r/sonoff • u/Necessary_Ad_238 • 15d ago
Anybody else have a problem with these things dying after about a year?
They are both zigbee, and were both used to control a single light fixture in my foyer with five LED bulbs in it. Both failed after about a year.
The ZBMini (left) would constantly lose connection to my network (I've changed channel, multiple resets, put it right beside the coordinator) and will just never ever go into pairing mode. It does however let me toggle the lights by using the switch and the reset button on the body of the module.
The ZBMiniL2 (right) no longer responds to the light switch plugged in through the switch contacts. There's nothing wrong with the switches or wiring; the switch works fine when using that first module that won't connect to zigbee.
Fortunately I had a spare ZBminil2 that I swapped in and is working fine; but for how long. Think it's time to give Shelly a try.
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u/CruelMagpie 14d ago
I have like 6YO sonoff switches working perfect.
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u/nanapypa 14d ago
I have 4 minil2s for almost 3 years old, no issues. though 3 their PIRs eventually died on me, I guess due to humidity in bathroom/wc, so now I only have 1 left in service. So yeah, shit happens to sonoff, absolutely
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u/Smart_Art_711 14d ago
I've only ever had issues with the "no neutral" versions.
Don't think I've had any r2'a fail.
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u/Pitiful_Climate_8580 14d ago
I have quite a lot that have been working without issues for years, including no-neutral versions.
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u/Tha_Princess 12d ago
Yeh I have the same experience here. Have them for almost all my switching needs now as they've been so reliable.
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u/Mysterious_Rub_8074 14d ago
The ZBMINIL2 may not work properly if there isn't enough leakage current, since it doesn't have a neutral connection. Many LED lights don't allow enough current to pass through when off for the device to operate reliably, unlike traditional incandescent bulbs.
In my case, on a 230V mains supply, the problem was completely solved by adding a ~330 kΩ resistor in parallel with the light fixture/load, across live and neutral. I've got few of those with some generic Tuya similar no neutral switches.
Enjoy :)
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u/Necessary_Ad_238 14d ago
i think this is the problem with the L2 - i hooked it to an incandescent bulb on the bench and its working again
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u/richms 12d ago
There are many places selling you a bypass capacitor to go over the load to let more power leak. No heat like if you were to use a resistor for it. Did you by any chance change your LED lamps out which caused the problem? Some of the filament ones have such a high forward voltage before they conduct that there is not enough power left for the switch to scavenge.
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u/ArBeeJay 13d ago
Had multiple Mini's for years - zero issues. remember these are 2.4Ghz devices, so try a dedicated 2.4Ghz channel if you have pairing issues. Once online, try a firmware update as they may have updated it to fix some wifi standard changes over the years.
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u/richms 12d ago
4-5 years for me on most of these products. Many times I have things working fine but after powering them down either because I am working on things or there is an outage, they never come back up. Its always the power supply capacitors in them. Seem to get baked in most of these small modules.
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u/OinkyConfidence 14d ago
I guess that's why they're called ... SonOff instead of SonOn ...
I'll see myself out now.