Zigbee2mqtt: Multiple coordinators on one service

[ABeumer525]

I have 3 coordinators on one pi. And as such have 3 instances of zigbee2mqtt running. The 3rd is obsolete. But I want to have one coordinator for all the alarm depending sensors for the groundfloor and then seperately have a coordinator for the rest including routers etc.

But the fact that I cannot have multiple coordinators seems awkward. Is this something only I am running in to? Or perhaps more people could be helpes with multiple coordinators on a single instance?

Love the project by the way, mindblown since I started using this. Thanx! @Koenkk

[danpowell88]

Why are you running multiple, is it due to device limits?

[ABeumer525]

Two reasons:

1. Multiple devices at first
2. Having a seperate group that when power fails still works. Modem and pi are battery backed up and in case of power outage I will still be notified about someone entering the house.

[subzero79]

This is part of the zigbee standard, only one coordinator per network

https://www.silabs.com/documents/public/user-guides/ug103-02-fundamentals-zigbee.pdf

Section 3

The Zigbee specification supports at most one coordinator, multiple routers, and multiple end devices within a single network. These
node types are described in the following sections.

[henriz]

Within a single network. As I understand him, he doesnt neccesarily want a single network, he wants multiple networks. And this is perfectly possible.

The easiest way to accomplish this is first to set different channels for each coordinator. Then make sure only one coordinator is ON and only the devices that need to pair to that coordinator. Pair them. Then switch it all of. Switch on the second coordinator and all the devices you want paired to it .Pair them, switch it all off.

And so forth. And before switching them all on, disable pairing on all of them.

After this you have 3 coordinators with 3 separate networks.

[khzd]

Thanks Henriz for this feedback
I have a network on channel 26, so I can use the channel 11 to update my Xiaomi devices if needed without shutdowning the primary one ?

[henriz]

yes you can, however, you'll have to bind the devices to the network on channel 11, and then rebind them to your normal network.

I do roughly the same thing to send OTA updates to my hue stuff using the hue hub.

It's not really neccesary to turn everything off, but it's the safe way. Normally it should be enough to set your network on channel 26 to not to allow joining of devices, and the network on channel 11 to allow joining, then unjoin your xiami device of the 26 network, let them bind to the 11 network, perform the update, unjoin from the 11 network, set the 11 network to deny joining, then the 26 networ to allow join and join that.

[ABeumer525]

@henriz you are totally getting it.

[khzd]

Thanks @henriz for this clarification.
@koenkk this need to be added to documentation for ÔTA update: I m running more than 50 devices without any check for manuf update. I have a Xiaomi camera hub Thant I can use to test one device type for update and repaire it with my primary network?
Thanks.

[ABeumer525]

You guys gave me an idea. On updating everything I tried to re-pair everything in a certain order. It looks like I only need one coordinator now. Everything that is alarm critical I have paured first and then I started pairing routers and other stuff.

Is there another reason to want to have the software drive multiple cooardinators? Otherwise this became a silly issue.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[wimpie007]

it is not a silly question in some cases...
My network is becoming to big, and there is an area in my house (actually the car-garage) where i always have reception troubles. (wife shutting down some zigbee lights doesn't help to get there a stable netwerk either)
I would opt to run a second zigbee network for those reasons. However, maintaing one zigbee2mqtt instance would be perfect. (instead of running a second instance on another pi)
a cc2530+esp -> socat would be perfect.
(now i'm testing tasmota zigbee with the cc2530, but integrating it in HA is a pain in the ^&*)