Another thing that might marginally improve your network is pointing all external antennas straight up: Ideally all the antennas on your devices should be pointed the same way (being it upright, flat to the ground or at an angle) to avoid polarization issues, but since most devices will probably have hidden internal antennas that isn't really an option. The next best thing is point external antenna on rounters and hubs up, that way their "donut-shaped" propagation field will be flat to the ground and cover more space horizontaly than vertically (which is what you probably want unless you live in a tower 😁). This is probably a lot less important for a mesh network like ZigBee than it is to mostly point-to-point networks like WiFi, but if you are trying to get the absolute best out of your setup it might still be worth it.

Thank you, HAG. That was excellent. I've taken your 3 tips on board and have learned a lot. I'll look at the other Zigbee videos.

Been looking for some help for this for months... considering trashing my ST network many many times. Thank you

This is a useful video. I'm new to home automation. Knowing the mistakes you made and how you fixed them will help me avoid those mistakes. Thanks.

Thank you for this neat summary. Much appreciated!

Found your channel two days ago and your videos have already learnt several things I was unable to find while googling, big thanks for the hard work!

this was great thanks, I'm at around 120 devices on my network and really starting to get some issues now. I don't like it but I going to repair the whole thing when my new unify APs come in. Thanks again

Had the same issue, changed to the sonoff stick and got rid of zigbee2mqtt to the direct HA integration. This solved all issue and the management in HA is much better and the sensor are much faster now.

wifi 2.4ghz can only use 3 non-overlapping channels. 1, 6, 11. If you designate 11 for zigbee, you can only use 1 and 6 for your APs. this isn't a problem if you only have 1 or 2. if you have 3, then you will need to use the same channel for 2 APs. just make sure they are the ones that are furthest apart and/or won't overlap. if you use any other channels, you will have overlap, crosstalk/noise and it will impact the performance of your wifi.

Excellent explanation. Congrats!!

I had about 30 devices with a CC2531 with several CC2531 as routers, with bulbs. worked great for well over a year. only reason I changed as I like to play around :) Note, I made sure that WiFi channels were far away from my Zigbee channel.

One thing i have done is to give different areas of the house differen names, like east par, west, base part etc. Then i assosiate rooms in this area to this area. Which makes it much easier to know where the sensors are "living" It makes it much easier when labeling both cable, sensors, even the fusebox get an easier labeling.

Really like the way you share your ideas and also get into the relevant details so people can replicate. Not just "I put these 2 together and it works fine". I am starting with zigbee and you have been enormously helpful, thanks!

This video could not have been better timed. The last couple days my Zigbee network has really been so iffy, only having one device attached to the coordinator today with the rest falling off, desipte having zigbee light bulbs in every (relatively small) room. Like yourself and many others consistency is key, having the cc2531 I have treated myself to the sonoff plus. Thank you, I always look forward to your videos.

Didn’t know the thing about the 2.4GHz Channels. thx for pointing that out 👍🏻 Nice to see your channel growing

Awesome as always. thanks for sharing

My devices names are formatted like room_type_placement, makes it fairly easy to both address everything in a room, and also to remember what is what

I keep my naming simple. Obviously I break down my house by rooms, therefore I have lights.family_room, motion_family_room, and etc. If there is more than one device, like lights, I just add a number behind the name (lights.family_room2). For my automations, I try to keep the names simple. [device][when automation fires][on/off]. For lights it would be Lights AM On or Lights AM Off. Might not be the fanciest naming system but it works for my Home Assistant setup.

Watching this and having read through the community forums and these comments, there's an idea out there that the network would "Heal" itself to better connections. That has not been my experience, and I hope by repairing with that 22-devices in mind helps me spread my mesh network better. I only have a few random lights that don't always cooperate, but it'll be nice to have them be as stable as I would have expected by now. And now, to plan a weekend of re-pairing and fixing automations. hopefully my naming stays the same and I won't need to re-do too many automations.

I want to thank you for all of the very professional videos you have made. I have watched about half so far. I want to praise you for the level of detail and your delivery manner. I have learned a lot more watching your videos than I have of other peoples videos on the same subjects. I seldom have to stop and go back to replay what you said. I wonder if maybe your day job involves technical training. In any case each of your videos provide useful information in a very useful manner. Thank you. I will now continue watching the rest of your videos before re-watching and implementing the ones that are most important to me. Thanks again.

Question: In one of your videos you mentioned the wifi mesh routers/ access points that you use, but I can't find that video. Could you please tell us what you use? I'm setting up a new home & upstairs has wifi reception issues, and I would love to know what you use for wifi. Thank you 🙏

Thanks for all the info. My only device that will not respond properly is my Sonoff Zigbee Button. Works for 2 or 3 days dies then comes back to life.

Thanks for pointing out, that's important WHERE you start to pair your devices in your house. I did the exact same mistake, you described in your video: Paired all the battery devices near my router, and got the same problem: router is overloaded, connections are weak. I hoped, the mesh would heal = rearrange itself. But no, it didn't. Have to repair the mesh, by re-pair the devices (ba-dum-tss). Watched this video the 5th time or so. You can always learn a bit more. Again: Thank you

Hi thank you for this video! Is it possible to connect zigbee 3 devices (using the cc2652 coordinator* ) to Alexa or Alexa echo directly using a zigbee 3 coordinator like this without having to pair them using Tuya or Smart life app? I’m in need of a 12v DC 10A (or a sow as 5A ) relay to turn some devices on/off in my SUV. Having a hard time finding a simple solution. I’d love something Homekit compatible but would go the Alexa route too! Thanks!

Hey, another tip. If you use an SSD with a ZigBee coordinator on your Pi, even with an extension cable you may suffer interferences. The fix? Do not use USB3.0 ports on the Pi for your SSD. It's a shame, but once the SSD is on 2.0, ZigBee works like a charm. I took months to discover this.

Loved the video!

Thanks for making this video. Soon I will be migrating from Philips Hue to my own zigbee dongle. Did you ever make the naming video, you mentioned?

Another way of getting rid of the radio "noise" of a Raspberry Pi or other SoC computer or PC (instand of an extension cable) is using a Zigbee-to-Ethernet or Zigbee-to-WLAN gateway like the ZigStar Gateway. This way you can place the Zigbee coordinator (nearly) anywhere in your house (e.g. in the centre), independent where your "server" is located.

Super useful video!

Useful video, I tried looking but did you ever do the naming convention video?

Yes, I use my personal conventional names and it’s something like this: room - entity type - specific entity. So, for example my ikea lersta lamp I’m the living room is: living room - light - ikea lersta!

Excellent tips, thanks I am soon going to start setting up my Zigbee network in a house i bought last year. One thing I am having issues with, is binding from the web site in Zigbee2MQTT. Do you have any videos about this? I would like a Philips Hue Motionsensor to turn on light, even if the zigbee2mqtt server is offline. (Or more specifically my wife wants it ;) )

Most modern day routers, especially those with mesh, will incorporate 'band steering' and ensure a particular channel is not congested. My HA machine and Zigbee Coordinator are literally right next to my router and it has no issues.

Some Zigbee lights may not act as routers. I use Sengled E21-N1EA bulbs (which are great, have good colors, and decently priced) but they do NOT act as routers. Per Sengled's support page: Our engineers made this distinction as repeaters require constant power, but people still tend to power off their bulbs with wall switches when leaving a room. With no power to the repeater, other end devices may disconnect.

Thanks for this. Turns out I made almost all of the same mistakes. Putting my Zigbee USB stick on a USB extension cable alone made a pretty big difference. I've also been pairing my devices near the coordinator and moving them, assuming the Zigbee mesh network was smart enough to pair with the closest / strongest signal instead of the original pairing device. 😑

I thankfully had a naming convention for my devices from day 1 thats noramally room Room - Device e.g. Bedroom - Motion Sensor and if there was more then one type of that device in the room like 2 lights it was Bedroom - Light (Bed) and Bedroom - Light (Door) so Id always know what they are my automations follow the same principle of Room - what it is or for Alexa actionable notification AAN - what it does - Pt1 etc.

hey great video, i am planning follow your tips in hope of stabilizing my ZHA network, but one quick doubt, I should go with Zigbee channel 11 and all my wifi AP's set to channels 7-13 (i am using unifi as well)? OR can i use channel 25 for zigbee and limit all my ap's to 1-6 channels? i heard that channel 25 zigbee has lower power transmission rates in US(not sure and hoping its not a problem for me in Singapore), I am also planning to migrate over to Zigbee2Mqtt from ZHA and repair all the devices? are my choices good and would it help me from slow automations and failing zigbee devices? any help is greatly appreciated, thanks you so much!!

I have a google spreadsheet with each device name, reserved IP, mac address, and human-readable comments detailing where it is and what it is. Helps a ton.

I use mostly Zwave devices to avoid the 2.4Mhz congestion. I live in a city and have a lot of 2.4Mhz noise from my neighbors. But some of my devices are WiFi or Zigbee. I noticed that my Zwave network has a better penetration in this noisy environment. I also noticed the same problem with not having a good naming convention. I now use something like light.livingroom_ceiling_dinnertable . But noticed that I need more and more rooms to divide the house more as the number of devices grows. For instance the storage closet in my living room became an other room.

Very good summary. Thank you. I want to ask you something. For the wifi network you can extend a network with multiple access point. The signal can pass through 3 different access point to reach the final client. But it is not recommended. One modem and one access point is ideal. How about zigbee network. Can a signal pass from one switch to another continiously 3-4 times. Is it technically possible and is it recommended?

Thanks. regardless of HA and it's usb coordinator which Chine's ZigBee hub do you recommend for ZigBee little module's that install behind the switch's ?

I just went through rebuilding my network after it failed miserably. I used the chance to migrate to skyconnect from a HUBZ combo stick. Two things I learned. 1) as you say - pair in situ. I realized this was an issue after pairing a couple water sensors in my office then taking them to the basement. Second was, watch for failed routers. Turns out, I'd moved offices and the automated lights in the old office were key routers in the network (sitting very close to the coordinator) and they'd been powered off when the automation failed. Check the network diagram regularly for similar devices. Thanks for this!

Great video! I use a CP2652 coordinator that is ethernet based. This is pretty nice since restarting Home Assistant doesn't impact the coordinator... (and if necessary I could power cycle the coordinator separately although I've never had to do that.) I do regret not getting a coordinator based on the EFP32 which has slightly more capacity, but fortunately I still have headroom under the CP2652 and will probably be fine for a few years.

ZB Bridge or ZB Dongle which is good for HA? ZB Bridge after flash with Tasmota, for HA, work is local network or cloud base control ?

How do you set the ZigBee devices channels? Mainly if you use ZHA. Do you need to drop ZHA and use MQTT in HA? Also, at the same time, how do you pass from three channels to two channels on your router setting? Do you have a video for this? Thank you.

The unplugging and repluggging the USB dongle was an issue for myself. Every now and again the LED on the dongle would just turn off. But I found in my Windows Device manager there was a USB sleep mode deep in the driver info... It was selected by default. That fixed me.

Is it really necessary to build the network in order to create optimal mesh routing? I have done this but when looking at the zigbee map it doesn't always choose its nearest neighbour. I also read that mesh networks self heal over time and should find the optimal path.

Great info, I've usually always stuck with z-wave because it is it's own network with it's own freq. However I am starting to build out a zigbee network starting with moving my Philips Hue stuff over to the zigbee dongle. My question which either was not covered or not very clear to me. How do I check the channel my zigbee stick is running on? And how would you recommend changing the channel if I needed to? I have a Home Assistant Blue with the Nortek z-wave/zigbee usb dongle connected to it. Thanks!

This was great insight. I have 55 zigbee devices where 2/3 are wired and serve as routers and I’m using the ZBDongle-E. Are you using the ZBDongle-P? I did check that the channel used doesn’t overlap with wifi but haven’t really planned routes or gotten my antenna away from my Wifi router. Guess I’m spending a weekend improving my network.

For the moment I try to do naming as 'location, (room) fixture (lamp? ceiling light? plug? Motion sensor) and then either a number for which bulb in a multi-bulb fixture like a chandelier, or a directions for which fixture if there are more than one, (North,South,NW, North Left, etc.) If I'm having trouble with a device I can find it quicly this wey. Annoying are the devices that I name like this, but the entities within the device have the manufacturer label information on them, named by zha. Naming isn't the major problem I'm running into though, but that's another issue.

Great channel! What integration/add-on made your Zigbee Map at 8:25? Would love one of these!

Hey I am doing an assesment at university and I just want to know if a zigbee network costs the same as wifi network do you have any resources?kind regards

The problem I have is that other than my main Zigby network , I have two other private Zigby networks at my location. One for my Drayton wiser central heating system., the other I believe is my electric and gas smart metres. I have no way of knowing what channels these are on as I can’t find a Zigby scanner/analyser like the Wi-Fi one you demoed in your video. Any ideas? 🤔

Nice video's. Still far behind you. I have significant problems with Sonoff Zigbee products. They disconnect, especially the door and window detectors. Motion detectors which are close to my hub (3 meters) Another motion detector at 6 meters disconnects. I have a Sonoff wifi HUB connected to Ewelink So if I read your advice. Maybe I should move my 2.4 GHZ wifi network to some other channel (a higher one). And try to figure out which channels the sonoff hub works on ? Or should I ditch Sonoff Zigbee alltogether for TUYA which seems to be recommended everywhere ?

Always use a naming convention from the start. You don't have to spend hours coming up with one, but a general rule of thumb is that from left to right you should have most significant info to least significant info. So for bulbs that would amount to "house-room-bulb_type-number" or something like that. Being lazy at the start will always hurt later on, especially if your family doesn't want a day of down time for the house. Question: Is there any utility to inspect how the Zigbee mesh network is performing or established. Can you actually see what device communicates through what other devices in order to get to the coordinator/hub?

Is it possible to force devices to connect to the newly enabled routers. I have a few devices that are still stuck talking to the coordinator when they can be talking to a router much closer to them. Thank you.

I may sound stupid. but please clarify. I have a sonoff zigbee bridge and lot of zigbee battery powered sensors n switches. How does the dongle work in my case. Should I just buy zigbee 3.0 dongle from sonoff and place it in farthest room where my sensors are not working currently? Can I plug the zigbee dongle to any USB power? PS: i don't use home assistant.

If my wall switch device is zigbee 1.0, can it be connected to the zigbee 3.0 router in order to extend the zigbee range?

Great video thanks. As for naming conventions I go for this and find it knocks it out the park {Area}_{device type}_{description} For example for some bedside lights Bedroom_main_light_bedside_wife Bedroom_main_llght_bedside_me Bedroom_{oldest}_light_bedside Bedroom_{youngest}_light_bedside For motion sensors Kitchen_sensor_motion Hallway_sensor_motion Outdoor_front_sensor_motion Outdoor_rear_sensor_motion You probably get the idea at this stage. The main point though is that areas are the first part as they are the biggest thing to group by. And there are similar areas which may also need to be grouped (bedrooms/outdoor) so prioritising those at the start is also important. Then grouping by device type makes it very easy to drill into the next stage. It's not good enough to rely on the home assistant domain (light/switch/etc) as this may not be true. E.g. a smart light switch would appear as a switch but is effectively a smart light. Next is the descriptor. Again fairly generic and avoiding physical device references (at some point they may be upgraded after all). It's also important to make sure to prioritise any further grouping should that be needed... E.g. if you have device in wardrobes, stick a wardrobe reference in first. Lastly, abbreviations are useful but it's VERY easy to overkill in this area and you may go too far and need to expand out later. And/or forget what the reference is in relation to. Personally I just don't bother as I have yet to see any advantage in abbreviating. There's enough auto completes to prevent a full type and I'm much more likely to need to revisit what on earth ORL relates to (outdoor rear light) 6 months in the future when I need to change things. There's an argument for not needing this level of complexity with naming conventions as you can add areas to device and domains exist to take the hassle out of that. But domains may not be an accurate reflection (as previously mentioned) and areas are no use when using something like NodeRED which will just give a list of all device in a domain.

What light bulbs do you use as ZigBee repeaters? Because I can't find anything but Philips brand or some Sylvania brand lights... Same situation goes for ZigBee light switched, a company called Enbrighten making fortune every time they are selling these bulbs

Hi. Im new to setting up the zigbee mesh network, i have two questions. One: did you let each router device pair automatically to the coordinator or did you pair each additional router device to the closest router device. Two: did you for the child device force them to pair with the closest router device or let them pair automatically.

I'm planning to use 3 hue bridge (as I have a lot of hue devices on all those areas) : 1 for all the lights outdoor 1 for ground floor 1 for 1st floor. I have also sonoff P dongle. My first hue hub is on canal 20 the second on 25 the third will be on 15. All other equipment not compatible with the hue bridge (such as door sensor, smoke sensor,..) will be connected directly to home assistant with the sonoff . Do you recommend to use different canal for all 4 of them ? Or the same canal ? And if so, for the sonof to have a signal powerfull enough to cover the all house what would you recommend then ?

I found no need to put my ZigBee stick on an extension cord. If I leave it directly in the USB port, connect an external antenna with a cable and put it on top of my network rack, I get literally the same improvement. This has the huge advantage of a screw in connector and much cleaner cable management. :-)

Thanks for the great video. How does the Sonoff Zigbee bridge fit into the network? Is it a router? Can it replace the coordinator? Is it useful? Thanks again.

Good video :) well explained and thought out. One problem I face is that some of my first smart lights (hue) are now 10 years old. And still, using zigbee light link (zll) hue decided to not upgrade to 3.0 on the oldest hardware. Somewhat understandable but zll is very chatty and if I move everything to one hub the zll bulb will drown out all the 3.0 devices :) so I keep the old hue hub for those. Could be a thing to keep in mind if you like me still have old hue lights.

What's the smartphone WiFi analyser app that you show at 7:10? Systems like WiPry cost upward of £600 so are not really within the realm of hobbyists. Is this a cheaper one?

Interesting & useful! I am busy to prepare for a big re-install; Your tips should benefit me. Thanks. Willem

How you choose device that is reliable? There is couple of buggy devices and/or are badly integrated to z2m. The repo have 10k issues, thousands of them closed automatically with bug never resolved. Do you fix the code yourself?

Wheres is your video about the devices naming?

Does the order in which you connect devices really matter? Does the coordinator determine the path of the network? I have seen other videos where people pair through a specific device (a setting in ZHA), but the end device doesn’t remain paid to that specific device it seems to move randomly

Hi, are you using Philips hue bridge for your lights ? Or a do you use zigbee2mqtt/ZHA for that? I have so many hue lights that i need 2 hubs (philips hue), so I was thinking to build a need zigbee network using zigbee2mqtt. Or is it best to use hue bridge for the lights ?

You didn't mention Lutron Caseta ClearConnect which uses 434 MHz frequency. You said you were using Aqara child devices. Does that mean you are pairing them with an Aqara Hub? If so, how do you set the Zigbee frequency used on the Aqara Hubs?

I started with SmartThings. it has zigbee and zwave. the first couple years in this house had issues. devices dropping off network, ect. First I moved the SmartThings from the basement to the middle floor, middle of home. This helped alot. 2nd, I stopped cheaping out on batteries. Cheap batteries would die before low battery warning, or just have poor performance. Energizer batteries have been running for 2 years.

When it comes to pairing devices on the spot where it is going to be used. When a node select a router, will this router be where it sends traffic forever? If that is the case you should re-pair devices everytime you move them to a new location.

I don't think my mesh is setup correctly. I have two repeater plugs centrally located downstairs and upstairs. I was not able to join new devices in the final location so I moved them next to the controller to add them. Looking at the map in Zigbee2mqtt I can see some of the devices are connected to repeaters but most of them connected to the controller. Does the mesh eventually heal itself or do I need to manually fix this? What is the best way to fix my network? Do I have to delete devices or can I re-register them near a repeater? It would seem the mesh network is rather brittle if I have to manually fix it. I would expect I would be able to add and move repeaters and the mesh network adapt.

I always name my devices with zone_name without any other underscore. Like kitchen_light, hallway_tablelight, livigroom_tv, bedroom_motion... Etc

Thanks for the video! I paired my devices without plan too. I think, they rearrange their connections when being moved. You are sure this is wrong? I’m using ioBroker and the Zigbee adapter shows the connections. I will figure out.

What if Ibdont have home ssistant? I just have a usb/ble gateway and its pants!

Is it really the case that the sequence that devices are added is THAT significant?? I.e. if I add a device that is at the extreme range from a repeater, if then add a new repeater between them. It won't help with those two? I'd have imagined it would broadcast on the 'network' and they'd both relay the pertinent details.

How do I use Google home with this? Sometimes voice commands are neesed

I have the Sonoff USB 3.0 Dongle Plus set up with Zigbee2MQTT in Home Assistant, and I'm trying to find out where I can find the Wifi channel information for the device?? Any clue? Thanks, in advance and thanks for the great information on Zigbee networks! ~Frank

There is no « healing » process like z wave ?

Can you create a video describing the high availability of Home Assistant? or any other fix if the home server breaks

how can you measure zigbee signal strengthm?

Besides lights are there any other recommendations for good low cost repeaters? I don’t have a need for lights with Zigbee so would appreciate any other solutions to extend a network

i have COMBEE 2 can i make this all with COMBEE or sonof usb is bether for this ? ....

Hold on. Do you need to recreate an automation rule after renaming a device in Home assistant? Or was it due to the fact that you had to re-pair them from scratch?

I am new to automation world, bought Hubitat recently since I am interested in zigbee over wifi devices. Lot of terms are confusing me, the difference between hub, repeater, bridge, coordinator, dongle, etc.... I am telecom engineer, so i prefer to read technical information, any help??!!

Is there a way to move a device away from the coordinator to work through a router without repairing?

Naming conventions! Everyone talks about having a good one but no one shows a good one and why

About the powered devices acting as routers: when you have a battery powered device that is to be placed in a room distant from your main coordinator, can you pair this through a nearby powered lightbulb (if the lightbulb is already paired of course)? I've always paired my devices very close to the CC2531, and moved them away to their distant places. I thought they would work through the routers placed in between no matter where they were paired.

Doesnt restarting the coordinator also restart the mesh network?

I name everything “Hall Lamp 3” place-device-recognizable number or function”

My entity ID is type.room_placement/device, then I name it placement/device. Ex. Entity ID is switch.kitchen_airfryer and name is just “Airfryer”. Entity ID is light.basement_storage and name is just “Storage”. It makes it easier when creating automations based on rooms. I used to do light.basement_storagelight “Basement Storage Light” but I found I would group it in Lovelace under basement, and it’s icon would be a lightbulb so Basement and light were redundant. Also when automating the type makes adding light at the end redundant as well.

I recd sonoff usb dongle. Is there a way to check the range of the dongle?

Does this mean, that I can use my Hue Light-Bulbs as routers (repeaters)?

Presumably zigbee light bulbs only act as routers when they have power. Most of my lights are already controlled by (WiFi) smart wall switches, which have the advantage that they can still be used manually if the WiFi fails. To use a bulb as router I guess it has to have power on all the time, so the light can only be controlled over zigbee? I'll try zigbee plugs instead.

Name this way [room]_[type]_[place in room]_[number/position] Kitchen_light_counter-sink Kitchen_light_counter-rightside_0 Bedroom_blind_middel-window Living-room_light_corner-lamp_lowest

I do this when i name my devices zigbee or not Type.Location.Device.WhereInTheRoom.Number eg. Light.hallway.bulb.ceiling.01

I don’t understand your point about pairing to the correct router. Are you saying the mesh isn’t smart enough to reroute it’s connection to the closest router when link quality is too low? I have about 50 zigbee devices, all paired at the same spot in my house, then moved to their location and all seem to have found a good working route without ever thinking about this