OK, even though I swore I wouldn't buy into the cheap, but finicky and semi-non standard Xiaomi devices.... I caved.
Right now I don't have that many zigbee devices, as I'm mainly z-wave. Thinking through my device list, I believe I currently have 13 ST water sensors, 4 Keen vents, and 3 ST outlets (which I needed to keep my 13 water sensors stable/not dropping out).
Here is my plan, let me know if I'm going the wrong way:
Replace the 3 ST outlets with 3 Ikea Tradfri outlets (I'll just sell the 3 ST ones on eBay)
Add Xiaomi sensors. I have 10x of the temp/humidity sensors on order now - coming from China, so will be a little wait.
Anything else? I very much do NOT want to get an XBee. I simply don't have time to play with my mesh at that level. I need the devices to work without that level of babysitting.
I want to see how your new path goes, I don't like Xiaomi Zigbee, to be specific, but yes, with those prices I was thinking to get some to add humidity sensing to my bathrooms.....
I have 6 Iris plugs, 2 ST plugs and 1 sylvania plug
I was against the idea of messing up my very stable zigbee network be replacing plugs... But... The Ikea Tradfri are so darn cheap, I can recoup my cost by selling the 3 ST outlets.
Yes, but I use my Iris for zigbee and zwave, so in my case I will loose more, but anyway, my house is small so probably it will be fine anyway, I will look for those tradfri....
I have dozens of mains powered zwave plus devices all over my house, so never went the Iris outlet route for zwave repeating. That is a cool device, though.
These last very long. My initial Xiaomi devices last for over almost 2 years now and still have plenty battery.
Just ensure you have a strong mesh. What I initially found out is that these devices will try additional times to send health and status checks if for some reason they initially fail. This will drain the battery. I had one device on the far edge of my mesh that was dropping battery faster than others. As soon I added more devices into the mesh, extending the reach it went to the same trend as the others. Another things to consider is the amount of trigger events. The more events it triggers the more battery it eats. The average daily trigger events for my Xiaomi devices is around 12 events.
This is the order I received this week. Missing a cube that I ordered to the wrong address 300Km away....
I have now over 30 Xiaomi devices and 12 Hue lamps on a 110sqm house.
Just 1 zwave device.
Edit: I also plan to go to IKEA to get those outlets and 1 or 2 led drivers.
Wow. If you have mesh signal strength issues in a 110 sqm house, that doesn't bode well for me in my 400 sqm house. lol. I would have thought you would need 0 repeaters/mesh adders of any kind in that size house - you certainly wouldn't for zwave.
I'll see how it goes. My hub is dead center in my house, and I'm going to position the Ikea outlet repeaters strategically.
I can always order more Ikea outlets if needed, at least they are very cheap.
The issue was not with the mesh. It has to do with house built.
Even my wifi was appealing. I additionally have also roughly 82 hotspots on 2.4 ghz around my house.
I got 1 wifi bar just 3m away from the router due to how the walls are built.
Hence why I upgraded to an Orbi system. Now I have flawless internet at maximum speed in every house spot.
Gotcha. One of my previous houses has concrete interior walls, and I had a similar issue. Current house is just wood/drywall on the interior, so no issues there.
I just ordered 3 of the ikea tradfri outlets. Really want to play with them. Reading news that Xiaomi just added support for the tradfri stuff to their app in the google play store is very promising. I have over 50 xiaomi devices and just want to add another router to help with the mesh upstairs.
My only other suggestion, after adding them and the routers, if you still have issues with anything dropping, adjust your wifi and zigbee channels so they don't overlap.
You don't need an xbee. It only lets you see the mapping of the mesh network. It was more of a fun project to ensure things were doing what I wanted them too. Was more valuable back when these things were giving us problems. Now, the xbee is just a more expensive router.
This is also a great suggestion. In my case with 82 wifi signals the noise levels were high in every single channel.
I do not know if it strenght the mesh or not but afraid how other networks could affect the my zigbee I used an out of this world technique. I created an empty Wifi Guest Network on the Orbi system (that is hidden with very strong password, with no devices connected to it) on the same channel as the zigbee network. My hope was that as the new network will creare a signal umbrella it dissipates the other noise and allows more bandwidth to the zigbee.
I probably made it worse. But has worked flawless and extremely fast with ST (less than a sec delay between motion and lights up). So keeping it for now
Good point. My APs are on Channels 1 and 11 now, my zigbee is on 20. Depending on the interference from neighbors, maybe I should move zigbee to 17 or 18... Or move my AP from 1 to 6, or 11 to 6, and stick zigbee on the unused chunk (11 or 24).
I have an eero setup which I believe runs on channel 1. I saw the most significant increase in reliability when I changed my zigbee channel to 23. If you go any higher you may experience issues as well. I believe a number of zigbee devices have issues connecting on channel 25/26
You will also hav eot give it time to repair itself and rebuild the mesh after the change too.
If at one point you are considering a batterey back up Xiaomi repeater, take a look at my project.
It is a environment sensor (temperature, humidity, pressure and light) with a twist. It is DC powered so it can be a repeater to Xiaomi devices. It is battery backed up so that in the case of power failure the Xiaomi devices have much better chance staying with the repeater rather than looking for a new parent wihch may not be compatible. I forget to mentioned that the Zigbee Radio has extended range amplifier.
