enable and tune zigbee2mqtt's device availability feature to detect offline zigbee devices
domain: zigbee2mqtt.io · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Enable the feature globally with availability: enabled: true in configuration.yaml, or scope it to specific devices in their per-device config instead of globally.
Understand that active (mains-powered) devices are expected to check in periodically (default ~10 minutes) and get pinged if they miss a check-in.
Understand that passive (battery-powered) devices use a much longer check-in window (default ~25 hours) before being pinged.
Monitor the retained zigbee2mqtt/[FRIENDLY_NAME]/availability topic, which publishes {"state":"online"} or {"state":"offline"}.
Note that Zigbee2MQTT re-fetches device state automatically when a previously offline device reconnects or re-announces itself.
Known gotchas
Enabling availability globally adds ping traffic to every device, which can be enough to shorten battery life on battery-powered sensors if left on for all of them.
The default battery-device check-in window (~25 hours) means a truly dead sensor may not be flagged offline for the better part of a day.
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