R4/Zigbee Drop offs

Impaqt

4 R4's and 4 separate Gateways in the home. they are spread out so making one Zigbee mesh wasnt really an option.

one of the R4's is losing communications with its Gateway randomly. Sometimes reconnects, but usually does not.

System worked perfect for over 2 years.

I tried updating the firmware on the gateways and R4's and it appeared to help at first, but I just got another call from the client to say it happened again. Rebooting the remote "Sometimes helps" but it drops off again rapidly.

Seems I am getting this problem just on one of the 4 systems, so not sure if its in the R4 or if its a Gateway issue. Seems more like its in the R4 to me at the moment.

ANyone else seeing this?

John Nagy

An easy way to solve problems is to cut them in half and see which side the issue reappears on.

Move the R4 that shows the issue to one of the other locations. Paired with a new gateway, if the R4 has the problem there, it's the R4. If the R4 from the prior good location fails in the same location as the other, it's the gateway - or possibly localized interference.

jjames

Just curious, have you ever looked at the buffer and see where it maxes out at? I know you said it's been stable for the past two years, but have you made any changes in code that you could be flooding the gateway with commands?

DHawthorne

I have yet to see an R4 that didn't drop off from time to time. As long as they come right back up and there is no noticeable performance hit, I don't worry about it much.

However, if it worked fine for years and suddenly stopped, I would think it almost has to be some manner of outside RF interference. WAPs stepping on the signal, microwave harmonics, could be almost anything. I went and got a cheap spectrum analyzer to look for such stuff, and have so far been disappointed, because if you let it run for a while, the entire spectrum fills up ... there is simply a lot of RF crap in the air at any given time.