Xiaomi & Aqara Devices - Pairing & Keeping them connected

There is a clear line of sight between the Xiaomi window/door sensor and an Ikea repeater, 20-30 feet away.

FWW, using the ZTS MBT-1, I tested the batteries of the two Aqara motion sensors that had been dropping off when paired to HE. They measured 80% charge state. On the surface, this seems to indicate that they may be sensitive to voltage drops when paired to HE. Whereas, paired to the Aqara hub, they function just fine. The motion sensors that were not giving me issues, all have batteries that are new, almost new, or are powered by a DC adapter. For the power adapter, I use a 5v phone charger and a 5v to 3.3v buck converter. This doesn't prove anything, but I'm just throwing it out there as it may be a factor.

I also tested a Mijia contact sensor that was also dropping, and which had an IKEA Outlet just a few feet away, and the hub just 20 feet away. Its battery is still at 100%, despite it being purchased in November of 2018.

Not one of my Xiaomi leak sensors have dropped. They are all still paired to HE.

Sorry, though I scrolled up quite a bit from your first post asking about the lack of check-in messages for hours, I must have missed this previous explanation of the routing to that door/window sensor end device.

With four link hops in the path between the end device (the Xiaomi Door/Window sensor) and the coordinator (Hubitat hub), with as much as I understand about ZigBee routing (which is not a heck of a lot), I place high suspicion on unsuccessful packet delivery.

If possible, I would recommend looking at the link cost of each of the hops to get a sense of the probability level of successful packet delivery. For a highly technical explanation of link cost / probability of successful packet delivery have a look under the heading ZigBee and IEEE 802.15.4 Protocol Layers, subheading 3.4.6 Routing here.

Without additional hardware, the only tool available with the Hubitat hub itself to get any sense of quality of ZigBee network route links is the getChildAndRouteInfo report page. Have you tried looking at that? To view it, in a browser on the same network as your hub, go to:

http://[hub_ip_address]/hub/zigbee/getChildAndRouteInfo

(replacing [hub_ip_address] with your hub's IP address, of course.)

Part of that report will look like this:

Neighbor Table Entry
[Name of Device 1, 0FA1] , LQI:254, age:3, inCost:1, outCost:1
[Name of Device 2, 0C19] , LQI:195, age:7, inCost:1, outCost:7

I'm no expert, but as I understand it, the LQI value represents the overall link quality, as explained by @Tony here:

Then, using this page as a guide, here's a rough guide on how the other values can be interpreted:

age

In EmberZNet Pro, the number of aging periods elapsed since a neighbor exchange message was last received from this neighbor. In stack profile 1, the number of aging periods since any packet was received. An entry with an age greater than 3 is considered stale and may be reclaimed. The aging period is 16 seconds.

inCost

The incoming cost for this neighbor, computed from the average LQI. Values range from 1 for a good link to 7 for a bad link.

outCost

The outgoing cost for this neighbor, obtained from the most recently received neighbor exchange message from the neighbor. A value of zero means that a neighbor exchange message from the neighbor has not been received recently enough, or that our ID was not present in the most recently received one. EmberZNet Pro only.

Really what you'd want to be looking in addition to the LQI value is inCost.

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So running the ChildRoute link, I got this output:

Parent child parameters
EzspGetParentChildParametersResponse [childCount=2, parentEui64=0000000000000000, parentNodeId=65535]

Child Data
child:[Basement Temp Sensor, 5F1A, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]
child:[Iris Motion 1, EE10, type:EMBER_SLEEPY_END_DEVICE]

Neighbor Table Entry

Route Table Entry
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused
status:Unused

So a number of my Aqara sensors seem flat out dead? I've got door contacts on 3 doors, none of which show up, and 3 temp sensors missing.

One of door sensors is showing this:

Device Details

Create Time 2019-04-08 8:17:20 PM EDT
Last Update Time 2019-04-09 8:51:58 AM EDT
Last Activity At 2019-09-28 9:25:00 PM EDT
Data * endpointId: 01

So its just been gone for a week. My other door sensors show roughly the same las activity time: 2019-09-28 9:50:29 PM EDT

I'm on Zigbee ch 20 and tried resetting my zigbee radio, hoping they'd come back or rebuild the mesh. doesn't seem that happened.

they all still show up under the Zigbee devices on the zigbee radio settings.

Zigbee Radio Devices

16 bit Address 64 bit Address Device Type ID Label (Name)

2054 00158D0002FB4720 264 Evan Temp Sensor (Evan Temp Sensor)
3059 00158D0002FB365C 263 Mudroom Door (Mudroom Door)
4478 00158D0003099313 263 Basement Door (Basement Door)
5A18 00158D000270CFD4 321 AqaraLeak1 - Laundry (Aqara Leak Sensor)
5F1A 00158D0002FB49AB 264 Basement Temp Sensor (Basement Temp Sensor)
6F34 00158D000309B5CD 264 Main Floor Temp Sensor (Main Floor Temp Sensor)
98FC 00158D0002FBD439 263 Front Door (Front Door)
C682 00158D0002774BD3 321 AqaraLeak2 - Attic (Aqara Leak Sensor)
EBDE 00158D0002FB49CB 264 SMK Temp Sensor (SMK Temp Sensor)
EE10 000D6F001098C572 18 Iris Motion 1 (Generic Zigbee Motion Sensor)

any suggestions?

IN my own personal experience, if an Aqara device hasn't "checked in" in that length of time (>1 day), it is no longer on the zigbee mesh (even though it still shows up as a zigbee device.
In my humble opinion, the only way for those devices to stay on the zigbee mesh is to ensure that only certain zigbee devices are used as repeaters. (The only ones that I know that work are: Ikea repeaters, and the Ikea control outlet, and the Xbee).
As well, I have put together an adaptation of bryan turcott's fine program: Device Watchdog.
It checks for activity on my Aqara devices - if no activity (or checkin) in the last 2 hours - it probably is off!

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Sure seems that way, @jtmpush18 . What's odd is that my devices are only 25 ft max from my hub, with a line of sight. (Thanks, open floor plan). I don't even know if there's a place for a repeater to even plug in. I was thinking about building a Pi just to act as another zigbee radio, maybe stronger than the hubitat.

I got them re-paired, and so far they are hanging in there, but its only been a day. And, actually, I only have one connected to a light, so I'm not really sure about the other two.

I'll give the "watchdog" a try.

Thanks!

I must also add, in all honesty, that even with Ikea Tradfri Repeaters, you have to make sure that other types of devices are NOT showing up as repeaters. That will kill your Aqara devices.

(There is somewhere in this forum a technical note from the master @veeceeoh as to why these Aqara devices act as crazy as they do.)

I'm looking forward to the forthcoming release of the Zigbee 3.0 version of these sensors. Then, I'll have my cake (cheap functional sensors), and be able to eat it too! (reliable and dependable).

How? The only thing I could think of is with a stick like the HUSBZB-1 or a Zigbee "shield" if one exists. But that would create another coordinator (more or less "hub"), and a Zigbee network can have only one. A "router" (repeater) is what you need, and if you're just looking for something easily powered like USB, an Xbee or Trådfri repeater would suffice (the latter is a lot eaiser to set up--there is basically no setup) and be Xiaomi-friendly.

Even with line of sight, it's probably best to have at least one repeater (and if you have more than 32 "end devices"--non-repeaters--it's necessary).

Let's hope so! But they could also mis-implement Zigbee 3.0 or raise prices to what North American users are used to seeing if they get marketed more widely. I'm hoping for the same, but time will tell.

This sounds like this could be another plug for @iharyadi ‘s powerful Zigbee external sensor / repeater. Check the forums.

I didn't know that. Thought I could use it as an "access point" of some kind. But I also had thought it might have a stronger zigbee radio, and I'd use the stick as my zigbee hub. I had looked at Xbee a while back and should probably look at it again.

That all said, most of my devices are working much better now that I've removed Chromecast beta from my HE. With everything working smoother, maybe the aqara devices will continue to work better as well.

All my mains powered switches have always worked, it is only the wireless switches that drop off. I reconfigured my wifi and channel selection for the Zigbee and reconnected the ikea plugs first then the Xiaomi switches one at a time and all seemed to work fine, no drops for a month, then a power cut!!! and then back to the old drop offs, so started again and still get the same, the switches work and 10 minutes or an indeterminate time period (could be a day) later they don't. If you repeatedly tap the switches they suddenly come back on so god knows what is happening.

Hi All
I am mostly using Z-Wave devices and they are working fine, however decided to to save some sensor money and got one Xiaomi/Aqara Temperature-Humidity-Presure sensor (square one). I had tried all the usual tricks (resting ZigBee stick, changing channels - curently on 20 but had tried 11,13,25) - no matter what sensor stops reporting after 40 min like clockwork. Two other Zigbee devices Peanut Plugs are rock solid.
ZiigBee logs look normal:

a12019-11-21 12:20:03.999 profileId:0x104, clusterId:0x403, sourceEndpoint:1, destinationEndpoint:1 , groupId:0, lastHopLqi:255, lastHopRssi:-55

a12019-11-21 12:20:03.997 profileId:0x104, clusterId:0x405, sourceEndpoint:1, destinationEndpoint:1 , groupId:0, lastHopLqi:255, lastHopRssi:-56

a12019-11-21 12:20:03.893 profileId:0x104, clusterId:0x402, sourceEndpoint:1, destinationEndpoint:1 , groupId:0, lastHopLqi:255, lastHopRssi:-55

Sensor is about 10 ft from the hub.
My question is - could this be defective sensor or I just need to forget about it and stick with Zooz 4-in-1 that I had been using.

Simdim

@simdim See below from the first post

So in essence the moment Xiaomi hops on Peanut repeater it is toast, and I need to make a choice do I like Peanut enough to stay or Xiaomi to come in ...

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I think in the long run, based on personal experience with Xiaomi and those sensors in particular, you will be happy with the Peanut plug as many other owners of it are.

Amazon.com is again selling Centralite temp/humidity sensors and they will work without issue.

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@simdim or you could add a second hub networked together using hubconnct and use one hub for Xiaomi compatible devices and the other for non Xiaomi compatible devices.
I have a similar setup (three hubs).

The only other ZigBee hub I have is Philips Hue and I do not think I can pair Xiaomi to it, can I?

I don't think so.
I do not have any Hue but a Hue hub networked would be fine for Hue bulbs that are not good repeaters.

I have 3 hubitat hubs and 1 SmartThings hub networked together.

What about the getting a Smartthings Contact, Temp, Vibration sensor ??

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Unless you’re looking for Humidity. If you are, then Centralite, otherwise the Samsung is a good call for temp.

There’s some testing ongoing with the Konke, but not sure what the requirements are as far as Zigbee mesh and how that’s working out.

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