I’m using the ConbeeII stick on a RPi3 and recently a few of my zigbee devices has just dropped out of the zigbee network. Only battery powered devices from what I can tell. I can delete them and add them again, and then they work for some time, maybe hours, maybe days, but they all just stop reporting any status updates.

I thought perhaps updating ConbeeII to the latest firmware would help, but it appears it didn’t.

Anything I can do to fix this? Other than buying a new stick of a different brand?

  • phrogpilot73@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    Do you have it plugged in via a USB extension cable, or directly into the Pi? I had some flakiness with mainly my battery powered stuff until I plugged the stick into an extension cable.

    • dom@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Likely to do with signal strength and the power of the antennas.

      I had similar issues but I solved it by adding a couple repeaters (outlets) near the devices that were giving me a hard time

      • Geronimo Wenja@agora.nop.chatEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        The thing that really helped me was using my philips hue bulbs with my zigbee device directly instead of through the hue hub. That made the mesh network extend to the entire house instantly, because the lights have constant power and act as repeaters automatically.

        I’m using an Electrolama zzh with an extension cord and it works perfectly, because there’s essentially 1-4 repeaters in every room.

          • Tinkerer@lemmy.caEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            I’m curious too how the ikea tradfri bulbs work. Can I just pair them via zigbee2mqtt?

            • EntenellerEnglish
              1·
              22 days ago

              I totally missed this but basically you have to just put the bulbs in pairing mode–6 on and off (note that it has to be with 1 second pauses between each on/off cycle–that threw me off).

              But after that it will show up as a zigbee device same as any–no IKEA hub required

    • CAVOK@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      It’s directly connected to the pi.

      I don’t think it’s the signal though since one of the devices that disconnects is in the same room. No more than a meter apart, and another device is just on the other side of a wall.

      Is there some other kind of magic happening when you use an extension?

  • wildekek@feddit.nlEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Do you have a USB3 device nearby? The interference from USB3 devices is not to be underestimated. Also check out your WiFi and zigbee channels do not overlap.

    • CmdrShepard@lemmy.oneEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I went and bought some cheap USB extension cables to move both my zigbee and zwave sticks away from any other devices and out of the Pi ports directly. Definitely helped with something as I haven’t had quite so many zigbee issues since doing it.