Create General_Zigbee_Best_Practices_and_Troubleshooting_Tips.md

[Hedda]

As discussed in zigbeefordomoticz/Domoticz-Zigbee#1042

Suggest adding this to a troubleshooting section as questions and issues or problems related to range or coverage as well as Zigbee network stability with lost connections due to common known sources of interference are very common today.

As new Zigbee implementations and Zigbee devivces are more getting popular, new end-user beginners and new Zigbee users are posting in community forums about issues/problems related to Zigbee range and stability would have been resolved by simply following some kind of best practice guide.

The recommendations are otherwise largely indirectly based on posts in different communities with recommendations from experienced Zigbee developers (like Koen Kanters a.k.a. "Koenkk" of Zigbee2MQTT fame and Omer Kilic a.k.a. "omerk" who designed the open-source zzh adapter) plus several longer Zigbee range discussions threads found all around in the Home Assistant / ZHA / Zigpy, Zigbee2MQTT, Hubitat, and openHAB community forums with users tips on how-to improve network range and stability and other support channels.

These suggestions is meant to act as general advice Zigbee to help users on relatively simple actions they can and should take if they wish to greatly improve signal range and mesh network coverage or lessen possible signal interference due to electromagnetic interference (a.k.a. radio interference). All of these essential actions to set up a solid Zigbee network can easily and relatively quickly be solved by the users themselves. Also following the recommendations as a new user and Zigbee beginners should a lot of people much frustration as poor signal reception quality can cause intermittent connection issues which can be a pain to troubleshoot.

Again, for example, the most important advice posted in the forums is for users to use a long USB-extension cable for their Zigbee Coordinator and to also buy more "Zigbee Router" devices (normally AC mains-powered Zigbee devices) to their home because they will route/repeat the Zigbee communication and as such extend the network range. Also, more common advice is upgrading firmware on both Zigbee Coordinator as well as Zigbee devices, or just buying a better Zigbee Coordinator adapter if users are using ones that are based on an obsolete chip and/or one for which the firmware is no longer maintained by the manufacturer.

FYI, my research reference and indirectly inspirations include info from Habitat and basic Zigbee troubleshooting tips in other communities:

https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/327216.pdf
https://docs.hubitat.com/index.php?title=How_to_Build_a_Solid_Zigbee_Mesh
https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/guide/faq/
https://gadget-freakz.com/how-to-improve-your-zigbee-network/
https://zigbeealliance.org/news_and_articles/step-by-step-guide-getting-started-with-zigbee/
https://nts.com/services/education/articles/zigbee-best-practices/
https://www.digikey.com/en/articles/tips-for-optimizing-performance-and-energy-use-of-zigbee-radios
https://www.control4.com/docs/product/zigbee/best-practices/english/revision/B/
https://community.hubitat.com/t/xiaomi-aqara-devices-pairing-keeping-them-connected/623
https://community.smartthings.com/t/faq-networking-and-reducing-channel-interference-between-wifi-and-zigbee/40159/3
https://phoscon.de/en/support
https://www.metageek.com/training/resources/zigbee-wifi-coexistence/
https://notenoughtech.com/featured/a-simple-trick-to-reduce-zigbee-coordinator-wifi-interference/

[pipiche38]

This link seems to be broken

https://zigbeealliance.org/news_and_articles/step-by-step-guide-getting-started-with-zigbee/
May be that one
https://mmbnetworks.com/step-by-step-guide-getting-started-with-zigbee/