In order to remove all user error, I removed the XBee device, and re-added the tradfri repeater that was also exhibiting the same problem yesterday. The tradfri repeater has no settings that can be changed by the user. Same thing.
Shot in the dark: Is the hub staying on the same Zigbee channel that you expect? There have been reports of anomalous channel changes before, so far unexplained (happened to me once, though the hub went back to its assigned channel after rebooting). If the hub issues the appropriate network management command for a channel change, all your routers would rescan and rejoin, getting new device ID's.
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I had that happen once...but it was associated with a lockeup as the zigbee radio was "dying". It didn't actually change channels, at least in my case. It just looked like it did.
What was the fix?
Once i rebooted, the hub came back up and the zigbee radio was reporting it was back on the correct channel. I suspect that the freq never actually changed...I just happened to be looking at the UI during the start of a lockup and happened to notice that particular thing. The zigbee radio is the first thing to be lost (for a c-4 hub at least).
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I have similar problem in the past. In my case, I find that I have a rouge device that send packet with short Zigbee NWK ID of my router.
I found this issue by sniffing my zigbee packets. Zigbee packet is encrypted. But, to track this issue, you do not need to decrypted the packets. The packets will print the 64bit mac address and the short address. When the router change ID, i notice a packet with the same short NWK ID with different MAC address.
In Zigbee, there is a mechanism to resolve conflicting addresses. This mechanism kicked in when the router receive a packet with the same short network id from a packet that does not have the same mac as its own.
My device that generate this packet is a Bosch Motion sensor. From my observation, it start doing this when it is low on battery.
I am not sure whether you have the same issue. This is what did happen to me.
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Interesting.
I have 4 Bosch motion detectors. Yesterday with all my Zigbee shenanigans, I noticed one had dropped off. Low battery. And so yesterday, I replaced the batteries in it.
Today, the zigbee device ID is still changing. I have other Bosch motion detectors, but they all report 100% battery. I will remove all 4 Bosch MD's and see if it becomes stable.
You were indeed correct. Removed all 4 (showing 100% battery) and problem vanished.
@mike.maxwell are you able to fix/modify the official Bosch motion detector driver? It's been ther cause behind my major zigbee issues. When I removed the 4 Bosch MD's from my network, everything works as it should.
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Theres nothing we can do with a device that goes full on stupid under low battery conditions...
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There probably should be an advisory to change out all batteries when migrating devices to Hubitat. The batteries will probably take a pretty good hit before the mesh has stabilized and people will blame Hubitat for their issues.
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Also, that battery levels reported are often inaccurate adding to the issue.
I would be very hesitant to issue such an advisory. It has the potential of scaring away a lot of potential customers.
I mean this for people that have been using battery powered devices on another hub. Lithium batteries have a very consistent voltage output that varies little until they are about dead. I know I changed out quite a few of my batteries shortly after coming from SmartThings and at the time thought wtf. I now know that the batteries will run down much faster until there is a good mesh and at the time the batteries had been in use for over a year. I wouldn’t expect a cr2 to die from the switch, but the Samsung button’s 2450 will be about spent.
This issue has nothing to do with a hub. This will happen on any Zigbee mesh regardless the brand. It is not specific to Hubitat.
That isn’t the point at all. I’m just saying that this could cause problems for people migrating from another hub. Why not try to avoid problems?
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I totally get what you're saying. Maybe a different way to put it would be, "If you are migrating battery-powered devices from another platform, we recommend you start with a fresh set of batteries before migration".
@Ryan780 - I'm curious, in your opinion, would this statement scare off potential customers?
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Yes, what you said. I wasn’t trying to be the spokesperson for HE. I just thought it might be something to consider for best practices.
Yeah...it would. A fresh battery in every single device? That's not a small investment. Especially when to change them you'd have to rip them off a wall, repaint, and put it back up. I would also wonder why they were asking this? Are they saying that batteries don't last as long on Hubitat? Are they saying that they don't have accurate battery reporting levels?
Anything negative you say during the sales process will lose you customers if you do it long enough. That's just statistics.
Well, I love the Samsung buttons, but when I switched to HE from ST I had to replace all of the 2450 batteries because they all died within a couple of weeks. The Hue dimmer batteries all needed replaced shortly after them. Maybe just something to make people aware of if they run into issues.
I dunno you could say "recommended but not required" or something like that.
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