Zigbee network

Hi.

I was wondering if it is possible to find out the following about my Zigbee network.

  1. Whether devices are connected directly to the hub or via a repeater.
  2. The signal strength between devices and the network.
  3. Where in the house the Zigbee signal is weak.

Thanks

You can get some of that info by entering

http://[yourhubIPaddress]/hub/zigbee/getChildAndRouteInfo

in a browser window.

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As @marktheknife indicated, you can get some of that information via the endpoint he indicated. That being said, I would recommend setting up an xbee3 to get a complete picture of your Zigbee network that will clearly (and dynamically) address points 1 & 2. Point 3 is more difficult to do - you'd need a scanner of some nature for that.

@NoWon's Everything Xbee thread is a great place to start:

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Thanks @marktheknife I went to that address and get the following. Any guidance on how to read it would be appreciated.

Information on getChildandRouteInfo is kind of scattered in posts all over the forum; here's another stab at summarizing it:

Child Data: These are the battery operated devices (or non-repeating mains powered devices like Sengleds) that communicate directly with the hub without going through a repeater. Child devices of other Zigbee routers are not shown here, though they may show up as destinations in Route Table entries.

Neighbor Table Entry: The list of 'best' in-range repeaters that get used as first-hop destinations for routed messsages, along with link quality metrics; updated 4x a minute through neighbor link status exchanges. In stable RF environment these neighbors won't change often; as RF conditions change, poorly performing neighbors can be evicted from this table in favor of those with better quality links.

LQI/Cost: "The LQI measurement is a characterization of the strength and/or quality of a received packet. LQI is required, but unlike RSSI (Receive Signal Strength Indication -- a standardized value), it is left to the manufacturer to determine how to implement LQI. On-chip radios differ significantly, so the mechanisms to evaluate LQI must be specific to the radio. The relationship between LQI and link “cost” for purposes of route/neighbor maintenance in the stack is such that LQI values of 200 map to the lowest costs of 1, 3 and 5, while LQIs below 200 represent links with high error rates, so the worst-case cost of 7 is assigned" (excerpted from: Silicon Labs Community)

Age: incremented every link status interval (roughly 15 seconds) and reset when link status exchange occurs; normally seen incrementing from 3 to 6 with links that are currently providing status updates (age counts 0-2 are used when links are synchronizing). Age count > 6 implies excessive missed link status intervals; status is stale and neighbor is candidate for eviction.

inCost: Metric of how well the hub is receiving (derived from LQI as described above). outCost: Measure of how well the hubs transmissions are being heard by the neighbor receiver (derived from neighbor's computed LQI and transmitted to hub via link status exchange). Lower numbers are better except outCost of zero indicates that no status information has been received from neighbor link.

Route Table Entries display cached output of 'route record requests'; used to determine 'next hop' destinations for routed messages. The 'vias' indicate which first-hop neighbor is being used to reach a given device. You may se sleepy devices and other non-neighbor Zigbee routers show up as destinations in these entries from time to time as the table is dynamic.

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What @Tony said :wink:.

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And how can we turn over a new leaf in 2022 to consolidate fine efforts such as this; if not have them adopted as permanent content in the Documentation WiKi.

Or perhaps the WiKi links to highly valuable discussions with entries such as this that are as good as documentation.

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