I have a C8 and the zigbee power is set at the full 20 as my house is a fairly large 300+ years old with very thick walls.
The C8 is positioned fairly central in the house. I was wondering if this configuration of the zigbee power can negatively affect zigbee devices that are very close. I have 7 aqara temperature/humidity sensors, 5 of which seem to be stable but two of them are close to the hub, 6 - 8ft away, and they seem to keep dropping off.
I appreciate aqara devices aren't the most stable in HE but it just seems a bit of a coincidence that the two closest are the unstable ones. I do have plenty of ikea zigbee repeaters and other zigbee devices that act as repeaters so maybe I'd be best turning down the power and letting the repeaters do the work?
This is less likely the power setting and more likely the Aqara devices, which are known to drop off. You could always lower the power setting to 16 and see if that improves your experience.
Very likely. FWIW, I found that dropping radio power helped other devices (Hue motion sensors) stay connected. I think that increasing radio power also increases noise, which is bad in some radio environments.
This is totally just my own $0.02, but one of the changes that fixed my C8's zigbee-mesh issues was cutting down that hub power... I moved from old channel 15 to 25, and went down to power "4".
My router hangs out in low 2.4 channels and my Hue's on 20, so 25 was a safe choice. I already had good physical placement of repeaters for mesh, so this move just put the heavy lifting on to them. For me, this was a key move to zigbee stability.
But the other key move was using (known high quality) zigbee 3.0 repeaters only -- I had to get rid of a couple mains-powered ZB1.2 devices that worked fine on my C7. I also dumped the few Tuya and Sengled (even 3.0 versions) devices I had -- I just lost faith in their reliability, but I know others have had no issues with either/both.
For me, that was the price of progress, but at least my zigbee mesh is now back to good ol' C7-level of reliability.
Every system is different and what works for some may not work for all. My Zigbee radio settings for example:
Exactly the same combination here.
Same.
I've dropped the power down to 12, wait and see if things improve.
Hi
Where to set the power on C7?
Zigbee radio power is only adjustable on the C8/Pro
I have had the best success w/Zigbee devices on my hub connecting to the hub via repeaters, rather than direct. I run Aqara on my C8 and C7, and they are solid on both hubs. I use SonOff USB Dongle repeaters, Ikea repeaters, Centralite/Iris repeaters...
I'm at power level 8 channel 15 on the C8. Things are working there so I haven't futzed w/the power in a while, higher powers did not help. So generally I'd go lower as long as things stay connected/work normally.
If you continue to have problems w/the Aqara I don't think you can go wrong trying adding a SonOff USB Dongle P repeater. Takes a little work to get set up, and ugly as sin so you have to hide it, but it's kept things in order for me.
