Xiaomi & Aqara Devices - Pairing & Keeping them connected

Still all good this morning!

That's with that one QBKG04LM wired switch on the mesh too, and it's still responding just fine.

The AlertMe endpoint devices seemed to be the most sensitive to QBKG0*LM switches being present (only surviving 10 minutes) and I'm getting regular battery and temperature measurements from all of them right now. :smiley:

1 Like

Yeah, didn't stick. The AlertMe endpoints dropped, then the Xiaomi battery buttons became unresponsive, losing presses.

So, rebuild number X! This one is a new test, I've rebuilt around UK AlertMe "Iris V1" SPG100 outlets, no Tradfri devices at all. I'm not going to try the wired switches for now, just battery devices with @markus's drivers.

I shall report tomorrow, but they have all paired without fuss. AlertMe and Xiaomi in harmony. Let's see how long that lasts.

About six hours.

This is interesting though; the GZCGQ01LM smart light sensor, the Zigbee 3.0 one, is still connected and sending lux measurements. Everything else on the Xiaomi side has dropped, but everything on the AlertMe side is working perfectly.

I recently paired 3 buttons one after the other. All 3 dropped off HE.
Re-paired one and it stuck.
Next day did another, it stuck.
Re-paired the last one 8 hrs later and that stuck too.
All 3 have remained connected for 3 days now.
It's either the way I'm pairing them or something else is going on.
Maybe try pairing one at a time and see if this works for you.

1 Like

I would add these and make sure the mesh is settled before adding to many end devices. I made a Generic Zigbee Repeater driver for use with IKEA Trådfri Repeaters and other pure repeater devices which don't report in by themselves (like Xbees). You can use this if you want to monitor the repeaters for presence as well. Can come in handy for when they are unplugged or stop working for some other reason.

You probably need the Trådfri Repeaters to be part if the mesh.

Pairing end devices slowly like this "should" not have an impact, but I guess that if the routing wasn't fully settled and you don't have an extremely strong mesh, it could help in easing the mesh into getting all devices working. It is not bad advice, it will remove one more uncertainty variable for those with that kind of patience. I've never had that kind of patience.

I've not had any issues with my mesh until just recently when a power surge knocked out my Trådfri repeaters and I had to unplug them and plug them back in to get them to work again. Once I did this everything (60+ Xiaomi/Aqara sensors) came back, without re-pairing anything except 1 device. I had to wait 20 hours for them to be pulled back in. During that time I made a tweak to my drivers and they are now a little bit more aggressive, there were some contact sensors which didn't want to come back at first, after the change all I had to do was to open and close the door/window a few times where the contact sensor was mounted and they came online again, even after having been offline for many hours.

2 Likes

Yeah, I'm just rattling through a few setups to prove what works to myself. Having the Tradfris involved would have been cheating for this mesh. :wink:

Also, I wanted to see if the AlertMe gear alone was truly solid on HE. It seems to be, with the exception of configurations being sent to the SPG100 outlets as mentioned by @mike.maxwell. I've not been able to catch whether they're sending the required command, but while they're not recognised automatically in the official driver they may not be getting the configuration response they expect. As I might have mentioned previously, upon pairing I have to go and apply the "Iris V1 Outlet" system driver manually.

The orange LED seems to be a 'config OK' indicator of some kind and it would go out occasionally even on the original AlertMe hub, usually to return a few seconds later. On an AlertMe-only mesh with HE I need to go and hit the configure button on the Devices page and it comes straight back to life. Works as a repeater perfectly throughout though.

1 Like

Oh, one other thing. On the AlertMe page by Systronics RF they say:

The complication arises when an AlertMe device is subsequently added to the network, because the entire network then has to be rebuilt.

This is their explanation as to why they use two separate radios for "Gen 1" and "Gen 2" devices. I don't know how much this holds true to the HE solution.

I have not seen this being mentioned as an issue, but @mike.maxwell would be the one to answer this.

He's going to be sick of me tagging him in stuff. But, on this thread about AlertMe drivers their own Support actually told me to do it, so there's my excuse. :joy:

There does seem to be some truth to this, as when I put the hub into pairing mode with my current AlertMe-only repeaters routing is sometimes dropped from the Route Table. All of the AlertMe devices then recover new routes VERY quickly, but the Xiaomi kit does not. The only exception is the GZCGQ01LM light meter with Zigbee 3.0, which also grabs a new route pretty much straight away.

Other than the outlets needing the configuration pushing back to them manually, the AlertMe-only (plus GZCGQ01LM) mesh has been very fast and very stable - they just all need a minute or so to recover their routes after a new join.

I'm not really sure if this is contributing much to the Xiaomi discussion, so think it deserves its own thread. I think I can safely say that AlertMe devices can't go on the "works with Xiaomi" list, though. I wonder if this drop-and-rebuild join technique will cause issues for other HE supported devices, though.

Update: My comment above isn't entirely true. The Xiaomi battery devices I have, so WXKG03LM and WXKG11LM, the Cube and that light sensor are all working on my mesh based on AlertMe SPG100 smart plugs. I added a single Trådfri lamp and the Xiaomi gear became stable, with only very occasional issues now, even though they didn't route through the lamp at all and preferred the AlertMe outlets.

I'm over a week in now and it's all working very well. The key thing I didn't do was put the wired wall switches back on. Those things just destroy any mesh! Waiting for the C-7 to arrive and it can deal with them separately.

1 Like

Most of mine have dropped off, coincidentally after I installed the last hub update! :open_mouth:

Was this the only thing that changed and before that it has been stable for a long time? Do you have a Zigbee sniffer?

Some of them have been stable for 6 months even through reboots/updates. It happened right after I did the last update according to the logs generated by @bptworld's Device Watchdog app

I'm going to fire up XCTU to check routings but is there anything I should look for other than router failure (I also do use Ikea repeaters, most of which are using the native drivers and 1 with yours.)

1 Like

SIx of mine dropped off. But have been stable after being re-paired. Also within 3-4 hours of the most recent platform update (nope - after update to 2.2.2.125). I've updated to 2.2.2.126 and been through a couple reboots since then with no issues.

1 Like

Hmmmmmmmm.

EDIT: confession a few did also drop off after 125 but I thought nothing of it.

No, nothing particular with XCTU, it would be more a Wireshark thing, which is a bit more complex. Never used an XBee for that so not sure if those can be put into sniffer mode.

Ok, I just updated to 2.2.2.126, had been waiting for my Zigbee mesh to stabilize before updating, it is now stable since a few days. Let's see in a few hours if it remains that way. I have Wireshark running.

1 Like

I don't think the xbees do and I haven't got a spare CC2531 stick at the moment, they're still en route from China

:+1:

2 Likes

If it helps, everything that was connected to an ikea repeater appears to have dropped off, devices paired to the hub are still connected.

I have 7 of those in my main mesh, if those are the issue I won't have many devices left...

1 Like

So far there are no issues after my upgrade, I've had the endpoint device which is furthest away (3 repeaters away, of which 2 are IKEA and 1 an Xbee, between that one and the hub) just check in.