Aqara Door/Window sensors stop responding after 1-2 hours with HP2023

Did you add/pair the devices at the location where they are used? I had a few devices I “repaired” (not pair them again) at the specific location. Meshing might become a mess after pairing near the Homey and moving them afterwards. Just by deactivating your WiFi network (in your case possible because you have the LAN adapter) you can rule out WiFi issues even though it does not seem likely the problem because Zigbee uses other channels. But if you don’t try you will not know.

You are using the hue bridge… So, 2 different zigbee networks. Maybe that’s a problem. With the new Homey, the zigbee channel cannot be changed yet. But I know it is possible in the hue bridge. Maybe you can try that.

I have also some problems with zigbee but not as terrible as you describe it.

Also you can try to change the channel of your WiFi network as this also can interfere with zigbee:

I usually pair where they are located (window/door sensors are fixed with tape), but have tried previously to also pair just next to the Homey Pro. Same result.

Hue Bridge is on channel 25.
Homey is on channel 20.

I have 3 (Unifi) APs, I can’t really turn off wifi during waking hours for the whole house but sure, I could unplug hue bridge, wipe Zigbee mesh, configure 13 wall-dimmers again in the same way I did initially but it feels very much like praying to the moon except it takes two hours. Maybe I’ll spend that time tonight after the family is in bed. Is there a way to get diagnostics from the mesh network? I mean if I saw numbers indicating interference I’d be much more happy to try that out.

I find it very strange again that the network performs optimal initially and then if I don’t open/close doors they stop working. How is that explained by interfering signals from Wifi or Zigbee which out to be fairly constant?

Your 2.4GHz wifi is on “auto channel” maybe?
Any nearby neighbor’s 2.4GHz wifi signals (on “auto channel”) which can interfere?
Did you measure all wifi signals in the house?

My knowledge of WiFi in combination with Zigbee is limited and I cannot tell you a simple solution. But logical problem solving starts with reducing possible causes. In your case I would definitely first try to switch off the Wifi Network and your additional AP’s. Or just use 5 Ghz only. Furthermore I would switch off the Hue bridge. 3 AP’s, a Hue Bridge and Homey seems a bit busy for just the 2.4 Ghz band. Maybe a lot of work, angry children and your WAF in great danger but the real nerd will not stop until the problem is solved ;). Good luck.

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image
Here is a scan of interference based on a week’s readings from the 3 APs. So “worst” is about -80 dBm, which in practice is likely 30-40m away (this is a suburban area with single-family houses).

Previously while living in apartments it was way higher density on the 2.4 GHz, and I assume Athom would like to have customers living outside bunkers :wink:

That said, since I have no other ideas I’ll try to turn off all wifi and Philips Hue tonight, but there is plenty of IoT stuff that needs to run on 2.4Ghz. I’m dreading wiping the mesh network because it seems quite random, do I need to do that every time I add a new Zigbee device? Shrug.

If only Athom could have a way of enabling some diagnostics, logs etc rather than just saying “known issue, we’re working on it”.

So I have turned off all wifi, powered down the Hue Bridge and used web-app over ethernet-connected machine to remove, and add again the door/window sensor in it’s place.

Worked like a charm initially, waited two hours and then updates are no longer received by Homey Pro 2023. So that should put the wifi/other Zigbee networks interference as not the cause of my problem.

So next up I guess is wiping the Zigbee network and unpair all wall dimmers so I have zero routing zigbee devices (which is the opposite of the recommended approach). Of course before Homey I had the wall dimmers as routers in the Hue Bridge Zigbee network and that worked like a charm without any issues so I’m not really suspecting them to be the issue.

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At what point will you consider that the issue is somewhere in the Zigbee stack? You’re not the only one that has these issues.

Oh I am already certain that there is issues with the Athom implementation, they have confirmed it and obviously it should be possible to have neighbours with WiFi or Zigbee networks on other channels.

I’m trying to understand what combination of circumstances lead to that some people have many devices (same sensors, Homey and software version at least) without issues, and others like myself have a complete non-working situation. Is there some workaround I can do that’s acceptable (until Athom possibly fix it), can I identify some specific clue that actually helps Athom resolve this or will I need to accept that I should go the “actually, I want a refund” path and give up on the whole of Homey.

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Haven’t had time to wipe the Zigbee network but have upgraded to 10.0.3 and retried the same test with the same result.

Repair device, it starts working (and works fine if I wait e.g. 30 minutes and open the door). If I wait longer though - no further updates are registered.

Any improvement in the last rc9?

I haven’t tried it, been busy since the experiment dropped and have stayed on stable releases before since I want more stability and not less.

Is it possible to easily toggle out/in of experimental releases now (I couldn’t get a clear answer whether I needed a factory reset or something like this)

You can toggle it off, then you will get NEXT stable release as far as I know. But you can enforce it, unless I’m not mistaken, and via USB install latest “stable”. Search around the forum.

Unfortunately RC9 have for some users too high CPU utilisation (not my case), so I can’t recommend it for this particular RC.

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I have toggled between stable and Experiemental updates twice without factory reset.

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When you disabled it, did you get offered automatically stable version or NEXT stable version ? I just wonder.

Next stable. No rollback to previous.

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Tested with 10.0.4.

Repaired connection to yesterday night for the door/window-sensor (started working immediately, just as previously). This morning, no reaction if I open/close the door.

Are there any ways to get access to these “Show correct error message when adding a device timed out” that was mentioned in the change log?
Update: I realise I was optimistic reading the change-log, and hoped to get messages for added devices that time out, but more likely this is only during the pairing/setup phase (which works fine).

TLDR;
New release with listed Zigbee improvements, no noticeable difference for me. Still basic functionality not working with easily reproducible problems.

Test with 10.0.5

First I could’t “repair” under maintenance, the process got stuck after showing the “To build a strong Zigbee network, add powered devices first, and battery devices later” screen. So I deleted the device and tried to add it instead, got stuck on same screen.
This was both when trying to add Aqara Door/Window sensor or as a plain Zigbee device.

Then tried to restart the Homey for good measure, and now to my surprise the device where added after all and had last status 20 minutes ago (about the time I started the experiment). As usual, the sensor works perfectly when I test it after 20 minutes, then again 45 minutes. Starting it the morning after having the door closed during the night however does nothing.

TLDR;
Some changes/issues after updating with adding/repairing devices - could have been resolved with restarting the HP2023 but otherwise unchanged behaviour. Aqara Door/Widow sensors stop responding after 1-2 hours.

Concerning Aqara:

Athom in their own ads use these exact sensors to explain how great Homey Pro is that you can use a mix of sensors.

Support have claimed this is a known issue they are working on rather than state Aqara sensors are not recommended.

The sensors are not “leaving the network” (according to Athom’s tools at least).

There are clearly issues, but as long as Athom keep saying the sensors should work great in their ads and say the issue is on their table I don’t think I as a customer should be faulted and throw away the sensors and buy another brand (and cross my fingers there?)