Blue Series 2-1 Signal / Routing / Performance Issue Troubleshooting Thread

I had a single switch in my box of 10 that wasn’t either 94:34:69:FF:FE… or 38:5B:44:FF:FE…, and of course it was one of the three I hadn’t installed yet. I swapped it for one that was giving me trouble and it has a much stronger signal to the coordinator and has even taken over routing to the bulb it’s meant to control. Looking much better for when the rest are up to speed.

3 Likes

I was finally able to find one that would pair in the location that was giving me trouble, so currently I have a pile of 3 switches out of the impacted range. I’ve also noticed another switch which is paired, but misbehaving with constant timeouts noted in the zigbee2mqtt logs meaning that adaptive lighting stops working and I’m unable to set any config parameters.

Looking forward to a fix soon so I don’t have to swap that one as well. I still have 1 10 pack remaining that I’m not going to touch until this is resolved.

@Eric_Inovelli I am disheartened to find that 19/20 of the switches I received match against the IEEE numbers you mentioned

38:5b:44:ff and 94:34:69:ff

I’ve pulled out the one switch that doesn’t match the rest and will try to swap that one into a far away place. I’m anxious to hear any news on what will happen to the rest of our switches? I’ve got 19 potential duds here, 3 installed already (2 that paired but dc’d and 1 that never pairs) and waiting to find out out fate before I bother installing another.

Understood, we are working as fast as we can on the issue.

8 Likes

I too have some routing and signal strength issues; installed 7/40 out of the switches I ordered so far, and am definitely seeing things like switches installed in the same gangbox not being able to see each other at all. Also, zigbee2mqtt (repo image docker.io/koenkk/zigbee2mqtt@sha256:f9ac7e87c4962fc3abd4c3520f03f5c84e21df69df481fb82716761709c4667c) is showing an LQI of 255 for every switch in the devices view (is that the self-reported value?), but in map view, these lqi values are as low as 21.

Here’s my list of IEEE addresses; LQI values are from z2m’s map view as the device list says it’s all 255s:

  • 0x385b44fffee8ee53 - offline. Should see one switch 20cm away and a sonoff outlet about 1m away
  • 0x943469fffe05c966 - LQI 29 to a sonoff outlet 4m away; an exception to the rule in that it’s connected to its neighbor in the gangbox at LQI 116/110.
  • 0x385b44fffee8ed8d - the neighbor switch; LQI 4/76 to a thermostat about 4m away, on the floor below.
  • 0x385b44fffeee16c7 - LQI 12/98 to that thermostat about 5m away, and LQI 38 to a sonoff outlet about 1.5m away.
  • 0x385b44fffeee1cb2 - LQI 47/110 to that thermostat about 4m away, 29 to that sonoff outlet also 1.5m away.
  • 0x943469fffe05cb8f - LQI 109/137 to that thermostat about 1m away (seems like this is the one good switch I managed to put in, but it doesn’t mesh with anything else, not even the sonoff outlet 5m away).
  • 0x385b44fffee8e989 - LQI 5/89 to that thermostat, no other connections to either switches nor that sonoff outlet that’s 4m away.

I have about 33 more switches to try, but it takes a long time and trips to a breaker box that is far away to switch them out and try them, so I’ll stand by and wait to see how diagnosis goes.

One thing that I would love to know - is there a way to reboot the switch without turning off power and without factory-resetting it? I notice that they pick up zigbee mesh candidates when power-cycled, so if there’s an easy way to do that, it would help me bridge the period in which we don’t know how to treat this problem yet.

4 Likes

You can power cycle them by pulling the air gap on the bottom left (little white tab) all the way out (should see it go dark) and then pushing it back in.

Those are all in the main blocks of ieee space being looked at unfortunately (tip if you’re looking for which to install, the little sticker in the box has IEEE listed as EUI if you want to check to see if you have others as well). I have a few of each and while I was able to get one to pair, it definitely has low LQI despite being very close to the coordinator.

3 Likes

Oh man, thanks to you and stu1811 for that air gap hint. I had already evicted that knowledge from my brain!

As for the sticker, I’d love to know if anyone has destructured the QR code on the front of the device yet & knows if it contains the IEEE address; that would make it much easier to inventory large numbers of them :smile:

Edit: There are plenty of QR code-scanning apps that will decode the front-facing sticker just fine & the format is easy to decipher too: Fields are colon-separated, starts with a Z: and the second field is the IEEE address. That’ll make it much easier to find which switch is which.

1 Like

Yeah, you gotta yank that air-gap out pretty hard – initially, I was just getting it about halfway and thought all mine were defective.

Google Lens can read the QR code to get the IEEE address

2 Likes

Yeah I used a qr scanner on all mine last night, I recommend only bothering to install them right now if they aren’t from the impacted batch, otherwise you’re going to risk disappointment

There are a lot of listed IEEE addresses. Is there a consolidated list of which to look out for? I’ve got my switches coming today (fingers crossed) and would like to avoid opening the ones that may have issues.

2 Likes

These are the 2 main blocks that seem to be problematic -
94:34:69
38:5b:44

2 Likes

You have to open it to find out the ieee

1 Like

Update, I have one single switch with a non-affected IEEE address, 040d84fffe02b4ce; that is able to mesh with all devices next to it and gets pretty excellent connection quality indicators. It even gets a direct link to the coordinator, despite being the switch that’s the furthest removed from it.

I have 2 04:0d:84 switches out of 10 and these are the only ones with an LQI consistently over 50.
The others are in the known “issue” group 94:34:69 and 38:5b:44 and are usually below 50.
I also have a switch inside a double gang box along with a z-wave fan switch and it reports as 0 most of the time.

Just my luck. Received my 50 blue switches today and every single one is from either of the two effected lots. Debating even trying to install them at this point. Has anyone had these work with these lot numbers?

I have one currently installed and working, but it’s maybe 10ft from the coordinator on the other side of the wall. If you have a solid Zigbee mesh and you follow the general suggestions for Zigbee (usb extension cable, planned separation of wifi/zigbee channels, etc), you may be fine, but it’s really hard to tell offhand unfortunately.

Edit - I do have a couple others from those lots for clarity, they’re staying in boxes for now unless I need to do something specific testing-wise with them.

3 Likes

I’ve got 10 94:34:69 switches. I’ve installed 5. They were a little tricky to pair. I have some Ikea tradfri outlets/repeaters and I’ve had to place them very near the switches.

I just thought this was a zigbee range issue versus Z-Wave because my red switches have much better range. They work but I hope this can be fixed and I can remove the Ikea repeaters or place them where I want.

1 Like

@Eric_Inovelli any updates by chance from the engineers?

2 Likes

Took one out of the pack to test out. 943469 ieee. Not much issue pairing, lqi listed at 61 shrug. We’ll see how it goes

3 Likes