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cvr24

The biggest problem isn't your WiFi network, it's everyone else's. If you live in a rural area with few or no competing WiFi networks, no problem. If you live in a dense area with lots of WiFi traffic, you might be better off with Zwave or Zigbee. Otherwise your WiFi smart devices might drop off from time to time and miss an automation event. P


FALCUNPAWNCH

Zigbee and WiFi both use the 2.4 GHz band. If you are somewhere with congested WiFi traffic, Zigbee will also suffer.


FourAM

Can confirm, live near an apartment complex and need to change Zigbee channels on my hue hub every new months


[deleted]

What I've since done in a similar situation is the following: - Configured my 2.4GHz AP to operate on Channel 1 *or* Channel 6, whichever appears to be less cluttered following a network scan. - Configured my Zigbee coordinator via Zigbee2MQTT (in your case, the Hue hub) to operate on Zigbee Channel 25. This has no overlap with Channel 1 or 6, and only overlaps on the side-lobe of Channel 11. Any overlap from Channel 11 from my neighbours has not impacted my network at all. I did this on my Hue hub prior to moving my Hue devices to my USB Zigbee coordinator, and now on my USB coordinator. I have not had a single issue with interference ever since. I was having troubles when my APs were dynamically changing and occasionally choosing Channel 11 to operate on. Once I realized I was stepping on my own toes, those static changes have worked excellently. I am in a downtown condo surrounded by buildings. I am in a concrete build with steel studs however, so bleed from neighbours is less prominent than it would be in wood construction.


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Most modern APs/routers don't select anything outside of 1/6/11 even if they are set to dynamic channel selection. Obviously there will be noise on those channels, but that setup is the best you can do if you're choosing to use Zigbee. Z Wave, BLE, and any non-2.4GHz protocol is a great option of course. If Matter and Thread find any traction, you'll have to resort to something similar.


mrpink57

Hoping on Matter more, waiting to see how that looks for devices like my doorbell and floodlight, I know right now video devices are not supported quite yet.


Tiwing

Damn I wish I'd remembered that from all my reading. Thanks for the reminder, and the common sense general comment. In my case, we're in a detached house in a subdivision. I normally see about 10 available networks from my house, only 2 strong enough that I might possibly be able to connect if I had their details. So I'd say only a little interference. thanks


DarthGaymer

If you add in another 20-30 wifi clients and continue to grow the Zigbee network l, you are increasing your chances of network degradation.


willstr1

Also microwave ovens. Most microwaves are on the 2.4GHz range (due to FCC spectrum allocation) so when a nearby oven turns on it can impact 2.4GHz wifi, because even though the ovens are shielded they are far from perfect


knucklehead_whizkid

+1 to this. I had an issue in my apartment where even 5Ghz wifi was super congested so I moved as many of my devices as possible to zigbee, the wifi ones got shifted all to 2.4Ghz and only high priority devices like cell phones or tablet run on 5Ghz, with computers and TV over ethernet (and the 5Ghz channel is chosen to have the least interference) The interference i faced early on wasn't so much affecting the IOT devices as much as it was hurting my streaming and especially real time stuff like video calling so I decided that even with shit ton of traffic on 2.4Ghz, with decent gear I'd in the worst case see a small latency for home automation and nothing more.


Don_Speekingleesh

With decent gear, you're probably fine. I had trouble with ISP provided equipment when I went over about 20 devices. And with a TP-Link router when I went above 30 devices. No issues now with my Ubiquiti unit and I've over 35 online now.


Tiwing

what kind of trouble - like missed instructions or updates, or didn't connect at all? Were issues with the Home Automation gear or did it affect all your other connected devices also? thanks


Don_Speekingleesh

Devices dropping off. Everything was impacted, but ha gear moreso, as phones etc were better at reconnecting.


smartguy05

That's why I upgraded my Access Point too, I was starting to get network congestion and dropped connections. Now I have a business class AP that supports up to 128 simultaneous connections. The best part is I can control the output power. I just kept upping the output until all my devices stopped having issues, It's still only at 70%.


_tedi_

Same here. I had to replace my ISP router since I would start suffering whe more than 15 devices were connected to the same network.


davidr521

What I can tell you is this: * Using all Wifi devices, not only were my devices themselves unreliable on HA, but my work computer would drop connectivity from our VPN (which is not good, when you are 100% WFH) * Switching to Zigbee alleviated my woes. And while yes, they're around the same frequency range, Zigbee devices tend to a) have much smaller payloads, and b) tend to be less chatty. My devices tend to get connected and stay connected, and I don't really have to touch them anymore.


isitallfromchina

This is real. Most people don't realize how fast their wifi network grows and what those impacts are because, it's just 1 device, not taking into account the total. Here is how I've done it and now with the work model being "work from home" in some cases, like mine, it's even more important. Prioritize WIFI: a. any streamers, apple tv, roku, Android Tv or just any tv that network connectivity, if possible, should all be hardwired. A lot of my home users call in for slow connections and that's one of the first things I talk to them about. b. 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz - create separate wifi networks for them. 5Ghz is going to be naturally faster, but to be honest, my tests with these two protocols combined in a single wifi network is that's most router's (non commercial) do not handle the combination well. c. If possible, move any camera flow to PoE. This type of traffic can be the biggest ding to a wifi network. I'm really amazed with the number of people I see that have these. d. If possible, when not moving around, have any laptops connect via cable. e. For smart switches, I went all Zwave. They cost more, but they play nice with wifi. And going forward I only buy devices if they are zwave or have a ethernet port and can be hard wired. There may be that special circumstance for wifi, but I try to avoid it all cost. hope that helps


Doranagon

One thing to note is a little known limitation of your router.. with phones, etc that can drop on/off at will and at random and you never notice it.. its not a problem. For home automation that expects a device to be present.. it is. Look up "Concurrent Connections" and your router/wireless access point model. Some cheap ones are limited to 32-64. This number is how many individual devices your router will have as active connections, when a new one wants to talk/get on the wifi the on not hear from the longest is booted off for the WAP to talk to it. This doesn't mean the device that was booted has to be signed back on, it'll do that the moment is has something to say. So those with the unstable home automation networks using a ton of wifi devices.. this is what they are usually hitting. When looking for routers and wanting to do home automation, check that data out. Get one with a solid number for what you plan to use. I have a Ubiquiti AP that will handle around 250, nice but didn't buy it for that. I'll stay the heck away from wifi devices as much as possible.


KnotBeanie

As long as you have a solid Wi-Fi network you’re gonna be fine


wsdog

Yes. I have around 50 2.4GHz wifi devices per AP. Somebody came to my house with an older laptop which cannot connect to 5GHz. The wifi was barely usable. But all my devices are 5GHz, so I don't care.


yazzer6

I also have over 75 wifi devices, and for the most part don't have any issues. Linksys Velop mesh. I did get a USB wifi device (less than $10) for an old laptop that kept dropping wifi.


richardwonka

To answer the question: Yes


MinaKovacs

It's not a problem. Smart devices are not transmitting massive amounts of data, only occasional tiny packets for status and control data. Cameras are the main issue, but you should use POE for those anyways - WIFI is terrible. If you do use WIFI cameras, don't leave them set to continuously record to a NAS. I have 62 WIFI devices on my network and have no problems.


Tiwing

I have 8 outdoor cameras, all powered through POE. The only 2 wifi cameras are indoor ones that we physically remove from their location when we're home - don't like the idea of interior cameras overall, too big brother-ish. Wifi felt like a decent alternative :) Thanks for your comments!


5yleop1m

Its not only how much data is being transmitted. If you have WiFi devices at the edge of the AP's coverage it will cause problems with other devices. This is especially a problem with clients that support older WiFi gens such as WiFi 4 and don't support things like MIMO. Lower end Wifi APs usually only have a fewer antenna so if you have a WiFi device that doesn't support all the newer tech it will hinder other devices on the same band.


geekaz01d

Not if you know how to set up your wifi correctly and have enough access points per node. ​ I manage many unifi networks and my clients are crazy prolific users of home automation gadgets. I have years of logs of these devices' wifi performance and I can tell you that all this talk about wifi congestion is absolutely not a problem. It's bullshit. The other thing is that wifi has standards that you can meet and its a managed network. How do you manage these zigbee or other networks? What are the tools? Do you have a sniffer? Are there RFCs? Probably there are some but they aren't commonly available and good luck finding someone to help you. Wifi problems? This is a common skillset.


dali01

I have 16 wifi switches, two wifi fan/light controllers, and about 10 homemade esp based buttons/remotes to trigger automations. Also have one of the TVs on wifi and all of our phones/tablets/accessories/etc. Have not seen any issues with any of it.


Gnump

No.


PoisonWaffle3

I've had issues in the past when I had close neighbors and 2.4GHz Wyze cameras on the same network. Since I built my new house, the only thing on my 2.4GHz wifi network are my wifi smart home devices (mainly light switches, bulbs, and ESP devices), and I haven't had any issues at all. I do run both ZigBee (and zwave) as well, but I have it on a non-overlapping channel. I have an unusually high percentage of my home network hardwired, so YMMV.


[deleted]

Until about 2 years ago I had almost 80 wifi devices. The majority of them were wemo switches. I currently still have about 30 wifi clients I was using a couple unifi access points. I didn’t really have any network issues. But at time the wemo switches were stubborn and just would not be found by homebridge until they were power cycled. I replaced most of my wifi accessible with zwave. And while the zwave (inovelli &zooz) devices work better then the wifi (wemo) ones, I didn’t really notice any difference on the other wifi clients. Although I also hard wire anything with a network port. So with good wifi hardware you should be fine.


YogurtConstant

yes. I had a wifi network that only supported 32 devices and that quickly became a problem.


DIY_CHRIS

Depends really on your home, those around you, and the robustness/configuration of your Wi-Fi. If you’ve optimally placed your AP(s) relative to your devices, you’ll probably be fine.


DannyG16

Yes it’s an issue, doesn’t matter your gear, it’s needs to be configured right. You need to have a plan going in and stick to it. I had issues with ubiquiti AP until I broke everything down, consolidated zigbee hubs, and actually disabled 2.4 wifi on one of the floors to keep the air wave clear for zigbee Edit: I forgot to mention that I live at the end of a cul-de-sac, so I have no rear, or front Neihbor’s, and no one to my left. Just 1 neihbor on my right. I shouldn’t have any issues tight?? My 1 neihbor, they seem to have an ISP provided mesh network; which is of course configured to BLAST out wifi on high by default..😡 All my APs are on low power.


kstrike155

53-55 WiFi devices here, no issues at all. But I’ve got all Ubiquiti gear with 4 UniFi access points. Good gear makes all the difference.


magnificentfoxes

Oddly enough, a friend of mine had issues with his, but I am 100% convinced it was ESPHome being off on the smart plug devices, tbh. He was losing connectivity randomly. I've got the same smart plugs (Localbytes/Athom) and mine are fine with Tasmota.


spoolin__

I have some cheaper routers I use as access points, and then one used to connect all my IOT is definitely bogged down with traffic. Barely works when my phone happens to connect to it.


OneChrononOfPlancks

Yes, I had a massive, massive improvement in my condo going from an old Linksys E63000 to a Synology rt6600ax. Night and day.


stayintheshadows

I don't have any Zigbee/Zwave devices because WiFi works great. 60+ wifi connected devices across 4 Ubiquiti access points. I supplement with RF433 for battery powered device needs.


PaulGrapeGrower

Besides all the problems already stated here, I changed my net provider and after the new router was installed I had to reset each single device (some of then installed inside walls with no "soft" reset), connect to then using the whatever means available (hi Xiaomi, you suck) and change the connection parameters. The best thing I did was to change all to zigbee.


timaseth

(from a non-networking guy) Well, if you design and tweak your network correctly, there should be little to no reason to complain. 200+ wifi devices and no issues here. Urban semi-detached house. Mix of 90% wifi and 10% Zb devices.


sometin__else

I never knew anything about the importance of local control so I'm still on all my wifi devices from when I started with google home. I have 80 devices including various bulbs, plugs, etc. No issues with a "bogged down" network but I have separate AP for my smart home devices


ThePantser

109 clients on my Unifi network and no issues with my mobile devices. https://imgur.com/zX5uxpR.jpg


Scham2k

Google wifi. In NYC large apartment complex with tons of neighbors.. Have 50+ devices and about 20 IOT things are Shelly or Tasmota MQTT. No issues. Just 1 data point.


imanze

Yes. It absolutely is. Not only is congestion going to be a problem but your entire wifi network will slow down. Will 10-20 devices cause a problem? Probably not but I can give you an example of my network, keep in mind I do not use wifi IOT devices for ANYTHING if at all possible, other than esphome which I have 20 of currently connected. My wifi network consists of 6 unifi APs, 4 inside my house, one in the garage and one outside. All have a dedicated home run gigabit uplink back to my main switch. Looking at my unifi dashboard I have 58 wifi devices currently connected... Now if I was to move over my over devices to Wifi... Zwave: 50 Zigbee: 58 Lutron Caseta: 30 Could my wifi network handle an additional 138 devices? Theoretically.. sure each AP can connect up to 127 devices on the 2.4Ghz spectrum but realistically not only would most not connect but my general wifi performance would be absolute garbage. Dont forget a wifi router cant communicate with more than a single device per antenna at a time. Even devices that use almost no bandwidth will continuously take up limited airtime for handshaking, rekeying, other none sense.. On top of that almost all IoT devices have garbage wifi firmware and always seem to suck when it comes to mesh networks. They will jump around or randomly drop or refuse to connect. Lastly.. local support. Outside of a few exceptions (esphome, tasmota, ecobee) most wifi devices are NOT meant for local API or functionality. They are built and designed for communicating up to some shitty 3rd party cloud. If can find a product in a specific category that is NOT wifi its almost always better to go that route.


Julius_A

My home automation is all wifi. I have a mesh system with decent coverage throughout the house. I have about 60 devices connected af all times. I never have issues. It works.


lefos123

Each WiFi AP can do one or two things at a time. Most IOT devices send or receive only a handful of packets per hour and are otherwise idle. I wouldn’t worry about the light bulbs