Optimizing Zigbee with Woox Smart Garden Irrigation Control R7060

[Tuinfluiter]

I'm running Z4D (version 7.1.020) on Domoticz 2024.4 with a Conbee3 stick, two Aqara temperature sensors and an Ikea Tradfri Control outlet as a router.
I recently bought the Woox Irrigation control R7060.
Reliability is my biggest concern, as I am expecting to be away from home quite often.
When I connected the Woox, I saw in the Zigbee network scan that it communicates directly with the coordinator, with a Link Quality of 211. Because of the walls in between I was quite surprised and happy (coordinator > LQ=211 > Woox).
After adding a new Ikea Inspelning Smart plug and some experiments with different topology setups, it didn't connect directly to the coordinator anymore. Instead, the path in the network scan is now:
coordinator > LQ=251 > Ikea Inspelning > LQ=181 > Ikea Control outlet > LQ=75 > Woox.
Given that "a chain is as strong as its weakest link", now the weakest link to the Woox is only 75, while in my first setup is was 211.
So now my questions:
- is a LQ value of 75 something to worry about, from a perspective of reliability?
- then, can I force back the situation where the Woox directly connects to the coordinator (with the LQI of 211) again? And is it advisable to try to do this anyway?

[Kedi]

I have more then one device with LQ below 75 and they all work perfect.
B.t.w. my Woox has LQ of 86 and also works perfect for years now. LQ also varies a little bit over time.
Just make sure that the batteries are OK.

[Tuinfluiter]

Thanks for your reply.
I'll stick to this setup then.

[Thorgal789]

Hello, and remember LQI have nothing to see with signal strength, a bad router have more impact than a wall on it.
A device have in reality 2 LQI, one for input request and one for output.
It's something totaly useless for users, you can have more problems with a device that have a LQI of 200 than a one with 50

then, can I force back the situation where the Woox directly connects to the coordinator (with the LQI of 211) again? And is it advisable to try to do this anyway?

No, it's like chose a router to include a device, the zigbee network is dynamic, it uses an algorithm to chose the better way, the better router, it's his job, not yours, it know better how to do.

[Tuinfluiter]

It's something totaly useless for users, you can have more problems with a device that have a LQI of 200 than a one with 50

Does this mean that there is no way for a user to check anything on the reliability of his devices? When you first connect a device, like my Irrigation control, it may work. So you use it a couple of times and it works. But how can you tell if it will switch reliably every day for, e.g. the next 2 months?