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Tiny tweak, readability
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frenck authored Nov 22, 2024
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Expand Up @@ -624,7 +624,11 @@ RSSI (Received Signal Strength Indicator) values are an indicator value of the r
- Generally, anything -60 and above (meaning -50, -40, etc.) in RSSI should be considered a strong signal (not losing messages).
- Usually, anything at -80 and below (meaning -85, -90, etc.) in RSSI should be considered a noisy environment and you risk losing messages.

LQI (Link Quality Index) values are shown as positive numbers on a scale but can be very hard to interpret for Zigbee and not as useful for troubleshooting. This is because the Zigbee specifications and the (IEEE 802.15.4 specification) do not standardize how to perform LQI measurements. The LQI value provided by the Zigbee devices is not measured using unified standards from all device manufacturers and Zigbee stacks, and often LQI only a measure of the last-hop link quality anyway which is most of the time not useful information, as such the values can not always be trusted. For example, Zigbee devices based on Silicon Labs EmberZNet stack use positive display numbers for LQI, where higher is better and lower is worse. The Texas Instruments Z-Stack computes LQI for each received packet from the raw “received signal strength index” (RSSI) by linearly scaling it between the minimum and maximum defined RF power levels for the radio that more or less just provides an LQI value that, based on the strength of the received signal. This can be misleading in case the user has a noisy environment with interference within the same frequency range (as the RSSI value may be shown as increased even though the true link quality decreases). Other manufacturers and Zigbee stacks measure and calculate LQI values in another way. In theory, a positive high LQI value is better and a lower LQI value is worse, but depending on your devices, that might not always be the reality.
LQI (Link Quality Index) values are shown as positive numbers on a scale but can be very hard to interpret for Zigbee and not as useful for troubleshooting. This is because the Zigbee specifications and the (IEEE 802.15.4 specification) do not standardize how to perform LQI measurements. The LQI value provided by the Zigbee devices is not measured using unified standards from all device manufacturers and Zigbee stacks, and often, LQI is only a measure of the last-hop link quality anyway, which is most of the time not useful information as such the values can not always be trusted.

For example, Zigbee devices based on Silicon Labs EmberZNet stack use positive display numbers for LQI, where higher is better and lower is worse. The Texas Instruments Z-Stack computes LQI for each received packet from the raw “received signal strength index” (RSSI) by linearly scaling it between the minimum and maximum defined RF power levels for the radio that more or less just provides an LQI value that, based on the strength of the received signal. This can be misleading in case you have a noisy environment with interference within the same frequency range (as the RSSI value may be shown as increased even though the true link quality decreases). Other manufacturers and Zigbee stacks measure and calculate LQI values in another way.

In theory, a positive high LQI value is better, and a lower LQI value is worse, but depending on your devices, that might not always be the reality.

- Best practice is to ignore LQI value.

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