This post is concerning The order of adding Zigbee devices to your Homey Pro/Bridge (AKA “Coordinator” or “hub”). Know that there is a best approach to in which order you connect your devices. You have at least three major category of devices. Which to connect when, that’s what I will dive into in this article.
What are the issues?
So, cutting right to the chase: The most common issues you will run into with your zigbee devices, is either unreachable devices or you’ve added the maximum of devices that can be connected directly to the Homey device - The coordinator. When you reach this limit, you may not be able to add more devices or already added devices may stop working properly.
3 types of devices:
All your devices (sensors, switches, plugs, lights, locks, Homey Pro, …) can be divided into three:
The coordinator: Homey Pro/Bridge. Usually you will have just one of these.
Router devices: Any zigbee device that runs on main power. These devices will act as nodes in you mesh network. This network is where commands between the coordinator and a device travel back and forth. When adding a router device, say a smart wall plug, you extend your mesh network.
End devices: Any battery operated devices is an end device. The mesh do not extend further from this device.
Adding devices:
Best practice is to add router devices to your Homey first. As I mentioned before, the number of devices that can be added to the Homey directly is limited. If you connect your router devices first, you will build a mesh network ready for your next step: Adding the end devices. These can connect to your router devices but also directly to the coordinator. Simplified:
- Set up your Homey first
- From their final destination, connect all router devices (powered devices).
- From their final destination, connect all end devices (battery operated devices).
With “final destination” I mean, when adding to Homey, be at that spot where you want the device to be. That could be in the living room, the bath, the garage and so on. This is important for router devices to make sure they can connect to the mesh. And this is important for end devices so they connect to the right router device.
Connection limits:
If you follow the above approach you will probably not reach this limitation. However, it’s easy to reach this limitation if you do this incorrectly and add your end devices first. Been there! So what are the exact number of devices to look out for? There is no exact science to this, I think. People report different numbers, but some guidance can be given:
The limits:
How many devices can connect directly to the Homey:
For Homey Pro 2019 and earlier: 15 devices
For Homey Pro 2023: 32 or 64 devices (firmware dependent, need to find details)*
For Homey Bridge: (I expect the numbers to be similar to the PROs, but do not know)
How many devices can connect to a router device:
The short answer is in the neighborhood of 10 devices*. In theory however, the number is much, much higher. See “How many devices can connect to a router device?” in the Q&A section for more details. Real life answer is probably around 10 +/- some depending on the type of devices you use and the load they introduce.
Debug:
At this point, take a look at the “Homey Developer Tools” under Zigbee: Pay attention to the “Type” column. The Homey will be listed as “Coordinator”. All router devices should show up as “Router”. All end devices should show up as “EndDevice”. The “Route” column to the far right shows the route the communication to/from router/end devices take.
This is how it looks on a Homey Pro 2019. The “Route” column is not visible for my Homey Pro 2023. Anyone know where I can find the routing information for Homey Pro 2023?
Refresh your listing after some minutes as routing can change. According to “Make the most of your zigbee network”: -“Give the network some time to build up. This can take up a couple of hours…”
If some of your powered devices are not listed as “Router”, my guess is that the implementation of the Zigbee standard on the device is not according to how Homey needs it to be. It could also just be a faulty device. Remove the device and try reconnecting it.
Although you’ve done a great job drawing and placing the devices in logical locations according to best practice, the devices may not connect the way you would like them to. There is no way to force a device to connect to a specific device other than by the placement of the devices.
Zigbee Q&A: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
How far is the reach of a router device?
Real life numbers say: 5 meters indoors, 10 to 15 meters outdoors*
But sources like (Zigbee Range Explained) say something totally different:
-"The range of a Zigbee device from the hub depends on various factors. In indoor environments, most Zigbee devices can communicate over a distance of 70 to 100 meters. However, the architectural design of a building can impact the network’s performance.
In open-air, you can expect link distances up to 300 meters. Zigbee nodes use low-power radio signals to communicate wirelessly, limiting their range to 10 to 30 meters indoors."
How many devices can connect to a router device?
Real life numbers say: 10 devices*
However, the theory says:
-"Each Zigbee device has a 16-bit short address, which means you can connect up to 2^16 = 65536 different devices. However, each device can bind up to 2^8 = 256 different services (since a few “ports” are also reserved, the maximum is actually 240 here).
So technically, you can have roughly 15 million (2^16 * 240) “logical” devices on a network. In practice, Zigbee networks that reach the 1000s of node ranges tend to hit technical limitations."
Source: Maximum number of Zigbee devices
The Zigbee chip in the Homey device can handle 20 devices. Athom has on top of that limited this to 15.
Source: Caseda -“The older Homey Pro and Bridge’s Zigbee chip has a limited memory, in theory it can handle up to 20 devices connected directly, but this is limited in software to 15 by Athom.”
That was theory. The real life numbers suggest:
Hub + router devices + router devices * end devices per router
For Homey Pro 2019: 1 + 15 + 15x10 = 166 devices
For Homey Pro 2023: 1 + 64 + 64x10 = 705 devices
The answer is somewhere between 166 or 705 and 65000 devices.
…if you factor in all real life limitations 
Remember, my example here only shows router devices directly connected to the hub, and end devices connected to router devices. In real life, end devices will connect directly to the hub (if that’s the best option) and router devices will connect to other router devices (daisy chaining).
What to do when you did like me and added too many end devices before router devices?
It might be sufficient to just move the device (and maybe boot the Homey afterwards). Worst case scenario is to memorize all flows associated with the device, delete the device from Homey, move it, add it to Homey again and then reimplement the flows.
How to handle dropouts?
Read about shared WIFI channels here: “Make the most of your zigbee network”
Bing AI: What are the advantages of using zigbee devices?
- ZigBee is suitable for low-powered devices that do not require a lot of bandwidth such as battery-operated small smart devices, sensors, and object tags.
- Devices from different manufacturers are compatible with one another, and there is also backward-compatibility with legacy ZigBee products.
- Unlike Bluetooth, ZigBee operates as a mesh network, making it suitable for setting up smart homes and buildings.
- Mesh networking has an expandable transmission range and better stability unlike Bluetooth or a single-router Wi-Fi setup.
- ZigBee supports up to 65000 nodes on a single network to expand the transmission range across a large floor area.
- Setting up the network is very simple and easy.
- It does not have a central controller and loads are distributed evenly across the network.
- It is easy to monitor and control home appliances from remote.
- ZigBee has a very long battery life.
I will appreciate any corrections to this how-to or if there’s some other relevant info I should bake into it!
*: See 16.11.2023 revision
Revisions:
15.11.2023: Original post
16.11.2023: Worked in changes based on feedback from Robertklep
18.12.2023: Added paragraph on daisy chaining router devices
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