Hi, yesterday I did a full reset of my Zigbee network because I needed to add some newly wall plugs from Develco. I couldn’t add them without doing the full reset.
Starting from fresh I did everything by the book. Adding my routers firstly then adding all the battery powered devices. Every devices was added at its final destination.
Before the reset everything was working just fine, except two Aqara temp. sensors that didn’t report after adding. So my conclusion was that I didn’t have enough routers. So with 3 new routers my hopes for adding all my devices was high.
But sadly my hopes was too high. Now one of the sensors that worked before is not working, and one of the sensors that didn’t work before is working. Everything is in the same place except the new routers that are placed around the house.
In Developer Tools I noticed that two of my router devices connected to another router device. That resulting in the battery devices connected to router 6 and 7 are going via two routers before reporting to Homey. Is that going to cause a problem? I’m guessing its a problem for the future since they take up place on those routers since there is a limited number of devices that can connect to each router? Or is this limit only for the Homey-device?
The two sensors that are not reporting are connected to the 16 router. I have a total of 19 battery devices and 15 of them are connected to the 16 router + the two routers that are connected to the 16 router. So I’m thinking the problem is here.
Is there any possibility to reconnect devices or in any way force the device to connect to another router? I know I can’t choose which router or coordinator the device connect to, but maybe I can reconnect the device hoping it chooses some other way to connect to the network. Is it possible without reseting the entire network?
Also I think its strange that all my battery devices choose to connect to a router and not directly to Homey. Even a sensor thats right next to the Homey choose to connect to a wall plug thats placed in the basement (Homey is in the first floor).
No. That is exactly the way a zigbee network is supposed to operate.
Your coordinator can typically only handle a fixed number of direct connections. Once the number is reached, no additional devices can be connected directly to the coordinator. That is why the general advices is to connect routers before connecting end devices.
Routers also have a limit on the number of connections they can handle. Routers connecting to routers is exactly the way a zigbee network is built.
I’m suspect you may be running into the limits of the Homey hardware. As your developer tools is showing the connections between zigbee devices, my guess is you are using a older Homey (pre 2023). These devices can typically accommodate 15 direct connections and the zigbee network will max out around 30 to 40 connection is general
I do indeed have an Early 2019 Homey Pro. But as I can read from the documentation I can’t see that my network i maxed out. I have 4 routers, and 19 end devices. So the recommended routers pr. end device (1 router for every 5 end device) should be ok. Also it looks like the end devices are not choosing the router that is closest to it.
I’m going to try remove the end devices that are not reporting and readding them. In the hope that they will connect to another router thats not reached the limit.
Also one question. What happens if I want to replace a router? I’m thinking of replacing one of my routers hoping that it will spread out my network better. But then I need to remove the device and reconnect it. What happens to the end devices thats allready connected to it?
Aqara sensors tend to stop sending events in case they connected themselves to an Ikea light’s zigbee router.
Worse, they don’t look for an other router any longer in order to be able to send events.
So, if tou happen to have Ikea lights, replace those or replace the Aqara sensors.
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That’s sort of useless, because IF they connect to an other router, it"s still possible they decide to connect to an other router after a while.
The only way (known to me) to block access to a router, is to place the router out of signal range / as far away as possible.
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All connected devices go look for alternative routers to connect with, it should self-heal.
If not, re-pair the end device without removing it prior to that. Homey will respond with “device already added”, ignore that. But do restart the related app afterwards.
I did some more testing tonight. Removed all the temperature sensors and tried adding them again. Also tried moving the two that didn’t work to the location of another that worked. Didn’t work to add it there. Also tried adding the sensor close to one of the routers. Same problem. So it looks like there is a problem with the sensors itself. Tried changing batteries, but no luck.
I tried adding a Aqara mini button and that worked fine. So until now I have settled with faulty sensors as the problem.
I don’t have any IKEA lamps. Had one earlier but found out it ruined the network so removed it again.
