Zigbee instability with Homey Bridge: Battery devices disconnect after 15-20 mins

[Shyvan]

Hi everyone,

I previously posted in another thread, but since my setup differs slightly (I am using a Homey Bridge), I was advised to start a new topic. I hope someone here can point me in the right direction because I am running out of ideas.

My Setup:

Homey Self-Hosted combined with a Homey Bridge.

Previous setup (for context): Conbee USB stick with Home Assistant (which worked flawlessly).

The Problem I am experiencing severe Zigbee instability, specifically with battery-powered devices.

After pairing a device, it works perfectly for about 15 to 20 minutes.

After this time window, the device stops responding.

Occasionally, a device might start working again spontaneously, but only for another short 15-20 minute window before dropping off again.

This issue seems to affect about 90% of my devices. Strangely, some Aqara Zigbee sensors keep working, but the vast majority fail.

Mains-powered Zigbee routers do not seem to have this issue.

Troubleshooting steps I’ve already taken I have tried to rule out the usual suspects:

Reset Zigbee: I tried resetting the Zigbee network through the developer portal.

Re-pairing: I have re-paired all Zigbee devices multiple times.

Interference: I changed channels for both Wi-Fi and Zigbee to rule out interference, but this did not fix the issue permanently.

Comparison Before switching to Homey, I used these exact same devices with a Conbee stick and Home Assistant without any issues. This leads me to believe the devices themselves are fine and it feels like a software or firmware bug on the Homey/Bridge side.

Next steps? I really want to love Homey for its user-friendliness, but this instability is frustrating. If I can’t resolve this, I might have to resort to connecting my Zigbee devices to my old Conbee stick and routing them into Homey via Home Assistant (MQTT), but that defeats the purpose of having a simple Homey setup.

Has anyone experienced this specific “15-minute timeout” behavior with the Bridge? Any tips are welcome!

Thanks in advance and a Happy 2026!

[smarthomesven]

Can you share a screenshot of this page?

Homey Developer Tools

[Shyvan]

[smarthomesven]

It’s likely because you started with end devices first

https://support.homey.app/hc/en-us/articles/4414431713682-Creating-a-stable-Zigbee-network-with-Homey-Bridge

The Bridge only supports 15 directly connected devices, and you need to connect routers first. Since you started with 15 end devices, there are no slots left for the routers.

You need to reset your ZigBee network, and add the routers first.

The routers are devices connected to mains power, and the end devices are devices on battery (sensors, remotes, etc.)

[robertklep]

@smarthomesven

Since you started with 15 end devices, there are no slots left for the routers.

Slots aren’t statically assigned though, so it might be sufficient to take the bridge off power for about an hour and see if that builds a better network.

[s73nm]

The order of the devices shown on the developer page does indeed not correspond to the order in which the devices were added. I recently moved devices to the Homey Bridge, and even though I took care of adding routers first, end points showed at the top of the list.

However, I believe the number of devices may be pushing the limits of the Homey Bridge. The support article linked above clearly states:

Using Zigbee routers, you can create a stable Zigbee network of around 30-40 devices with Homey Bridge.

We do not recommend creating bigger Zigbee networks with your Homey. Adding more devices will put more stress on the network and might therefore negatively impact communication, reliability, and speed.

I started experiencing issues around 35 to 40 devices. First having more difficulty when adding a new device, later coming to a situation where devices just couldn’t be added anymore, and devices started becoming unresponsive.

[smarthomesven]

In my Homey Pro, the order of node IDs is the order in which the devices were added. Is it different for the Bridge?

[SunBeech]

I am not sure what the logic behind the order of that list is. On my Homey Pro 2023 it seems to be random. Just checked: I have 70 Zigbee devices. I added a new one. That did not became number 71, but 54. Also the rest of the list does not represent the order in which I added the devices originally .

[smarthomesven]

I just checked it again and it seems to be changed now, for me they also no longer represent the order in which I added them. It used to be that way at least, don’t know when they changed that.

[Shyvan]

I just unplugged my Homey Bridge, I will leave it unplugged for 1 hour.

After that I will try if Zigbee becomes stable.

If that doesn’t solve the issue I will try adding the ‘routers‘ first, after I’ve done a Zigbee reset.

I’ll keep you guys posted!

Thanks!

[smarthomesven]

I think it might be based on the IEEE address:

I think the starting character is what it’s ordered from. So first 0, then 1, then 3, etc. That would align perfectly with my list that I have here.

[SunBeech]

Ah yes, you are right: my list is also sorted based on that address.

[Shyvan]

Update: I just had my Bridge disconnected for 1 hour.

Replugged it back in but the Aqara buttons don’t work.

Going to try a Zigbee reset and add all devices connected to a direct power source first.

[Shyvan]

Update 2: That didn’t work.

I decided to take a different approach. I created a separate Ubuntu VM on my Proxmox server and installed Zigbee2MQTT directly on it, with the Conbee USB stick passed through to the VM.

I re-paired everything by adding all router devices first, followed by the end devices (sensors, buttons). Everything seems to be running smoothly now in combination with the Homey Zigbee2MQTT app.

[Michael_Anderegg]

I’m reading this topic
because I’m having the exact same problems;
they started after I switched to the new version of Homey Pro.
The whole system has become unstable.