Stability/Reliability of zigbee

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1

Hello,

For about a year now, my Zigbee devices have been connected to my mini-PC via the Sonoff ZBDongle-E (Model EFR32MG21). It’s working fairly well — I control 60 devices with it.
But I have a reliability issue over time: fairly frequently, but randomly (I’d say between twice a day and twice a week, it varies…), several Zigbee devices lose their pairing and I can no longer control them, particularly switches or smart plugs with power monitoring.

Restarting Zigbee (for example with the command ‹ docker container restart gladys-z2m-zigbee2mqtt ›) restores the connection.

I don’t think this is caused by those devices being far away, because my Zigbee mesh is rather dense.

Do you encounter this kind of problem as well? Do you think it’s my dongle that’s faulty or my plugs? Do you have a more robust dongle model to recommend?

With Zigbee becoming central to my setup, I’m willing to invest more than the €25 I initially put into this dongle…

In short, I’m open to your advice :wink: Thanks in advance!

2

Hi Stéphane

just to say I have the same issues, I have modules all over my very large property — it works pretty well, however I was able to notice several things: as soon as I add a new module, systematically another one disconnects, I’m forced to re-pair it; well once you know that it works.

another thing: my land is on a slope, I live in the mountains — I didn’t understand why some modules would lose the signal from time to time, especially the temperature modules. I noticed that those that work well were placed at roughly the same level, I mean height. Same problem with Wi‑Fi, even in the open.

the propagation of the signal also varies depending on the weather — rain, fog, etc.

these are parameters that unfortunately cannot be easily controlled.

I have a Zigbee Sonoff module with an external antenna and a USB extension cable; try placing your dongle up high — that’s what I did.

3

So personally I have a little under 30 modules in my house with a strong mesh possible but not used to its full potential because I leave it on auto (I don’t know if it can be forced to manual)

and so far, for several months, no disconnection issues in my network

I have a USB stick hidden behind my TV on a mini PC

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I had some random disconnections at first. After changing the USB extension cable, the placement of the Sonoff dongle and

5

Lots of problems at first. But I implemented the following actions:

  • purchase of a quality USB 2.0 extension cable
  • connecting the extension to a USB 2.0 port (and not USB 3.0)
6

Hello,
Not enough long-term experience with my setup, which moved from a Conbee II USB (without an extension cable) to a SMLIGHT SLZB-06M (EFR32MG21) on PoE.

Be very careful with the cable in any case! I had freezes every 2–3 days with the SLZB at first and I realized that the network cable used was really bad (but there was no external sign to guess it). Since changing the cable I haven’t had to restart the PoE module (45 days of uptime currently).

Personally I really like the SLZB: power via PoE (USB

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7

On my side I have 37 Zigbee devices, connected to a Sonoff P dongle, which is itself plugged into a mini-PC (without an extension cord).

Installation active since the beginning of the year — so far, knock on wood, no particular issues.

Also, I’m in an apartment (67 m²), and a good half of my devices are repeaters (smart bulbs, smart plugs), so I don’t have the distance problem.

Quite surprisingly, my dongle is very close to my Wi‑Fi router because my TV stand isn’t very big, but that has never caused a problem. I think I’m entirely on 5 GHz Wi‑Fi so they don’t interfere with each other.

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Thanks for all the tips. I’ll test all of that during the holidays…

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I also had some issues, and many users of the zigbee2mqtt project also seem affected (source).

I had the same problem and I solved it moving the zigbee stick away from the shelf where my mini PC, switch and NAS are, with a USB extension cable. Wifi routers and especially USB 3.0 ports can cause interferences with 2.4 GHz radio devices. You can get informations about this on this page.

I just wanted to chime in that although I did have my coordinator extended via USB, it was right next to my switch and router. I moved it 2 meters away just on the floor and I devices are responding again.

In short, one of the most commonly suggested solutions (source) is to:

  1. Check if your USB dongle is on USB 2.0
  2. Move it away from the PC using a USB extension cable
  3. Make sure you have always-on repeaters/routers not too far from each other (e.g., a smart plug, a thermostat, etc.)
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