Change the Zigbee channel

Introduction

A Zigbee network uses one channel of the 2.4 GHz band, from 11 to 26. Choose a channel away from your Wi-Fi: see Zigbee and Wi-Fi, and measure the radio activity with Network > Interference level or a real-time interference scan.

When a zigpy coordinator (Texas Instruments, Silicon Labs, ConBee/RaspBee…) forms a new network with the channel setting left to default, it runs an energy scan and picks the quietest of the channels 11, 15, 20 and 25.

Some devices were reported to need a specific channel (findings from the ZiGate era):

• Konke: channel 15
• Livolo: channel 26 (see Livolo)
• Legrand: channel 11 for some devices (see Legrand)

There are two ways to change the channel.

Method 1: live channel change (recommended)

The coordinator moves to the new channel and broadcasts the change to the whole network. The paired devices are kept.

1. Go to Admin > Coordinator (see WebUI Admin).
2. In the Coordinator change channel panel, select the new channel.
3. Click Change channel.

The routers (mains-powered devices) receive the broadcast and follow. End devices (battery devices) sleep and miss it:

• Zigbee 3.0 end devices look for the network on the other channels when they wake up and no longer reach their parent, and rejoin it;
• older end devices don’t: reset them to make them rejoin the network on the new channel (see Add a new device).

Wait a while, then check in Management > Device Management which devices don’t report any more.

Method 2: form a new network on the chosen channel

The channel setting (WebUI Settings, Coordinator settings, advanced) is only applied when the coordinator forms a new network. Forming a new network erases it: all the devices must be paired again. Use this method only when you start a network from scratch.

1. Set channel to the channel you want and click Validate.

   

2. Turn the autoRestore setting off (Zigpy CIE specific configuration, advanced): otherwise the plugin restores the last coordinator backup, on the old channel, instead of forming a new network.
3. Form a new network: in Domoticz, Setup > Hardware, set Initialize Coordinator to True on the plugin hardware and click Update (see Plugin settings). The plugin sets it back to False and restarts by itself once the network is formed.
4. Pair the devices again, then turn autoRestore back on.

With a ZiGate, the channel setting is applied with a coordinator restart (Admin > Coordinator, Soft reset) instead.

Check the channel

Go to Tools > Tools and click Coordinator info: the Channel field gives the current channel. See Use the plugin tools.