The more I’m reading here the more I’m thinking there are some bad devices in the wild. I only have two devices to work with, but they both seem to be incredibly RF weak. I have a large strong zigbee mesh, with my furthest devices about 150’ outside the house in the backyard. Meanwhile my Hubitat hub has the external antenna mod (highly recommended!) and my RSSI is low to mid 90’s sitting ten feet away from the hub. Just getting the switch to join takes a few tries, and once it does, commands don’t always execute, and confirmation on the hub side rarely updates.
All that said, how can this be a discussion about which channel to use, or interference from other devices, when I have 48+ Zigbee devices (most of them battery-powered) that honestly work flawlessly? I’m half expecting to open this switch up and find an unsoldered antenna, I wish it was that simple!
I’ve managed to get 8 switches paired, but the one I mentioned earlier is the furthest away from the coordinator, and I wasn’t able to pair it after numerous tries. So I unplugged the computer running HA and moved it closer to the problem switch, and it paired with no problems. But after moving the HA computer back to its usual place, the switch has fallen off the network. I was able to remotely turn it on and off a few times, but it’s mostly unresponsive to remote commands. Why isn’t it finding the nearby routers? There are two other Blue switches within about 15 feet.
Well… I have good news and bad news. I just spent about an hour carefully taking one apart, reseating the zigbee antenna, and reassembling. Inclusion now happened on the first try, and RSSI went from mid 90’s to mid 80’s. Mid 80’s still isn’t great but its a measurable improvement, and more important the switch actually seems to be functioning as it was intended to. With this RSSI I’m not sure if I’ll be able to mount it in a box more than a room away from the hub, but I’ll try to work on that tomorrow…
Was the connector noticeably loose, or did it appear well-attached? How much disassembly was needed to get at the cable and connector? 20 switches showing up tomorrow… would like to avoid doing this if it’ll really take an hour each. Otoh, if that’s what it takes to make them work, I’ll do it.
It wasn’t really loose, but I reseated it anyway. I also rerouted the wire. The improvement I’m getting is noticeable, however, I do not think this is the root issue. Someone smarter than me will have to look at this. The RSSI I’m getting now is mid 80’s and that’s really not great, its just good enough to work. I’m 10 feet from the hub. I’m hoping radio power can be adjusted with firmware, otherwise my limited understanding is leaning towards bad radios. I almost don’t even want to post this because I could be totally wrong… but reseating the antenna connector and moving the wire was enough to make the difference of the switch barely being able to communicate at all, to it working 10 feet from the hub.
Add me to the list of frustrated. Received my pack of 20 yesterday and had electrician install them today. I can only get 1 to connect, in the same room as the server. HASS, 20’ USB extension, Sonoff stick 3 .0 -P.
20 ft extension? Is this an active extension or using a hub? I think you’re past USB2 and 3 spec with that distance fyi.
Also for clarity Z2MQTT or ZHA?
Correct, 15’ USB not 20’. It’s a passive cable, using ZHA.
Ok perfect, if you didn’t catch it already, this thread has a form to fill out with some added details if you’re willing. I know they’re trying to correlate information and work with the engineers to figure out what’s happening for people.