[APP][Pro] Network Visualizer - See how your devices really reach each other, and where the signal struggles

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41

I have a dozen of the RGBW GU10, a dozen of the RGBW B22/E27 bulbs, a LED light strip, and a round ceiling light fixture… plus 8 smart plugs and 10 RC250 wireless smart buttons.

Even though the RGBW B22/E27 Zigbee bulbs are listed in the devices list when trying to add new devices via the official app, they never actually get detected as such, and always add as Unknown Zigbee device. I have tried to raise this more than once with INNR, but never received any response. So that also doesn’t inspire me with confidence in their Zigbee products. And although I like the button layout and look of their RC250 wireless buttons, they have proven far from reliable. Often not responding on first or even subsequent presses, either needing Repair or moving from their magnetic wall mount closer to Homey to get working.

I have been careful to restrict my WiFi APs to the lower channels (2, 4 & 6) while my Aqara Hub M3 uses Zigbee channel 15, and my Homey Pro uses Zigbee channel 25. And I have run scans of the channels to check for interference multiple times. I have also been careful to make sure that every room in my home has at least 2 permanently powered router nodes, and that no router nodes are deprived of mains power at any time. To try and make my Zigbee mesh the strongest and most stable it can be.

Apart from my Homey Bridge always appearing as offline, with no route to host in the network map. The other main culprits every time are the INNR devices, mostly the RC250’s.

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42

That’s too bad. Interesting to read that we both have nearly opposite experiences with INNR.

I was in frequent contact with their support team (and occasionally with their external Homey app developer) over more than a year with some issues I ran into with their SP240 smart plugs (I have around 30 of them in use and they act as the backbone of my Zigbee network). Both firmware and app issues. They always responded within a few days and in the end the issues were resolved.

It’s unfortunate to hear that you experienced a different level of service, especially since you have so many of the products (though that should of course not make a difference in their services provided).

43

It is most disappointing, as I thought I had done my due diligence in researching before heavily investing in their products, and I had plans to expand the use of their products to outside lighting in my garden too. But now I am considering ditching their ecosystem, and replacing all the devices I have (when funds allow) with Aqara (plugs & bulbs), Sonoff (wireless buttons), and Govee (LED strips & outdoor lighting) devices. All of which have proven to be more reliable and stable in operation. I’ve already abandoned the INNR Bridge, as that does not play well with Homey, and has virtually no configuration options or diagnostic information.

EDIT: I’m also most disappointed by my Homey Bridge seemingly not taking part in my Zigbee mesh at all. As I specifically purchased it to be a powered router node to strengthen my mesh. But it permanently shows as Offline with no route to host, and no child devices.

44

Did you have any issues with my Innr Bridge app, or was it just problems with the bridge itself?

45

Not your app Good sir :saluting_face:

And I haven’t forgotten about getting you that data, I just haven’t had chance yet.

Like I mentioned previously, it was the INNR Bridge’s lack of configuration options and diagnostic information. And the fact I couldn’t find a way to modify the actions of linked RC250 remote buttons, they seem fixed in the INNR mobile app. But if I pair them with Zigbee to Homey and the Homey INNR app I can assign whatever functions I like to the different buttons on the remote in Flows. (Although I am preferring the stability and reliability of the Sonoff Orb 4 in 1 buttons at present to the INNR RC250’s)

My Homey Pro (2026) is currently struggling a bit for memory, so I had to uninstall your app for a while to free up some resources, as I wasn’t actively using it at present :grimacing:

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46

The problems with innr gu10 spots is known and Athom is in contact with innr to look into it (though this is from some time ago)
The bulbs use Zigbee Light Link and there’s a bug with the firmware which is in use with Homey’s zigbee chip if I remember correctly. There a post here somewhere where Doekse confirms this.

I ran into this bug myself after I tried reconnecting my GU10 bulbs I had previously connected to Homey before we moved to our new house :frowning:

Due to these problems I got very interested in this visualizer and analyzing my Zigbee ntwork and got some idea’s how to further enhance the functionality of this tool.

Here’s a preview of what I’m testing currently:

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47

I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s gone down the INNR Zigbee rabbit hole… and I must say you did a more eloquent job of explaining it than I.

I am looking forward to seeing the enhanced features you are cooking up for this exceedingly useful Zigbee utility :raised_fist:t3: respect.

48

Mine (singular at the moment) seems to be working ok connected to Homey Pro (although still avoiding the Bridge). I tried leaving the bulb powered on (via top switch of an AqaraH2) & changing the 3 flows that are operated by the bottom switch to control the bulb directly (plus controlling another dumb lamp connected to the other Aqara H2). It seems to work just as (un)reliably. Once I’ve got a flow to work, either by multiple attempts at a button press or running one of the flows directly from the Homey app (that always works 1st time), it then works & keeps working (at least for a while). After some time, as yet unmeasured (say I’ve gone off & done something else rather than standing pressing buttons), I’m back to the not working immediately phase.

If it was the Innr bulb not working with Homey’s ZigBee should I expect the other light to come on by itself, that lamp is powered on & off by the other Aqara H2 switch.

This is the Innr lamp model I’ve got

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49

That might be the case in the mobile app, but I think the Bridge still sends each button press to the cloud, and that can usually be captured by my Homey app as well.

I did read somewhere that the Bridge can only pair 4 remotes before its capacity is full, but I’m not sure if that is still the case. Like I said earlier, only Innr device I own is the bridge (no remotes) so I’m not sure.

50

That might be the case. But as the INNR Bridge Zigbee network is a complete unknown. It not even telling you what channel it’s using, the risk of encountering interference problems having 3 WiFi APs using the lower 6 channels, an Aqara Hub M3 on Zigbee Ch15, and Homey Pro on Zigbee Ch25. I have decided that the INNR Bridge is too basic for my requirements, and therefore not suitable for my needs.

I never got that far in my testing. I only tested it with 2 bulbs and 2 RC250 remotes, for the living room big light. The 2 bulbs in 2 ceiling pendant lights, and an RC250 remote at either end of the room. They all paired with the Bridge fine, and showed up in the app okay. Pairing them all together in a group was easy enough. But there were zero options for the functions for the On/Off, Up, Down, Left and Right. The On/Off did as expected. The Up and Down just changed the brightness. And the Left and Right just rotated through colours.

Whereas with them all paired back with Homey now, I can have the On/Off and Up/Down control the ceiling lights, and the Left and Right control the brightness of floor lamps. And I at least have some options for Zigbee fault diagnosis using things like this Zigbee app. If the INNR Bridge stops responding good luck… best you can do is unplug it and plug it back in. But then the INNR bridge costs 20 quid… a far cry from that of the Aqara M3 or Homey Pro ha ha

51

New test version is out, v.1.3.0. A huge thanks to Danee de Kruyff who has contributed to this release.

What´s new:

  • Dashboard widget: the Zigbee map on your Homey dashboard. Tap a device to see its route to Homey.
  • Browser view: the full visualizer in a browser tab on your local network. Switch it on in the
    settings page (it has no login).
  • Snapshot history: save your network every few hours and step back through the snapshots.
  • See what changed: devices that switched parent, joined or left are listed and highlighted on
    the map.
  • Export and import: download the history for analysis, or load a saved Zigbee dump.
52

My inner geek is doing a happy dance :partying_face:

Much appreciation and gratitude chaps. I shall install this instant, and test the night away :smiley:

53

Great.
So next project is like this, but for thread/matter :wink:

54

Looks great! :grinning_face:

A noob question: what is the difference between a route and a binding?

55

hmm… Perhaps rename this app to “Network visualizer” and include Zigbee, Matter and Z-Wave. It´s basically just graphs… hmm..with a dropdown to select what type of network you would want to see…hmmm

56

If possible. Separate the thread from wifi, when it comes to matter

57

I’m not sure how you would do a Matter route map, as that’s a application protocol that sits on top of the network protocol of Thread :thinking:

But yeah, if you can include Thread and Z-wave maps, that would be truly awesome!

EDIT: While we’re dreaming big, would it be possible to include hub information? Things like channel, PAN ID, Extended PAN ID / IEEE address, and perhaps the Z-Stack firmware version. It all seems to be available in the response from the dev tools, so hoping you are able to access it within the app?

58

I don´t have any thread/matter myself. If anyone would share their dump of their network (if possible) that would be great. Remember to remove (if any) secrets or keys from the dump.

59

Here’s a little background on the history function

You can look into the history of your Zigbee network through the history bar.

History bar
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Hide/Show
The first icon, the clock, lets you collapse the history bar for when you need more space to display your Zigbee network.

Settings
The cogwheel icon let’s you open the setting where you can configure the history function

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Use the Save snapshots checkbox to enable or disable the creation of snapshots.
You can set the interval between snapshots to 1,2,4 or 8 hours between them and you can configure how much snapshots to save, between 2 and 24

Download History
The download icon will download all snapshots, in json format, so you can drop it in your preferred AI chat for analysis. Instructions on how the interpret the data is included. Your network key is removed from the snapshots, device names are not.

Timeline
The dot item is the Zigbee dump of the time of opening the visualizer in your browser, so a realtime overview. The numbers are the snapshots relative to current snapshot, when selecting an interval of 1 and keeping 24 snapshots you obviously have to wait for 24 hours until the full history bar is filled.

Change Indicator
The dots above the snapshots indicate there’s a change detected between the snapshots this can be joined or leaving devices, but also changed routes. Traffic counters obviously change between snapshots, so they’re ignored for this indicator.

Changes
In the right pane an extra tab is added. This tab will show an overview of the changes between the opened snapshot and the previous snapshot

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Route History
On the devices details pane a Route History overview is added

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This overview will show the history of the devices parent device over all snapshots.

Any questions? Just post them here.

60

Homey doesn’t return Thread node details like it does for Zigbee and Z-wave. In the dev tool you just get a table of matter devices with their MAC and IP address and if they are Thread or WiFi Matter devices. It doesn’t seem to differentiate the Thread mesh network from your WiFi Matter devices.
I’m happy to message you a copy of the table from my dev tools, but not sure if it will be helpful, there’s no mesh details, and I can’t see the API providing much more than that TBH. A mahoosive shame to be sure, but I think that’s just Athom’s implementation of Thread.