I have a zigbee contact sensor on the end of my house, for my back porch, that keeps dropping off. I added a zigbee repeater about halfway through the house, close to some other zigbee devices that have stayed connected reliably.
Yesterday I disconnected my hub for about 30 minutes, then plugged it back in. My understanding is that it can take a while for the zigbee devices to recreate their mesh. Unfortunately the back porch sensor was still disconnected today, so I took out the battery and powered it back on. Still nothing. There are some other threads on the matter but this is pretty much what they suggest.
What other steps should I take to reset the zigbee mesh in my house?
It's been about 36 hours and the contact sensor is still not communicating. I can try factory resetting the Iris sensor to reconnect it to Hubitat, but I don't know if that will resolve the issue of getting it to connect to the smart plug.
EDIT: To clarify, I have no problem connecting the Iris sensor to HE when I move HE to the back of my house for pairing. Once I move HE back to my office the Iris sensor loses connection after about a day and I end up having to reset it again.
you should pair it in situ not at the hub, because you're telling it to connect directly via the hub. Try resetting it and then leave the hub where it should be and then join the device. then it will select its route back to the hub.
Are there "tricks" to get zigbee devices to rediscover the "best" path to the hub?
I have a 2600sqft single floor house with hub in one corner (yes, not best, but that's where the router has to sit). I have a lot of non-repeating (battery/bulb) devices marked * - here's a list:
*20 ST motion sensors
*17 Keen vents
*5 bulbs
*2 multisensors
4 dimmers
2 switches
2 Iris plugs
To get my battery devices to consistently (mostly) reach back to the hub, I initially bought 6 of the Iris plugs and placed them in various locations to build out the Zigbee network. Yesterday I replaced several ZW dimmers/switches with Zigbee and they are nicely spread throughout. I have removed 4 of the Iris from my network.
I am now seeing issues with motion triggered actions not happening, or delaying a LONG time. I am pretty sure it is because those sensors don't know the right (or any) path back to the hub.
Wrongly, when I migrated from ST to HE I took the HE through my house as I joined devices - blame ST for bad advise in the past. So a lot of the devices are likely trying to connect directly to the HE and are having a tough time of it.
I'd like to "fix" this completely. I am wondering if I should do a Zigbee Reset then add everything back in (in situ as recommended above) and starting with the powered devices first then adding the battery devices - that seems logical. That said, however, what happens in HE when you do the reset? Are the devices "removed" and thus would need rename and adding back to automations? or are they just "kicked out" of the network and when rejoined they marry back up to their original device in HE (ideal).
Have a look at this doc if you have not seen it. In general Zigbee can take days to heal on its own. You can sometimes expedite it, but in general, the process takes time.
You should make sure those bulbs are not the problem. If they not all Sengled, then they probably are. It best to get any bulb (except Sengled) on its own Zigbee network. Some of use do this with a Hue bridge, some do it with another Hubitat hub. The problem otherwise is the bulbs will try to repeat and will do a lousy job, dropping connections.
Great article, had read the ZW one, but never saw that one...
So, my 5 bulbs are all Hue A19 bulbs... Are you saying I should have a separate hub just for 5 bulbs? If true, I should get 5 new bulbs and toss those. Why are Sengled different?
That was a GREAT read on Zigbee - if I read everything correctly, my best action at this point would be to power down the HE for 20 minutes and that should cause the Zigbee network to heal? Would it also be required to power down the routers as well? Seems those would keep the network "alive" until the hub came back online. I'm good in either case. And yes, I see all the comments that it will take 24-36 hours to rebuild.
That said, with 44/52 of my Zigbee devices being battery powered... does it help (or hurt) if after powering the hub back on to "trigger" those devices so they wake up?
"repeating," classically involves always on power. Bulb manufacturers didn't seem to envision bulbs being placed into sockets that already have a wall switch where power would get shut off. At least that's how it appears Why else would they go ahead and make them routers except in the belief they'd be on always, and I mean ALWAYS. But to then go and decide to make their radios weak, and then if those two weren't enough, don't implement the repeating protocol properly so maybe it will break new or future traffic.
And that's what you have.. bulbs that are weak, or don't repeat what they hear properly, or get turned off and thus do nothing.
Sengled's different because they do not repeat, don't even bother trying.
Thanks for that great explanation. Looks like I need to replace 5 Hue bulbs with Sengled - I'll call that part done.
Thoughts on my other questions? In order to force the mesh to heal, do I need to power down all the repeating Zigbee devices as well as the hub? or just the hub being down will cause them all to reconfigure after it is back on?
And does hit help or hurt to trigger all those motion sensors and vents after the hub is back on? or will not not make a difference?
Yes. Any Zigbee repeater maintains a routing map in memory that will eventually update itself. To force it to update (and if you want to fully rebuild your mesh), you'll need to power off every repeater for 15-30 minutes.
It doesn't make a difference as battery devices are not repeaters and only store transitional routing data that is destroyed quickly. They will basically reach out to the nearest neighbor that they can and if that fails, they will try the next in line until they can't reach anything else.
Great advice from @csteele and @corerootedxb. You might consider (actually I would highly recommend) instead of replacing the bulbs, pickup a Hue bridge. If the Hue bulbs are on the bridge, they are on an independent Zigbee network from your devices and will not be a problem. Plus the Hue Integration built in to HE is excellent. This allows the hue bulbs to repeat for themselves, which they happily do and it's not a problem. It's when they try to repeat for non-bulbs that you have an issue.
The Hue bridge is a nice thing to own as well because there are so many third-party apps for it and you can create a lot of cool effects. I used mine this last Halloween with an app that created a lightening and thunder effect as an example.
Five Sengled bulbs is $50, but the Hue Bridge is on sale right now for $40. Personally I prefer having the Hue bulbs on the bridge. They're nicely balanced and you can also use IKEA Trådfri bulbs with the Hue bridge, which cost even less and are decent bulbs for the price.
Why else would they go ahead and make them routers except in the belief they'd be on always, and I mean ALWAYS. But to then go and decide to make their radios weak, and then if those two weren't enough, don't implement the repeating protocol properly so maybe it will break new or future traffic.
