Homey lost connections after updates, with Lidl and Tuya-zigbee devices

Questions & Help
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My #Lidl and #Tuya-zigbee devices lost connections with homey twice after the most recent homey-updates in February and March 2024. These power plug with and without measuring are important router nodes in the zigbee network. I have done several attempts to restart Homey, after a restart it worked a little while before the connections were lost again.

In February I have done complete reset of the homey after multiple restarts, and I have stopped the daily backup of the system in an effort to keep a working setting. I also have tried to rearrange the zigbee network bij switching on and off the apps with router-nodes in the zigbee network.

In March I have reinstalled the Lidl and Tuya zigbee app of Johan Benz. I have replaced the experimental version by the regular one. Why is an app experimental over a period of more than a year??
Without a complete reset of the homey network the system now seems to be working again.
Between the homey updates the systeem has worked ok. Just after a update it went wrong. I wonder how long it will be ok now…

It is a very unpleasant experience that the system is so vulnerable to its own updates. It is a moment to realize the dependency of Homey. It is a moment of starting to look at alternative solutions. Just like the moment you do not trust your car anymore to use it for long distances.

The homey ‘’help’’desk is also a disappointing experience. I only get questions in stead of answers. It takes a few days before they ask me to send a diagnostics report, at the moment the system is working again. The advice to manually buildup a strong zigbee network is theoretically ok, but practically difficult especially when you have a pretty large system where devise are incorporated in flows. The ZIGBEE network is automatically rearranged every second. Why do I have to manage the zigbee network manually. Is there not a way to deliver some smart tools to help a user.

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Hi. Homey sent out a update and killed thousands of homey devices (they killed the zigbee chip inside). So this is a common problem. Some people can get it to work for a few days after a restart etc. But it will eventually die.

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Please stop announcing nonsense, we have warned you before, there have only been a (relatively) few confirmed ones where it happened.
I’m sorry if you are 1 of them, but there were definitely not thousands.

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Zigbee is not plug and play, while it uses the same frequency range / band as wifi and bluetooth…

So, are you sure you tuned both wifi 2.4GHz and zigbee channels? Also your (close) neighbor’s wifi can interfere → use a mobile wifi scanner like Wifi Analyser, and make sure to scan near all zigbee devices to know where strong wifi signals appear, and which channel they use.
Now, neighbor’s wifi is on auto-channel most probably, there’s nothing much you can do, unless you can agree on fixing the channels.

Turn auto-update off, and decide for yourself to perform an update if it seems safe to do so.
Homey is a very complex system, it’s impossible for Athom to test with each and every combination of devices and technologies.
Also there’s no such thing as bug-free software
I’m not defending Athom or developers here, it’s just a fact.

Yes, because it’s very personal how you’ve set things up, so they probably had lots of questions before they can come up with advices or a fix.

Your car mechanic also starts to ask questions when you say “my car doesn’t work”.

I also had questions for you, because you don’t mention on how you’ve set up your zigbee.
Probably not optimal, if you think you have to reset zigbee, or even Homey itself.
These are last resort actions.

That’s not what support meant.
They refer to howto build your zigbee network from scratch.
You can’t manage a zigbee network as in which routes will be used, like you know already.

Why is a banana yellow.
I mean, forum user can’t help with that, just
ask the developer! You found his name already?

Second, what is the problem with an app being experimental? It won’t explode or anything?

I use lots of experimental verions of apps, true it can contain bugs, but often it contains new functionality and/or support for new devices.
I read experimental as pre-release.

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Who talks nonsence?

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  1. Of course I have switched off the automatic updates of homey. How do you explain the 1:1 relationship between the instability of the zigbee network and the updates. Why is the tuning of the channels suddenly important after an update.

  2. Building a zigbee network from scratch could be facilitated by athom in the form of a tool, don’t you think so.

  3. Of course I understand questions of the helpdesk, but I also understand protocolls to gain time and I recognize questions raised by not reading my message carefully

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There’s a tool called “Homey” for that.

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In addition to suggestions above, I’d check you have fixed the IP address of your Homey (and any wifi-connected devices) in your router. Not entirely necessary, but takes a variable out of the equation.

Andy

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Thanks Andy, your are right, I have a fixed network IP voor my Homey

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Good luck, Harrr. You obviously don’t need any help from anyone :wink: :wave:

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Help? You also avoid my question: How do you explain the 1:1 relationship between the instability of the zigbee network and the updates. Why is the tuning of the channels suddenly important after an update.
Thanks

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I’m sorry you’re facing some difficulties especially with the effort you’re putting into it.

Home automation is a challenge and there are obstacles. Which is part of the fun. With purchasing a Homey you’ve made a great start.

Once you’re over your frustration perhaps you can let this community and the excellent support desk ask some questions which are meant to help you solve your problem.

Your last question is somewhat leading. Maybe it’s not related to an update. Or simply it could have been after a restart.

Most wifi networks rearrange their channels automatically. It may have coincided with that.
So one day it could affect your ZigBee.

Do your ZigBee devices perhaps need a firmware update. Homey develops and moves at a rapid pace and some cheap devices may be left out.

Keep providing information and you’ll get there.

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Thanks for your reaction. Frustration is a good observation. I understand the challenge and the obstacles, also the fun. But, at a certain point confidence in the product and the support is becoming important. You call the support excellent, that’s not the image I get from the questions.
At some point I think that developments of the software got out of hand. The situation that external developers produce apps for homey is a great idea, but I sometimes have questions bij the quality control of that software. I have had very good experiences but also bad ones. One must also be very careful in finding out if a device is supported by homey and als the way it is supported.
As a simple example: It is also frustrating that homey does not produce the correct zigbee routing table in the developer tools software. Restarting the system does not correct that, maybe I have to soft reset the system again, what I did after the system failed after first update.
For my system I have concluded to reduce the number of (tuya) zigbee devices significantly. I am going to look for alternative ways. There is no way I will migrate to the newer homey version.

Thanks,

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and you needed to vent it here. Given some of the comments I saw people emphatically tried to help you, but you felt attacked and decided to scoff them. Not cool.

That is your assumption. But you do not know. Perhaps your assumption on how it should work should be adjusted somewhat in order to make it work.

It is a concept you bought into. Athom makes the core apps, external the non core apps. There is close cooperation though between Athom and external developers. Sure I have questions too from time to time, but have been disappointed very very few times. In fact, most of the time I am pleasantly surprised or outright impressed with them.

Sure, it is true. So many devices on the market these days in home automation can make it difficult. The community is your friend. When you buy well prepared it is easier.

Sounds to me like you have done everything you think that can be done. Given the previous posts I think there is potential to resolve.

Sorry to hear you have made up your mind, but I hope you will find an ecosystem that works for you. You can always come back and get informed on how to set up the rock solid network that others seem to have. Perhaps you need to re-align on your design decisions. Good luck

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Ok, you draw your own conclusions. Where did I felt attacked? I saw a few “emphatic” guys with long toes.
I asked questions, did not see answers but generic open door advice. If one cannot communicate sharp experiences, than the learning potential is low.
I do assumptions, I have to, based on signals and experience, seems pretty normal to me.
The image about how it should work is mainly determined by the party who sells the equipment. My major problem is a systeem which works unreliable only after an official update.
Finding the right information about the functioning of the apps can be a needle in a haystack. On forums its also very difficult to judge the quality of the information. There is a task of athom to regulate clear information about the apps (in en external) and some minimum rules how they should function.
You suggest that others have a rock solid network. If I listen to people who know more about that, this can’t be true for zigbee. Until recently my network was rocksolid… and I hope I resolved that by removing my Tuya Zigbee devices.

By the way… Do you have any idea why homey does not produce a correct zigbee routing table in the developer tools software? For me it is an important signal that a developers tools environment does not work correct. Chears !

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I had a problem with disappearing Tuya Zigbee devices until I updated all of my Ikea devices to the latest firmwares. From then on I had no more problems.

I have worked in IT long enough to know that people always relate their issues with the latest update or something else that changed even though there is no relationship (“my mouse stopped working after the update” when it’s full of cracks and scuff marks, maybe you shouldn’t throw your mouse against the wall?). As mentioned, Wifi and Zigbee are in the same frequency band and can interfere. Since neither is fixed, they can start to interfere all of a sudden, or stop interfering.

I had an issue with my Tuya sensors and also have Ikea Zigbee bulbs and buttons. I was told by the (excellent!) Homey help desk that Ikea doesn’t fully adhere to the Zigbee standard and that they have had good results with newer firmwares while older ones are problematic. New devices are shipped with old firmwares. When you attach them to an Ikea hub, the first thing that happens is an update of the firmware. So I got an Ikea hub for that purpose (yes, an extra expense but it was my decision to purchase Ikea devices). After the update I threw the Ikea hub into a drawer. So I used it for all of 5 minutes. But ever since, my Zigbee network has been totally reliable.

I didn’t relate the use of Ikea bulbs and Tuya sensors to my issue (the Tuya issue was very intermittent) but after I answered some questions from the (awesome!) help desk, we got to the root of the problem. You really should give it a try. And be patient, because as mentioned, every situation is different and they first have to understand your exact situation before they can offer any specific advice. And even then, it may be some trial and error before you get it fixed with their help.

I understand your frustration somewhat, but please do remember that Homey offers similar functionality to Home Assistant and nobody will ever tell you that Home Assistant is plug and play. The more functionality and compatibility is offered, the less plug and play it is. This is true for anything but more so for home automation since there are so many standards and not everyone follows the standards well (as long as it works with their own stuff it’s fine for them). Even so, my Homey hub works better with my Klikaanklikuit stuff than my Klikaanklikuit hub ever did.

Forums like this help you when you have issues. They aren’t a good resource for deciding which devices to choose since people usually come here with problems so it’s a skewed representation of reality. Most people won’t have issues with most devices. I’ve been having an excellent experience with community apps (Tesla, GoodWe, Tuya) and a less than stellar experience with some third party apps (Switchbot, Honeywell). I have created workarounds for my problems and overall I’m happy because it works. For some of these problems I have consulted with the (wonderful!) help desk. I have always had a final answer (after some back-and-forth to figure out my specific situation) that helped me.

I hope this helps you.

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I have about 20 IKEA devices and 15 TuYa devices in my z2m network. All of my IKEA devices are running old firmware versions because newer versions have certain features taken away (however, Homey doesn’t support those features anyway so that’s not relevant for Homey users), and everything works fine.

It’s always interesting to read that Homey has Zigbee issues that other platforms (ZHA, z2m) don’t seem to have.

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From a life long experience I know that it usually is a bad sign for a product if the quality of the helpdesk is heartbreaking good… :wink:

Thanks for your detailed description of your experience. That is the way add value to this forum. Unfortunately does not help me because I have no IKEA devices.

In my zigbee network I have 2 types of routers: the LIDL smart plug without metering and the TUYA smart plug with metering. The most valuable contribution to my analyze problem is the ZIGBEE connections map from @martijnpoppen. Looking at that map I have noticed that the LIDL smartplugs properly act as router nodes, and the TUYA smartplugs are not.
I have made the decision to build another network to connect the TUYA metering plugs. The main use is registration and that is not a necessary part of my homey network.
Before adding those TUYA plugs and after removing them, I had/have a stable network. The next test wil be the next homey update.

Can you tell me how many zigbee devices you have in your network. I assume you have a homey pro?

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This doesn’t make sense: you have two types of routers, but one type isn’t a router? So they’re end devices? Are they marked as such on the developer page table?

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Good to clarify this. Both smart plugs LIDL and TUYA are router nodes in the ZIGBEE network. What I saw in the network map is that the TUYA nodes act like an end-node. They are router nodes.
I forgot to mention that I also have a number of SONOFF miniZB switches, the also act like a router node.