I consider reasonable signal quality for a device that's 10" away and let's say 3 walls and a doorway to show signals somewhere around the best you can get, But lets take all the Signal numbers out of it and just go by physical testing My C8 cannot control a single repeater device as good as the C5 or C7 can from the same distances. It would be different if the battle was close but it's not even close.
I actually ordered another C8 for more testing because this kind of zigbee performance reminds me of the old zwave days. Those days drove people nuts and cost them so much time and money. Hey your zwave mesh sucks add more repeaters move your hub blah blah blah. Came down to bad zwave firmware in the end.
The craziest thing about all this is that When I first setup my Zwave network on the C8 I could pair any device in place meaning from the devices final location I was impressed. Now I have to be basically in the same room to get devices to pair. I'm not sure if some update messed some things up or who knows but it's really weird. Maybe because the hub was on default zigbee settings then. But the c5 can pair devices from anywhere so I don't know.
Yes, I even accidentally automatically paired 8 sonoff outlets with the C5 when I took them off the C8 those same outlets had to be in the same room to pair with the C8
I even bought an aftermarket antenna to try same results. I did try swapping the stock antennas about an hr ago and I'm getting the same results. I don't have devices dropping off the zigbee network yet. Only ever had one hue outdoor sensor drop off, but I reset it and it's been fine. My problem is signal to repeaters that aren't in the same room. The network is quick until the hub decides to route zigbee devices through anything that's not an Xbee, the external antenna ones that can go for miles. Use normal repeaters and the signal is down right terrible to devices that normally have great signal until the C8.
I'm going to rest the C8's zigbee radio after I get the C7 zigbee network up and see if that makes a difference. I'll be able to tell straight away.
well my test just failed. what should be an action that if a motion sensor sees activity it turns a light on and then once it becomes inactive it starts a timer and that time triggers and turns the light off.
BTW: "camper door" is on the other side of my garage attached to the camper It appears to be connected through the garage sylvania outlet that is directly connected to the hub, but sometimes routes through "sonoff zigbee repeater 3"
I'm getting ready to install the latest platform update but here 's a nice example of terrible repeater signal after resetting Zigbee radio and pairing one device that in the same room. I'll even lower the power down to 8 before I install the updates.
If I move it just a say 20 feet away you can't even control it. same device on a c7 or c5 you can control anywhere in the house with no other repeaters in the network
Same device from about 15 feet away
It's hard to capture anything useful with the amount of traffic being produced by the mmwave sensor in the garage. On this screen, you can kind of see how it hops back and forth between connecting directly to the hub and routing through a repeater. The sensor is at least 40 feet from the hub on the other side of a wall of stainless steel kitchen appliances.
maybe its alternating between a repeater and direct.. i dont think there is a way to tell. wish the log had more info about what id the endpoint it is using for the first hop.. Wonder if it can be added to the logs.. better yet the name of the first hop
if you look at my mmwave sensor above, it goes from direct to one router and then another router. I can tell with pretty good certainty which routers it's going through because the RSSI of my routers is generally very consistent.
how do you know it is doing that for sure.. just a guess. i dont see anything in the logs indicating it is using a repeater or not. it seems that way but could be something causing interference at that moment and the signal going to hell. etc.
In the routing table it is listed as a router and also as routing through a couple different repeaters (at different times). It’s only hard to tell which one when the rssi is in the -50s range because I have several repeaters in that range. When it is -19, there is only one repeater that ever reads that strong, likewise when it’s around -29. -80 rssi is pretty great for a direct connection from where it’s located.
It appears to be connected through the garage sylvania outlet that is directly connected to the hub, but sometimes routes through "sonoff zigbee repeater 3"
