Question

Myth confirmed, or busted?  Since I started my smart home, many years ago, I've always stayed away from Zigbee because of the wifi interference issues it supposedly has (which makes sense considering it is on the same frequency).Myth confirmed, or busted? Since I started my smart home, many years ago, I've always stayed away from Zigbee because of the wifi interference issues it supposedly has (which makes sense considering it is on the same frequency). To this day, I have zero Zigbee devices in my house. But, it is really a bad problem? Will Zigbee devices hinder performance of my mesh wifi system, or vice versa? I'm looking to start adding some RGBW light strips to a number of places around the house, and the z-wave options for those are limited, and expensive when compared to their Zigbee counterparts ($17 Lightify).  

Answer 1

Bluetooth is also on 2. 4ghz. Keep an eye on what wifi channel you are on and it's fine.  

Comments

It's quite rare that they step on each other / cause interference. Most routers are good at avoiding them.  

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@betthezel Honestly I don't know and it's never affected me. I've got 3 access points in one house (on channels, 1/6/11) and 2 access points in another house. Both houses have SmartThings hubs and a dozen or more zigbee devices. I've never had any problems.  

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@betthezel your Zigbee network will stay on the channel first initialized by the ST hub. That channel is automatically selected based on the least 'noisy' channel at the time it is setup. Once set it can't be changed without a teardown of the entire zigbee network.  

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(Note that I have installed peanut plugs to act as zigbee repeaters in strategic locations, but that's just a zigbee range issue)

Answer 2

No issues here. Orbi & zigbee. WiFi causes issues to zigbee, not the other way around. but I’ve not had any issues!  

Answer 3

Not a myth. But easily planned around.  

Comments

@betthezel understand what channels overlap (they're not identical but there are maps available that tell you how the overlapping works. ) And keeping your WiFi router or access point(s) in a different room than your ST hub.  

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@betthezel why not? I'm on a v2 as well. My hub is in my home office (basically middle of the home) plugged into a hard ethernet connection and my wifi APs are on the far ends of the house on wired connections for backhaul. Like I said you can plan around it. Look up your ST hub zigbee channel on the IDE and keep your wifi channels on non overlapping channels and the APs as far away from the ST hub as possible.  

Answer 4

I’ve got about a dozen zigbee devices stretched from one end of my house to the other and have not had interference. My WiFi is also a commercial small business router 2. 4 and 5ghz. I’ve had no problem with either zigbee/WiFi or WiFi/zigbee.  

Answer 5

You're going to need a number of repeaters (not bulbs) to get a good mesh setup, I had a number of devices on one side of my house that kept disconnecting about every. few weeks I finally decided to change that AP from channel 11 to channel 1 and haven't had any other issues. My Zigbee is on channel 20 and my other two APs are one channel 1 on the far side and channel 6 in the middle and neither of those have ever caused an issue. Everything has been very reliable for the last few months since making that change.  

Answer 6

I use an Orbi RBK33 mesh with 200/200 fiber. Almost my entire home is made up of ZW+ outlets, switches and dimmers but my kitchen top/bottom cabinets, media cabinets & behind my TV are Zigbee sylvania RGBW strips 5 controllers. Also have 2 lamps with sylvania RGBW bulbs and my 2 porch lights have RGBW BR30 bulbs. This compliments an entire home that only streams on Apple TV’s with about 40-50 WiFi devices hooked up at any one time. NO issues what so ever.  

Answer 7

I have 65-Zigbee devices of 110 total. Also have 35+ wifi devices running off a Nighthawk Router. No issues here. Not sure what your scared of.  

Comments

@betthezel as long as your wifi channel is away from your zigbee channel, using zigbee devices is a non-issue. I have my hub 3ft from router. Still get solid zigbee signal on opposite side of the house, 130ft out into another building structure that is steel sided. Never any issue. Device total distance from hub is at least 150ft+.  

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@betthezel I have nearly 20 repeaters placed equally throughout my house and garage. Some are outlets, some bulbs. Also XBee3’s and Cc2531 TI USB boards.  

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@betthezel the XBee3 pros, have a range of 2-miles +. However I have not tested them that far.  

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@betthezel your question about how far before needing a repeater? It depends on device. Some can do 100ft direct to the hub, others no more than 30-40ft. My mesh is mapped through Xbee, which helps Me to identify weak spots.  

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Well my stuff is still f*cked. I think you're just lucky

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@homemade maybe you just have a bad hub. What version hub you have? V3 is by far better at zigbee than the others.  

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@homemade is your settings here the same?  

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@homemade unsecure rejoin?  

Answer 8

Well my multiple Smarthings buttons are useless and Samsung have been unable to help me. - so draw your own conclusions

Answer 9

I have about 20 zigbee devices + 35 hue lights, never had a problem until last week when hue lights stopped working. I changed the zigbee channel and I fixed them, but apparently sometimes overlapping can be an issue, possibly a neighbour turned on a new router that chosed the channel my zigbee was using. The fact is, there are hundreds of great zigbee devices, usually much cheaper than Z-wave (at least in Italy were Z-wave devices are always around 50-60€ and zigbee you can found from 10 to 30€)

Answer 10

I've got about as many Zigbee as Z-Wave devices and my ST hub is about a foot away from my primary router. Zero issues on the Wifi mesh performance and zero issues with zigbee devices communicating. No worries.  

Comments

I concur with Jason. My ST hub and all of my hubs (hue, myq, etc) is about a foot away from my router and have many zigbee and zwave devices and no problems with my wifi

Answer 11

No issues. but I'm on Home Assistant now. Better get those $17 lights before they get all bought up

Answer 12

I have in the ballpark of 30 zigbee devices, no issues.  

Answer 13

In short - No, it won't. In long - although zigbee and wifi frequency share same ISM band of frequencies, they have totally different IEEE protocol, definitely CSMA/CA will take care of any interference. In fact using Zigbee is the most preferred way over wifi as the southbound connectivity is handled by gateway over zigbee keeping only single ip for ip connection to northbound. Moreover, zigbee is superior over wifi due to good meshing, range, multi hopping, multipath susceptibility etc.  

Comments

@embonpoint in theory, yes. In practice no. It stomps the ST zigbee radio if it's in an overlapping channel with a strong signal. Source: my old wifi router set to channel 11 and many MANY examples of zigbee radios 'dropping' for no apparent reason on the community site.  

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I'm with @anatolia7046 an on this. CSMA/CA does not take care of this issue. It solves co-channel interference of the same protocol (multiple WiFi stations on the same channel). It does not take care of noise interference which is what a different protocol on an overlapping channel will appear like to the transceiver

Answer 14

I have a wifi mesh network and about 60 devices combo of zwave zigbee and wifi and once I tuned in my mesh network the rest is stable. Fixed my Asus mesh by running wrt merlin, I don't even force channel, it works fine in auto with separate 2. 4 and 5 ghz ssids

Answer 15

I've got around 70 Zigbee devices distributed all around my thick-walled 100 year old house. I've got Zigbee devices two floors up in a finished attic, two through a brick exterior on the outside, and multiple Zigbee sensors installed diagonally across the house behind clay block walls in a basement. Orbi Wifi and two satellite stations are distributed though the house. I have never done any optimization of my Zigbee signal frequency on the hub. I have zero issues with my Zigbee devices. And no 2. 4Ghz interference issues. It all comes down to having a proper Zigbee mesh with adequate repeaters. Myth busted.  

Answer 16

I have a bunch of Zigbee devices and no problems with wifi.  

Answer 17

Depends on the channel it’s using. Most of the time won’t interfere for a few devices. But say you have devices which are constantly reporting power then yes it may reduce the efficiency of your wifi network. Infact the opposite may be more true where the wifi may interfere with your ZigBee devices if they’re on the same channel given the radio strength.