Serious pairing problems to Hubitat for Blue Series 2-1 switches/dimmers

Switches General Discussion
1

Configuration: Hubitat C-8 Pro in one corner of the ground floor of a 2-story 3800 sf house with basically a box shape, with drywall and wood stud interior construction. Latest firmware installed (2.3.9.193). Paired Zigbee units include 43 mains-powered Leviton Zigbee dimmers or switches, 13 mains-powered plugin outlets (mix of Sengled, GE, and Leviton), and 1 Aeotec range extender at the opposite corner of the house from the hub (installed to reach a shed nearby).

In addition, I have 1 working and paired Inovelli Blue 2-1 (dimmer configuration), and 4 non-pairing (but locally working) Inovelli Blue 2-1’s.

The 4 non-pairing IB’s are at these distances: 16 feet (2 IB’s), 25 feet, 60 feet. ALL of these IB’s are within 20 feet of 6 or more paired mains-powered Zigbee devices, and within 5 feet or less of at least one mains-powered Zigbee device.

The one paired IB is about 6 feet from the hub. The “Check Zigbee Network Strength at your Switches location” button combination shows green (strong signal) for that unit. It was the first IB installed, and based on its capabilities, I bought 40 more IB’s direct from Inovelli that arrived Oct. 7, 2024 (so I’m hoping that they cannot be the known bad types from 2 or 3 years ago).

ALL of the other installed 4 IB’s show red for network strength. NONE will pair, although on occasion each has been seen but pairing failed. If the reading is correct, it looks like the IB’s won’t pair through other mains-powered routers??

Besides “regular” pairing, I’ve tried resetting each device to factory status, pairing while trying to avoid Zigbee 3.0 repeaters, and pairing while exchanging keys in the clear. No joy. I’ve tried increasing the Zigbee radio power – I was at level 8 before installing the 4 recalcitrant IB’s, and tried levels 12, 16, and 20: no joy.

Any constructive suggestions before I return all 40 IB units? I REALLY want these units to work!

2

Where did you buy the switches from? If you bought them from Inovelli or Aartech, you shouldn’t be concerned about them being from the bad lot.

Did you try factory resetting the switches and re-pairing?

3

As noted in my (admittedly long) text, (1) I bought directly from Inovelli and took delivery Oct. 7, 2024 (so I agree, these units should not be from the bad lot), and (2) I’ve tried factory re-setting (multiple times) and re-pairing.

I’m just now shutting down my hub and will move it next to each IB switch so that distance is not a factor (will connect to the hub via wi-fi).

4

What zigbee channel are you using – is it well deconflicted from your 2.4 wifi and (if applicable) any other zigbee hubs (e.g. Hue)?

Although my Blues never gave me any pairing issues, I did have a ton of zigbee problems in general when I moved from my C7 to C8… 3 things solved it for me – I can’t promise these will help you, but food for thought…

  1. Removed any older ZHA1.2 mains-powered devices. Fortunately, I only had 2 (Halo smoke detectors, and they were getting close to EOL anyway). Having all (mains-powered) repeaters ZB3.0 was significant for me.

  2. I’ve used channel 15 for many years for my home automation (SmartThinsg on to Hubitat). My Hue has forever been on ch 20. My wifi hangs out in the lower channels. Moving Hubitat from 15 to ch 25 was very helpful.

  3. I dropped my C8 radio power to 4 – as unintuitive as that sounds, this was a key move too – it put the workload on my (3.0) repeaters to carry the mesh instead of devices all trying to talk to the hub directly.

Good luck!

5

Sorry, your comment about the bad batch jumped out at me and I missed the purchase source comment.

One of the Hubitat folks should comment. Seems like there’s something weird going on with your mesh. The odfs of getting 40 bad switches are infinitesimal.

6

Well, admittedly, I’ve only tested 4 of the 40 IB units, so I can’t say the other 36 would be problematic!

7

Thanks for your input!

I don’t have anything that is non Hubitat. I started with a C-7 unit about 2 years ago and upgraded to C-8 Pro. All of the mains-powered units I have (nearly 60) purport to be Zigbee 3.0 compliant.

I’m using channel 20, which has worked for many months before I tried adding the IB units. I’ll try moving the channel around (but the Zigbee mesh has worked fine on channel 20 for all other devices, and for ONE IB unit).

I did try power level 4, but only for a short bit of testing. I’ll try that again!

8

Well, close proximity of the hub to a balky IB unit doesn’t seem to be a solution. I switched my hub to WiFi and plugged it in about 12 inches away from one of the installed IB units. I changed the power level to 4. The “Check Zigbee Network Strength at your Switches location” button combination shows red (poor signal) for that unit. Yet the hub works with all of the other non-IB switches, dimmers, and devices that are many feet away.

To eliminate the Hubitat hub as a factor, I’ll be installing a new one tomorrow (just waiting for Amazon to deliver).

9

I had a similar experience with my first 3 switches. I tried everything (I thought). Turns out when I upgraded my C8 to C8 Pro, I did it using a transfer of a backup. But, I never turned off my C8, so both were running on channel 20. Changed the Channel on the old one and that fixed the problem. Before I figured that out, I moved all my Zigbee devices to a dedicated Zigbee C7, so I had ti solved before I realized the channel issue.

Given all that, my switches always report red signal strength, even the one right next to the hub. However, they still work fine.

10

I finally got my 4 installed but non-pairing IB’s to pair. It was some combination of:

  1. Moving my hub to the center of the first floor of the house (but noting that it’s previous location worked fine for over 120 Zigbee devices).
  2. Changing the Zigbee channel from 20 (which had worked for MONTHS for over 120 other Zigbee devices) to 25.
  3. Holding my mouth just right, like my Daddy taught me many years ago for catching fish.

So I’m set to install the other 36 IB’s in place of my Levitons. I still haven’t installed the new C-8 Pro hub I bought (to eliminate the hub radio as a factor) but I may not need that now.