Is it possible to force Zigbee mesh usage

Hi I hope this isn’t a double post or something,
After asking a different question (Add different brands to Hue or add to Homey’s Zigbee)
I’m using several brands Ikea, Innr and Xiaomi directly connected on Homey’s Zigbee signal
(still adding lights and sensors) but i can’t get to use the mesh functionality of Zigbee.

All the devices are “Router” except for the Xiaomi Door sensor (Used the developer page and waited half an hour) , is there an option to force Homey to use the mesh capabilities? or is this a bug?

I now have some spots that don’t react to homey’s commands
because they’re out of reach for homey but next to lights that do function…

Some help is really appreciated

Update: Added a screenshot.

no you can’t, it should do it by itself.
I don’t have ikea bulbs myself, but all Zigbee devices are connecting directly to homey without problems (hue, xiaomi) even the door sensors on the attic work fine.

Thanks for your reply Lamzak (<- What a name ;P),

If everything worked it was fine by me but since i have several spots that don’t work i’m kind of irritated,
hoping i could do something about it…

Thanks again…

1 Like

And how close are the spots to eachother? Too close can also be a problem with IKEA bulbs.

Hi Rocodamelshe,
The spots are about 2 meters apart from eachother spot 3 is closest to Homey and reacts but spot 4 that’s 2 meters further away from Homey doesn’t respond. Had it worked by “meshing” it would “hop” from 3 to 4 and so on…

That’s how it’s supposed to work automagicly

So this is not a bug in the way Homey’s Zigbee operates?
mmm… Maybe if i start re-adding them… i’ll keep on puzzling …

1 Like

Just for information if someone stumbles upon this topic in future.
After some puzzling i removed all lights (Ikea, Innr) from Homey’s Zigbee and added them to the Hue bridge.

Now everything is more stable and the “hopping” does work with the Hue bridge
so at this moment Homey seems to do something wrong with the hopping part with it’s Zigbee network (*atleast it does for me, sw version 1.5.12 several restarts and a Zigbee reset)

Thanks for the support. this topic can be closed.

Hi Michael,
yes I’d draw the same conclusion: while my Homey Z-Wave mesh looks very logical (30 nodes all over the place, ‘indirect’ connections as you would expect them to be, sometimes even via 2 routers) the Homey Zigbee mesh definitely has problems: certain locations in my house are unreachable, even though IKEA bulbs, which themselves are controllable, are present close to these locations.
And most of the Zigbee connections via routers look like detours, not the route you would expect.
A difference between Z-Wave and Zigbee is of course that Zigbee may have interference from WiFi (I see a lot of SSIDs in the neighborhood), but if it works better for you with the Hue bridge I suspect that’s not the explanation for the problems.

Hi Michael,
Are you still working with you’re Hue bridge. I myself has non. I just purchased the Homey and on the breach of buying my house full of ikea or hue lamps.

Question is related to this topic, … do have to buy also a hue bridge. With the Homey, I was thinking of saving this one and…

You’re configuration, … does is work with ‘flows’? (same as with the kaku remotes)

Thanks DuKa

Everything worked fine until the ikea lights lose signal.

I noticed the ikea bulbs / spots lose connection every 2 weeks or so from the Hue bridge,
the solution is to power them off (flipping the switch) wait a couple of minutes and turn it back on.
In my opinion that’s not a good solution so i switched the ones with normal (with a kaku / fibaro switch in between) or hue ones.

At the back of my tv i have an Innr led strip that works perfectly fine with the Hue bridge so i guess it’s an Ikea Tradfri + Hue related problem.

A friend of mine ONLY uses Ikea tradfri with the Tradfri hub and is very satisfied with it, he is planning on buying a Homey because now theres the (currently beta) Tradfri hub app. I have been testing it at it works great.

So if i would have to start over, i would buy Ikea tradfri lights + Hub and add it to Homey with the app i mentioned. Flows work great, ikea lights will get updated through the original hub. (For led strips i would use a different solution, like [this](https://apps.athom.com/app/magic.home.wifi … works great with homey and is way cheaper then a Hue or Innr led strip)

Hope this helpes…

1 Like

Reading berween the lines, your still working with bridges of the separate brands. I was hoping to skip that., but if thats the case to let in run smooth.
Any knowledge or experience with the kaku zigbee line (trust)? Do they work in ‘mesh’ without the kaku bridge directly on the homey. I still got some discount coupons and safes money. After all, I have to refurb the complete house.

I would start just to have devices directly connected to homey. Also the question is why that some situations need a bridge to work properly and other’s dont. Keep in mind that Zigbee works on the same frequency band as wifi so could possibly interfere more easily with each other causing strange results. Zwave works on a different frequency. But as always it really depends on your situation. House, walls, other wireless techs etc.

I don’t know about the kalu zigbee line. Never used it. Maybe when homey is at version 2.x i’ll try to remove the bridge again but for now i’m satisfied with the bridge.

As said, with a bridge / hub the lights and such get updated and if i would want to stop using Homey, Homey stops working or if i want to switch it out with a better alternative that should be easy to do. So yes i’m using the Hue bridge :grin:

1 Like

this is what my zigbee mesh looks like, i have tried using the hue hub i owned before since somone mentioned that it could improve zigbee performance over homey to add devices.
i moved the hue hub last night and added a couple of lights to it instead of homey, but still dont se an improvement in signal to controll zigbee devices in my garage.

my zwave counterpart looks a lot better letting me know what path the signal takes from each device.

Moving Zigbee devices from Homey to Hue Bridge weakens your existing Zigbee mesh. Homey and Hue Bridge both create a separated Zigbee mesh. The Hue seems to have be stronger (larger range) than Homey, but does not support the broad range of devices as Homey does. Do note that when removing nodes from Homey Zigbee mesh might need a restart of Homey (not some reset) to rebuild the mesh.

@Daniel_Liebst, did you wait for a while when looking at the zigbee tools page? I noted that it will take a while for homey to display the actual zigbee mesh on this page. When I open the page I see exactly like you’re screenshot, all direct links. When I wait for (1/2/3/5/?) minutes and refresh the actual mesh is displayed. And this mesh makes sense for my home situation.

I’m using both Philips Hue as Ikea Tradfri as routers, and xiami senors and switches as end points. All connected to homey directly, even a temp sensor in my shed connect nicely using an philips hue bulb as router.

edit: I just opened the zigbee tools page and this time the mesh was displayed directly, but I’m 100% sure this is (was?) not always the case. At least not a week ago.

Did you pair both hue and IKEA lights with homey directly then?

Should I remove my hue hub from the equation all together?

Mvh Daniel Liebst

I did pair everything directly to homey as I do not have any bridge. But this also means I do not have any comparison / experience using the bridge. But for me everything is working fine directly connected to homey.

I tried to open up the zigbee page in homeys developer settings, sat down for dinner for about 15 minutes and than looked back at my computer, nothing had changed and it still says 0-1 etcetera on everything as it did before, so I seriously think there is something faulty on the zigbee side of things.

1 Like