I've only recently started using Zigbee devices so am still feeling my way around it. I now have 12 Zigbee devices - 5 Hue Dimmers, 2 Hue Motion sensors & 5 Tradfri outlets. Because my mesh is small I've been using the Zigbee logs to see where best to place a couple of the Tradfri outlets that I'm currently only using as repeaters. I find it really useful to look at the signal values in the logs and wish Zwave had something similar.
What I have noticed though is that while all of the Hue devices report something in the logs every so often, even if nothing has been pressed on the dimmers for example, the Tradfri units never report unless they are switched on or off. Is this normal? Is it that the Hue devices are battery powered and so the hub checks in with them every so often? Everything is working fine, I am just curious to know how it all works and reports.
Normal, the Tradfri eventually reports, but they take longer times, similar as Xiaomi.
Not necessarily, each device reports differently, each manufacturer programs this different but compliant to zigbee.
And that is great, but if you want to see exactly how your network works you can try adding an XBee, with XBee you can map your network, some models have spectrum analysis and you can leave it in the network, they are great repeaters too.
A quick Google leads me to think XBee is a whole new can of worms. There look to be a huge range of different modules and I wouldn't have a clue what to do with any of them!
It's more like paying $20-25 for a Niagara Fall simulator video game. Nobody gets hurt, and the worst that can possibly happen would be you're out $20-25.
While I wait for my devices to arrive can I just clarify my understanding on a couple of basic things before I get into the nitty gritty of setting up the parameters:
I connect the Xbee via the USB cable to my PC to set it up using XCTU?
Once that is done and it's connected to the HE Zigbee mesh, I can see the network map?
But to use the Xbee as a repeater/re-router permanently connected are you powering it then with a plug in USB power supply? At that point presumably you can't access the network map (which will have changed if you've moved the Xbee) unless you plug it back into the PC?
What about location of the Xbee? Are you going for close to the hub and using it to boost signal strength or are you placing it at the current edge of the mesh to expand it?
Yes, and if you ordered the model I shared the link you can use a spectrum analyzer too.
Yes
Yes
You can place it where it helps the mesh, this is why the mesh map, you can move it in between your hub and a low signal corner, for example. You can use the HE zigbee log too for the RSSI measure in settings, zigbee, zigbee logs.
Just a note, you should use channel 20 on HE zigbee, HE default the channel to 26 and this channel is not good. I was using the 25 and I had to move to 20. To change the channel you can go to settings, zigbee on the hub.
My personal experience was the xbee did not worked on ch 25, but I started with a series 2, I believe series 3 has no problems with ch 25, I hope you got the one from my link, a series 3.
Because I'm in the UK I was much more limited on available modules so I've ordered one of these so it looks like I will need to switch channels unfortunately
That is the first xbee I got, not sure if maybe with the latest firmware, but it did not worked for me. Anyway, you can change HUE to ch 15 and HE to ch 20, if you have wifi, make sure they are in channels 11, 6 or 1.
Remember that Niagara Falls analogy? I now have three Xbees. Two are static repeaters and one that only gets fired-up when I want to check in on things.
From zero to working Xbee in 3 days! It was all a bit daunting when I first looked at all the settings on XCTU but I was fortunate to find a download of settings from someone on ST using the exact same Xbee model as me that I could just upload to mine and it worked great.
