That is ZWave…
Correct. Something like that yes.
I currently have a few custom made BLE devices connected to a BLE-MQTT bridge for this task. It works great, but I am in the process of consolidating things and it would be great if I could get rid of another bridge device (although this one is a simple ESP32, so much more reliable than a raspberry pi).
Chris - You may be right about the above. Unfortunatly I cant agree with that facing real live.
I may have been unlucky. But my experience is quite the opposite. My Zigbee devices has been a hell to get running stable. But my Zwave devices has been running rock stable ever since the first day (or something like that).
There is a clear reason why I have given up on Zigbee.
I dont recall how long I have tried. I started with zwave aprox two years ago. I think ½ year after or something like that I got my first Zigbee coordinator.
Since then I think I have restartet on my zigbee setup atleast 50 times, only to see my devices run for a short periode (some devices run in few days).
As for zwave I think I have restartet a maximum of 5 times, (mainly due to having made re-installed openhab or required due to upgrading the zwave binding).
I even have a second test setup based on a different version of Linux and a different hardware.
My main setup is a Rpi3B+ with the Elelabs Zigbee shield. Ember coordinator
My test setup is a Odroid C2 with the LR357 Zigbee dongle. Ember coordinator.
I experiences exactly the same issues on both systems using the same Zigbee devices.
You mention xiaomi as been difficult devices. I agree on that. But devices listet in the zigbee docs has been difficult as well. This goes for Philips Hue devices, Osram and also the Trust motion sensor, (which is not on the list, but is suppose to be fully zigbee compatible, (whatever that mean)). Latest I tried the Traadfri motion sensor, which I gave up after an hour, due to not beeing able to get it to include at all.
The problem with zigbee is, you simply dont know if it will ever gona work. And for some unknown reason, you cant rely on the list of devices either. I have never picked any devices from a “supported list of devices tested successfull”. I have picked all of them by random. Some of them I had before I even started using openhab, that goes for my Hue devices.
It´s somehow strange to see, you as the developer mentioning the above, and I as a user having a total different experience… If this was only one occasion, I would tend to agree. But I have 5 random Zigbee devices which all have failed. I have 6 random zwave devices which all has been running for almost two years now, and overall havn´t caused any issues at all.
My experiences simply tells me, there is something terrible wrong with zigbee, somewhere which I have no idea of. It may be the devices, it may be the cordinators. It may even be in the software (binding). It may even be a combination of all three. Noone really seems to know.
Yes, I’m aware that you’ve not managed to get your system working. My comments are more general - I’m talking about the protocols and their use. ZigBee is definitely more industrial - there are millions of smart meters in the UK for example - they all use ZigBee.
I’m sorry that we’ve not managed to get your system working, but it’s very difficult sometimes to remotely debug peoples setups - sorry.
I never doubt you know what you´re speaking off from the protocol perspective. My issues may seem as a mystery but I´m quite sure there is a clear reason somewhere.
1 Like
Hi there!
So my USB Zigbee stick finally arrived and I am now having issues getting it to work.
I bought the Bitron Video Zigbee USB stick based on the Ember chipset as discussed.
I have latest Openhab 2.5M5 running on openhabian on the Raspberry Pi 3. My zigbee and z-wave USB sticks are connected to the raspberry pi via a powered USB hub (so power should not be an issue).
I installed the zigbee binding and this immediately detected the stick and showed it in the UI. But it just doesn’t want to communicate with it. Here is part of the log:
2019-11-23 18:07:27.745 [hingStatusInfoChangedEvent] - 'zigbee:coordinator_ember:012424F4' changed from OFFLINE (COMMUNICATION_ERROR) to UNKNOWN
==> /var/log/openhab2/openhab.log <==
2019-11-23 18:07:28.752 [ERROR] [ding.zigbee.handler.ZigBeeSerialPort] - Serial Error: Port /dev/ttyUSB0 does not exist.
2019-11-23 18:07:28.763 [ERROR] [zigbee.dongle.ember.ZigBeeDongleEzsp] - Unable to open Ember serial port
The item is configured to connect to /dev/ttyUSB0, using software flow control and 57600 baud. The stick does seem to be present on the ttyUSB0 as evident by this:
[18:04:14] root@openHABianPi:/dev/serial/by-id# cd /dev/serial/by-id
[18:17:57] root@openHABianPi:/dev/serial/by-id# ls -l
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Nov 23 17:48 usb-0658_0200-if00 -> ../../ttyACM0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Nov 23 17:57 usb-Silicon_Labs_BV_2010_10_012424F4-if00-port0 -> ../../ttyUSB0
Running dmesg | grep tty gives me this:
[ 7.835770] usb 1-1.3.4: cp210x converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[ 263.231767] cp210x ttyUSB0: failed get req 0x8 size 1 status: -71
[ 263.532950] cp210x ttyUSB0: failed get req 0x8 size 1 status: -71
[ 263.834227] cp210x ttyUSB0: failed get req 0x8 size 1 status: -71
[ 264.236778] cp210x ttyUSB0: failed get req 0x8 size 1 status: -71
Any ideas on what could be wrong and why this doesn’t want to work?
1 Like
Yes, you skipped part of the installation document. You need to enable EXTRA_JAVA_OPTS for the port.
If you are running on Linux, then you probably need to add the user ‘openhab’ to the tty group, and enable EXTRA_JAVA_OPTS for the serial port your coordinator uses (see Linux install guide).
God, I feel like an idiot. Completely missed that part. The openhab user was added to the tty group, but I completely missed the EXTRA_JAVA_OPTS thing. Enabling those fixed my issue. It now seems to be working.
Now to actually start integrating my devices.
2 Likes
One other random question… is it possible to pair the bulb to both the zigbee binding and the tradfri gateway?
I am asking because of software updates and stuff like that.
No - probably not. There can only be one coordinator in a ZigBee network, and I suspect both systems will want to operate as the coordinator.
It’s not currently possible (apparently) to update the device firmware via the ZigBee binding as someone has recently tried, but it should work and I will look at this when I get time.
2 Likes
Valid point. But the firmware for the bulbs are not updated that frequently I guess?
When I noticed an update which brought a relevant feature or fix an issue, I paired the affected bulbs or sensors with their respective hub, let them update and pair them back to the zigbee binding.
Sure, it’s quite some effort… 
Well just a small update from me. I did the great December Ikea shopping trip, bought a bunch of Tradfri stuff and added it to my home automaton system. But… In the end I just decided to use the Tradfri gateway that I already had.
I tried using the Zigbee binding and the motion sensors didn’t report any useful data (so no motion or switch information). Just battery information. Seeing how that was really what I wanted it seemed pointless to go any deeper. Plus losing the ability to do firmware upgrades. It works good enough with the Tradfri gateway (which is now running 29 devices), and while I would certainly like more control over timing (how long the lights stay on) and when the lights come on (I don’t know why Ikea doesn’t make this more configurable) it still works ok.
I may try zigbee2mqtt (I ordered the TI stick at the beginning of the month just to test it) next year to see if that works any better.
Exactly the same I have been experienced with this device… I cant understand how come some claim they have it working. (or at least thats the impression I´ve got seeing this device in the doc).
My only guess is that the docs are mentioning the older motion sensors. Because from what I know Ikea has quite recently changed these. The old ones had a settable turn on duration, while the new ones have it fixed. And some other changes from what I understand (I think the new ones are slightly splash resistant, …).
I wouldnt know. I ´ve only got one.
I have purchased one for testing to try and help resolve this for you.
2 Likes