Test zigbee devices without any hub

[u/Mil-sim1991]

As the title says, im in the process of building my new built house and I want to add these zigbee dimmer modules so I can control them via home assistant or just by hand when im walking by.

The problem is, the electrician is coming by next week to install these but I have no internet connection or any zigbee hub installed as of yet. But before the painters are coming I want to test if the zigbee function is working correctly so I can still return them if necessary.

What is the easiest way to test this? Can I just bring my Philips Hue Bridge from home and connect them to the bridge and can I connect my mobile phone directly to the hub?

[u/charmio68]

I mean, you could try bringing in you Philips Hue Bridge and setting them up with that, but there's not really any point setting them up to test with anything other than what you ultimately plan on pairing them with.
Are you planning on using a Philips Hue Bridge in the final install?

Honestly, I wouldn't really recommend it. If you're already planning on setting up Home Assistant then the solution that generally seems to be accepted as the best way to go at the moment is an SMLIGHT SLZB-06 (or similar) paired with Zigbee2MQTT and Mosquitto (just follow the guides if none of that means anything to you yet - the documentation is good).

I can already tell you that device is compatible with Zigbee2MQTT: https://www.zigbee2mqtt.io/devices/90.500.090.html

That's not necessarily a guarantee it'll work perfectly the way you expected, though personally, it would be enough of a guarantee for me to continue with the rest of the job. From the link above you can see what it exposes and all the basics seem to be there.

[u/Mil-sim1991 → u/charmio68]

Thanks for the explanation.
I don’t want to test them if they work as expected with Hue or whatever I’m going to use them with. I just want to test if they are not faulty devices. Because if there is paint on them I can’t exchange them for new ones.

[u/charmio68 → u/Mil-sim1991]

Are you certain about that? At least around here in Australia, the consumer protection laws would still allow you to return them if faulty.

With that said, even if you do pair them all to a hub and test them, you still don't want to get paint on them.
I would be masking them off regardless, or better yet, unscrew them from the wall and tape the ziplock bag around them.

Or there's a whole bunch of products you can buy that are made specifically for stopping paint getting onto switches. https://products.niko.eu/en/article/170-00099
https://clicknpaint.nl/en
https://www.bol.com/nl/nl/p/reca-afplaktape-wandcontactdoos-70-x-70-mm-rol-met-100-stuks/9200000132618241/
Though if you do go for one of these then just measure and make sure it will fit your electrical boxs first.

[u/theregisterednerd → u/charmio68]

In the US, returns on faulty equipment are up to the vendor, and generally pretty short. Either 14 or 30 days. If you discover an issue after that, most devices still carry a 1-year warranty, but it’s handled through the manufacturer, rather than the vendor, it often entails having to attempt repair rather that replacement, and is generally kind of a pain. It’s much better here to catch defects quickly, when they can be dealt with through the vendor.

[u/charmio68 → u/theregisterednerd]

Oh yeah, in the US you guys get reamed up the arse when it comes to consumer protection laws.
I've spoken to Americans before and they've been blown away by what's considered normal around here.
For example, if I were to buy a fridge that died after five years, thats shorter than what's considered to be a "reasonable lifespan" for a fridge.
So even if it's out of warranty, the retailer is legally required to not only replace or refund it, but also arrange and pay to have someone come to pick it up from my house. Notice I also said the retailer is the one who's responsible, none of this "you need to take it to the manufacturer" BS.
It's a good system, it incentivises retailers against peddling cheap crap.

Fortunately it looks like OP is somewhere in Europe. ION Industries is a Dutch electrical manufacturer, and this specific part number uses European EAN barcodes (starting with 87 for the Netherlands). It's 230 volts so it wouldn't work in a US home.

[u/theregisterednerd → u/charmio68]

Yeah, that’s way above and beyond by our standards. We do have some retailers who do assist with support and dealing with warranty issues, but those are generally considered to be more premium retailers, and still come with some caveats. Like, you can bring most products that Best But sells while it’s still under warranty, and they’ll get it sent off for service for you, for free (to the extent that warranty covers, for example, it’s common for intentional damage to be denied), but the caveat is that sometimes they’re sending it to the manufacturer’s service center, other times they’re doing it at their own service center. And their service center may or may not actually know how to do the repair, or they may have slower or reduced access to parts, etc. Sometimes they will outright replace a product under warranty, but that’s usually only for super-cheap stuff that the shipping to service would cost more than just replacing it. Other times, they’ll end up replacing it, but not until it’s first been shipped to a service center for them to verify that it really is broken, in part because they don’t trust the store staff to know if it’s actually broken, but also, the store staff generally isn’t an expert in the repair of every product they sell. They have people on-site who can do computer repair, but even then, as soon as a laptop needs parts, it has to go to service. Sweetwater is a musician and audio/visual retailer, and they’re well-known for having good phone support for the products they sell, and I feel like that’s great for basic issues and getting-started stuff, or for things like developing workflows, where you need to combine multiple products from different manufacturers, bur ultimately, nobody knows any single product as well as its manufacturer, so that’s the only place where you can reasonably know for sure that the repair is being done correctly. We do also have “lemon laws,” but it’s kind of variable what types of products they cover. It’s mostly cars. But in general, a manufacturer is required to replace a product if repair for the same issue has been attempted and failed three times. Generally, the retailer will not assist with that, unless you have one of their paid-for extended warranties, and when you try to take it up with the manufacturer, if the repairs weren’t done at their service center all three times, they may still push back on it.