Interferences ... Cable for USB .. and what for a Pi Hat/shield

[pipiche38]

I have seen on a number of forum and also on zigpy pages that it is advise even strongly recommended to put the USB dongle on a usb cable extender to avoid interferences.

Does that mean that Pi shield/hat solution is not reliable and will be subject to interfences ?

[Smanar]

Good question, I think yes, I can see same problem for Raspbee/Conbee.

I can see less problem on shield device, but it s probably because it's less used.
A possible solution that work sometime is using the extender for the SSD instead of the zigbee dongle, but I don't recommande shield/hat device for zigbee on my side.

Some raspberry can probably work better, Raspberry < 4 haven't USB 3.0.

Or can try to make a SSD shield with aluminium foil ^^.

[Hedda]

Does that mean that Pi shield/hat solution is not reliable and will be subject to interfences ?

Indeed, yes it is a fact that all Zigbee radios are very sensitive to interference recommendation if using a Zigbee shield/hat adapter for Raspberry Pi is to disable onboard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (so have to only use wired Ethernet for LAN network) and use long shielded cables.

It is also important to use a USB 2.0 port instead of a USB 3.x port and keep it way from other connected peripherals like SSD harddrives (see white paper https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/327216.pdf). Tip there is to use a powered USB 2.0 hub if your computer does not have a ntive USB 2.0 port.

Therefore it is generally just easier to recommend using a Zigbee USB adapter in a USB 2.0 port so that you have the option to use it with a long USB extension cable to try to avoid EMF/EMI/RMI interference.

Pro tip is to use a shielded USB extension cable.

PS: I cover this most of this in zigbeefordomoticz/wiki#240 and https://github.com/zigpy/zigpy/wiki/Generic-best-practice-tips-on-improving-Zigbee-network-range-and-general-stability