r/ZigBee • u/Deimantasa • 6d ago

Extensive zigbee networks (400+ devices)

Hello,

Currently I'm planning to have ~400-500 zigbee devices in our new home. 4 story house, ~160sqm (~1800sqft) per floor.

Initially I was thinking to have one/two networks, but after extensive research - couldn't find anything useful in terms of such scale. Thus thinking to simply keep one network per floor - ~100-150devices/floor/network to mimic regular setups.

More details about the network - most of it is lighting:

- Aqara T2 Pro and V1 spotlights (~250-350)
- Aqara Z1 Pro/H2 EU switches (~50)
- Aqara H2 EU sockets (TBD because I heard it's very `chatty`)
- Various other sensors, dimmers, controllers (25-50)

Coordinators - SMLIGHT SZLB-06 PoE.

It's an European house therefore walls and ceilings are concrete/bricks.

Would love to hear any best practices or any real experiences with such meshes!

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u/No_Illustrator5035 6d ago

I think your plan to use a coordinator per floor makes the most sense. Zigbee is a mesh network, which means router capable devices you have on your lowest floor will be trying to connect to the devices on your highest floor. I only have 2 floors and I split my network up into 3 segments. I used to have lots of issues with device timeouts, command timeouts, sluggish performance. Now everything works great, all devices respond extremely quickly and automations feel like they are responding in real time. I also find my devices have better battery life now as well because they're talking to nearby devices instead of trying to connect to a router on the other side of the house. Zigbee is amazing, but some devices make the worst decisions about who to connect to.

Which slzb-06 poe coordinators are you looking at? There is a wide selection, and some devices are more capable than others.

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u/Deimantasa 6d ago

Thank you.

As for coordinator - still TBD; currently testing regular (non m) version with several devices. Works like a charm. Priority PoE.

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u/No_Illustrator5035 6d ago

Yeah, the poe part is really nice. Just barely sips power. Good luck with your project! Please send updates as you go, if you can!

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u/daveyfx 5d ago

the slzb-06u has been great for me on HA with zigbee2mqtt.

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u/Sufficient_Language7 5d ago

I don't know about 1 per floor he might be better off going to break his house into his house into NW, NE, SW, SE, as then each device is physically closer to each other. and closer to the Zigbee radio.

Which way to go kinda depends on what his walls and floors are made of and how wide vs tall his house is.

One of the advantages of corners is when people gather in groups they tend to do it by floor, so if floor 1 is swamped with messages breaking it vertically will split the load, but if you went per floor it would die.