheap &Works

So I think @guyeeba came up with a fix I also use a CC2531. The only free and compatible software I found was TI's own Packet Sniffer application (the legacy version, not the newer PacketSniffer 2), but that is more or less unusable (does not decrypt messages, and UI is a mess). But it can broadcast the messages to network! So I wrote an application that receives these messages, transforms them from TI's format to a Wireshark-supported protocol (ZEP), and sends these packets to localhost - so …

[mboisson]

@Navat604

Maybe the best route is contacting support first. They will definitely figure something out first before going the sniffing route. I have 100+ Zigbee devices and really don't need a sniffer to sort out my most of my issues. Usually a Zigbee repeater offline or wifi interferences is the cause.

I did. They told me to exclude devices one at a time. That will take months and I can’t go months without my devices.