this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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Devices continuously dropping off my ZigBee network (lemm.ee)
submitted 1 month ago by MrKurtz@lemm.ee to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world
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I recently setup my ZigBee network in Home Assistant, using a Conbee III with deConz on my Synology NAS.

I purchased a few Aqara Temperature sensors and a couple of Mini Switches.

I was able to get them to pair just fine, but they won't remain online for more than a couple days. They then drop off and I can't even reconnect them easily. I need to try to pair them again like 10 times before they come back online.

At this point I don't know if the problem is my network, the Conbee III, deConz, or the Aqara devices.

I don't know much about ZigBee, but a couple things that I tried so far were:

  1. Use a USB extender instead of connecting the Conbee III directly to my NAS.
  2. Bring the devices as close a possible to the gateway. I don't have a big home, so I don't think distance is a factor here, but still, I put of the sensors right next to the gateway, and it would still drop after a while.

Do you have any hints on things to try to get this fixed, or at least identify the problem?

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[–] nekusoul@lemmy.nekusoul.de 2 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Well, this explains a whole lot. I've recently paired a few devices in front of the receiver and then moved them into position and wondered why some of them kept dropping off.

[–] unixorn@hachyderm.io 0 points 1 month ago (2 children)

@nekusoul @JelleWho

I wrote a blog post about it, but the TL;DR for a strong #zigbee mesh is

  1. Pick a zigbee channel that isn't getting stepped on by 2.4GHz wifi (which can be hard if you're in an apartment building or densely packed housing). Your best choices are using wifi channels 1 or 6 with zigbee channel 24, wifi 6 or 11 with zigbee channel 11, or wifi 1 or 11 with zigbee channel 18.

  2. Add powered devices to your mesh first. Start with the closest ones to your zigbee coordinator and work your way outward.

  3. Don't add battery powered devices until you've added all your router devices.

  4. Add new devices to your mesh where you’re actually going to use them so they connect through the nearest router node.

The post is at https://unixorn.github.io/post/zigbee-and-zwave-setup-tip/

@zigbee @homeassistant

[–] steve@mastodon.nexusuk.org 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@unixorn @nekusoul @JelleWho @zigbee @homeassistant how well do battery devices re-find the "correct" router after a power outage (all tge routers disappeared for a few hours)? The "stickyness" of devices to stay with their current parent instead of finding a new, better, one every so often seems a problem.

[–] unixorn@hachyderm.io 1 points 6 days ago

@steve @nekusoul @JelleWho @zigbee @homeassistant

It hasn’t been an issue for me.