Aqara devices are lost

Since the last automatic update of Homey (pro), many of my Zigbee Aqara devices are lost.
They still show up in my devices, but not responding for (16 atm) days now.

Resetting, and re-adding the devices does not work. Actually, it seems adding any Zigbee devices doesn’t seem to work anymore. I’m unable to add them after removing them via de app. This is done several cm’s from Homey.

I did try tor reset the devices by holding the reset button for several seconds (3,5,10,15,30). No way of adding them anymore. Restarting Homey also doesn’t help

Any advice / tips? other people having these issues?

Check the Homey Developer Tools to see how many end devices (usually battery operated, such as the aqaras) are directly connected to Homey. If that is over 15 and you do not have many zigbee router devices, you may need to add extra routers. Athom also does not advise more than about 30-40 zigbee devices in total connected to Homey without use of an additional bridge. I have 50 though, and a stable zigbee mesh.

If you still use the original Athom power adapter then try replacing it with a different one rated 2.1A or higher. Voltages of the original tend to drop below what’s needed.

You could also try the procedure to reinstall a full firmware (without loosing any data) using the procedure described here:

It may be that the firmware is somehow not completely installed.

If that does not fix it I think you should contact athom support.

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… and, disable auto updates!
Q: Do you happen to have Osram smart plugs?

I have one added, but not active atm (Christmas tree)

Thanks. I’ll double check the power.

I have 16 Zigbee devices connected ATM. I had 24 devices added and that was working for several months w/o an issue. Only after the update this happened.

Also, my overview shows ? under route for all my devices.

You mean unplugged or switched off?
I mentioned Osram b/c there’s only one model working well with Aqara.

Also, did you ever perform a complete zigbee reset after fw v5.0.x was installed?
It’s a pain (pair all devices again and repair all flows associated with them), but there’re several positive experiences reported of zigbee performing quicker and more stable.

That behaviour has been reported and known to Athom. But those zigbee networks still worked fine.

Sometimes PtP solves the weirdest issues, did you try unplug the poweradapter from Homey for at least 11mins?

Ok I’ve reset the whole Zigbee network and started with reading the 2 power-sourced devices. After that all the battery-powered devices.

All easy to add, no issues. Now to update my 20+ flows.
It’s horrible that this is required, in the many years I own a Homey, it’s NEVER been a stable product.

Thanks all for the support and ideas!!

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You’re welcome, Stephan.
I really hope it gets more stable now.
As my Homey isn’t perfect either, it’s over 95% stable.
The stability depends on so many things, like all the radio’s (interference), the devices, the apps, etc. And ofcourse it needs TLC.
I always wonder how the whole bunch keeps working day&night :wink:

I am wondering if your aqara devices are still all working. Several users have the same problems with aqara sensors and after resetting and ZigBee resets… routers first installation etc they still fail after a while or become silent aka not responding

So far so good. All Sensors are working fine and behave as espected.

I have just restarted my Homey and again issues occur.
No option to add new Aqara Zigbee devices. Whatever I do/try.

The reason for restart is that some Fibaro Sensors are not performing well.

Aqara’s have a tendency to stick to their original routes, even if these routes do not work anymore. And my experience is too that if these routes were gone for long and come back, Aqara’s don’t seem to recover.

Original (pre 5.0 firmware) advice was to pair real near to Homey. But Homey only allows about 15 directly connected devices. My guess is that after a reboot pairing directly to Homey has more chance of success. But after a while all devices reported in and the 15 connections get filled, leaving the surplus dead in the water.

My experience with 5.0 firmware is that a Zigbee reset fixed a lot of my problems, both by getting rid of old shakey configuration and selecting a better channel. I paired routers first and the rest in the place of destination. That way I made sure the best available router is used for pairing too, avoiding too many direct Homey connections. Pairing was way quicker too. I have a stable and fast mesh now.

The routing table in Homey Developer sucks. Sorry for the harsh words, but I do not trust it a bit. Broken routes are listed that work perfectly, battery operated often show no route and work perfectly. Check it, but don’t assume it is all true.

When I got to about 50+ devices and a few major firmware releases later pairing got hard again. Unless I pick a hard to reach spot for Homey, and close to a Philips Hue bulb. Then I can quickly pair again. This strengthens my belief that my above guesses were not far away from the truth. If Homey is too near a direct connection is attempted and fails, if Homey is out of reach pairing works fine through good routers.

Oh, and don’t ever unplug Zigbee devices. You are killing routes and again, Aqara’s don’t like that, and quite likely other devices are affected as well.

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