My Homey have been working great for a couple of years but just in the last weeks I have been having issues.
I have two flows that control indoor and outdoor lighting and lately misses have started to occur. To the same lighting groups I have a physical dual button linked via Homey to be able to easily turn the light on or off manually and that button is now hit and miss also.
On top of that I have a IKEA Trådfri bulb on the facade of the house that Homey is struggling to communicate with. That has also been working great for months but no longer.
Of course I have restarted Homey and the app several times. I have also deleted the Trådfri bulb and included it again, but the issues persists.
To my knowledge I have not changed anything in my system or house that could be the cause. No new microwave, no large mirrors or bodies of water like aquariums and such.
Has anyone else noticed an unstable Homey system lately?
Which Homey are you using? 2016, 2019, 2023, and what software version is currently installed on it?
Are you using any other apps, like for these flows?
If it’s all zigbee related, check your fixed 2.4GHz wifi channel and your zigbee channel if they not interfere;
When you have neighbors nearby, it’s possible their 2.4GHz wifi signal is interfering.
433 MHz is also having problems. But I’ll check the channels to be sure. However there should not be anything different since the change in stability happen since I haven’t changed anything.
I live in a house so I don’t think the neighbors signals should interfere but I’ll check that again.
OK, I downloaded NetSpot again (I got a new laptop this summer) and can see that I’m still the only one at channel 11 for 2.4 GHz in my neighborhood.
Checking Zigbee in tools.developer.homey.app I see that it’s also on channel 11. I have the option to choose between channel 11 and 21 but the warning I get when trying to change channel is intimidating:
## Changing Zigbee channel
You are about to change the channel of your Zigbee network.
This should only be necessary if you are certain the network is suffering from severe interference on it’s current channel.
It will cause the network to become unstable until all nodes managed to switch to the new channel. Additionally, some devices, which do not follow the Zigbee specification (e.g. Xiaomi), might not switch at all, requiring a re-pair.
Are you sure you want to continue? If so, make sure all nodes connected to the network are powered on and within reach of the controller. It is required that at least one router is on the network. If you have no Zigbee devices paired to Homey it is best to let the Zigbee chip select a quiet channel by resetting the network. Changing channels might take a few minutes.
Any advice? Should I change the Zigbee channel (despite the warning) or change the wifi channel. I can see that wifi channel 6 is pretty clean but one of the neighbors do use it even if the signal is weak where I am.
From reading your findings, I can advice to switch wifi 2.4GHz channel to ch.6
but preferrably to ch.11 as a first step.
Changing the zigbee channel is a bit of last resort, while you possibly have to re- pair an unknown number of devices afterwards.
The neighbors 2.4GHz wifi is most probably on auto-channel, so it can be any channel on another day.
And if it’s a weak signal, it should not really interfere in theory.
About the zigbee channel change warning:
your zigbee mesh can take some time to settle again;
Non-responsive devices can be forced to use the new channel by re- pairing them (do not remove them prior to it). Just pair them, and restart their specific apps afterwards.
I’ll change the wifi channel from 11 to 6 in a couple of days when my wife goes away for a week. She works from home and is dependent on a stable Internet connection and I have learned from experience not to mess with wifi if it’s working.
There is definitely something weird going on with my system. This morning we woke from the bedroom TV turning on by itself (luckily not too early) and when I later went down to our main TV room the TV was on there too. Both TVs are powered by different 433 MHz plugs. I can’t say to 100% certainty that I turned the main TV off last night, but if I didn’t that would have been the first time I ever missed that. And with the other weird things happening the most probable explanation would be ghost signals for both the TVs.
One far fetched cause could be that we are now in the beginning of a 3 year period with increased solar activity. I heard about it on a morning show when they talked about good chances to see the Aurora Borealis and that the solar flares can affect electronic equipment. However, if that would be the cause of my issues many, many more would experience it and so far this thread has not yielded much response in that regard.
You are a wise man and probably the wife has something to do with that
But… imho working from home should be done with devices using LAN when possible, not WLAN (or have LAN connection available as backup connection ).
I use 433MHz gear for 20y or more, and for 3y now with Homey in the mix, and it never switched on or off by itself
But, nothing is impossible (I have learned )
Yup, solar activity can mess things up, but then indeed you can’t be the only one affected in your area.
I have added log cards to most of my flows. This way I can check if a flow was involved around the time of the ghost activity.
Another way is to check the device log:
She does use LAN connection…but my router is a little easily offended so even if I do the most basic thing, like changing the name of a connected device in the router GUI it reboots breaking Internet connection completely.
It never happened to me either and I have been using 443 MHz for almost as long as you have.
I did check the device logs for the TV plugs…but last time they were operated by Homey was when I added them just to have them in the system…9 months ago! I don’t have any flows for the TVs…they are only operated by physical remotes.
During my years as a “home automator” I have experienced periods when the system gets unstable which usually sorts itself sooner or later. So I will have a little patience…but this time the problems are weirder than I have ever experienced before.
Changing Zigbee channel
and probably the wife has something to do with that 
).
)
I don’t have any flows for the TVs…they are only operated by physical remotes.