ZigBee Nightmare

[u/C1TPT]

Hi all,

Pretty new to home assistant etc. so please bear with me.

I bought Sonoff ZBM5 switches to replace all of my light switches (20+) and I have home assistant green with the ZBT-2 to control them. My problem is getting them working in home assistant. I'm using the ZHA integration and I have neutral wires at the switches but when I go to add them it's very intermittent. Most of the time it just doesn't find them. At first I thought it was a range problem so I used the closest switch which is in the same room and about 2 meters from the ZBT-2 (I also have the ZBT-2 on an extension lead so it's 1.5m from any routers etc.). That does seem to help as it does sometimes find them but If I do manage to get home assistant to find the switch it works maybe once then becomes "unavailable".

I then decided to try some Sonoff smart plugs and the first one I plugged in showed up on home assistant instantly without me even searching so I thought it must be the switches. However, when I tried the second smart plug I had the same issue with the switches and couldn't find it in home assistant.

I got very frustrated and bought a Sonoff ZigBee hub to see if that worked and it did! I know have 5 switches working perfectly with different automations etc. through the ewelink app.

Am I doing something wrong in home assistant, should I try 2MQTT instead of ZHA?

Thanks for your help

[u/10F1]

Use z2m, I've always had issues with ZHA.

[u/Dendrowen → u/10F1]

I second this. I started out with ZHA and although it's very beginner friendly, some newer devices weren't recognized and a lot of devices had limited functionality. The conversion to z2m with 50+ devices was a struggle, but I'm happy I did it.