The homey.log has a LOT of information over the last 4 days, 92000+ lines and 31000+ hits on “zigbee”. so much to read
I contacted Homey support and here’s their reply that helped me, the 20 minutes power down and 2 hours delay after that seemed to have helped the most in order to make the mesh reconfigure itself in a more efficient way.
Step 1: Stabilize the Self-Hosted Server Environment
Because the software crashes will prevent Zigbee from stabilizing, we need to address the host machine first.
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Restart the Host Container/Hardware: Safely restart the underlying Docker container, VM, or physical machine hosting your Homey Self-Hosted Server.
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Check Host Resources: Ensure your server isn’t running out of RAM or hitting 100% CPU utilization, which frequently forces Docker to kill IPC sockets to save memory.
Step 2: The 20-Minute Power Down: Unplug your Homey Bridge antenna (or your Zigbee coordinator hardware) and Device [2] (the IKEA smart plug) from the wall for exactly 20 minutes. Leave them unplugged.
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Why? This forces all of your battery-powered sensors to realize their primary routes are gone. It clears their internal routing tables.
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Power Up the Coordinator First: Plug your Homey coordinator/bridge back in and wait 5 minutes for it to initialize.
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Plug the IKEA Plug Back In: Re-plug Device [2] back into the wall.
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Let the Mesh “Heal”: Do not pair or move any devices for the next 1–2 hours. The battery-powered devices will slowly wake up and look for the most optimal path available. Many will now connect directly to the main hub (Device [0]) or find alternative mains-powered routing paths, distributing the network load evenly.
I have had tons of issues with a setup similar to yours, SHS server 8GB RAM RasPi 5 and the Homey Bridge. My Zigbee would die out, then restarting the bridge would bring back on for awhile until it would happen again. I worked with ChatGPT and did everything under the sun. Added more mains repeaters, removed mains repeaters, moved repeaters around to different locations. Nothing seemed to fix it. It was then a question of bottleneck at the bridge as I have a large device count smart home. ChatGPT narrowed it down to the possibility of the Aqara end devices I had many of not playing nicely being directly connected to Zigbee via Homey. So I got an Aqara Matter hub and put them all on there, then used Matter to bring into Homey. I think I have seen a lot of positive change since then. I am not seeing the drops like I was before and the network is still healing. I also removed a couple no-name Zigbee door sensors I had and replaced with Sonoff. I think it is on the right track now. I think my older Aqara Zigbee end devices were messing things up. I have also since moved all and I mean ALL my switches over to Z-Wave and they are ROCK SOLID.
These are likely Tuya-based sensors? If the manufacturer ID starts with “TUYATEC-” or “_TZ3000_”, then it’s definitely Tuya based. Did you know that you can buy a Tuya MultiMode or Zigbee gateway (those are cheap on AliExpress, only €10) and bring those devices into Homey as well via the official Tuya app for Homey? This doesn’t use Homey’s Zigbee so it should be more stable if the Homey Bridge’s Zigbee doesn’t work correctly
I also have 7 Zwave devices and never had any issues with them, the lower frequency is not bothered by Wifi, yeah if I could I would eventually migrate to Zwave if the price was better. Zigbee leak sensors like the Zigbee from Aqara are 25$ CAD each, while something like the Zwave Fibaro leak is 90$ CAD
Yeah, it has taken me awhile to migrate. Keep your eyes open on eBay. That is where I got A LOT of my Z-wave items much less. There is also an on-line store called The Smartest House that mainly sells Zooz products. They have best prices and run a weekly super sale on a different item each week. They also have used/recon/open box items at times. I got the Aeotec Wallmote 7 (wireless switches) on eBay for under $14 each! I think I have bought over 20 of them so far. They are $35+ normally.
After everything being stable for a complete week, it happened again and again a reboot of SHS was necessary to restore functionality of the Zigbee network, so the problem of zigbee network reliability remains current as I see it under SHS.
Just wondering: In case you use the Homey Bridge for zigbee, does power cycling the bridge lead to the same results?
I will try this next time it fails
