I have one of those frient buttons, and intend to use it outside as a doorbell. I haven’t gotten around to permanently leaving it outside, but the construction looks solid and it does seem that it’ll survive everything except total immersion. Otherwise, it behaves as you expect a ZigBee button should, and ZHA handles it well out of the box.
Just got one of these too - as you say it looks very solid.
Are you getting a battery level sensor? Mine is permanently unavailable, but oddly I am getting attributes for voltage, battery size and battery quantity - never seen the last two before! I can template a battery % out of the voltage, but it’s weird.
Edit: Another odd thing is that it presents as a binary sensor rather than a button giving an event. The sensor turns on, thern off again immediately. Maybe this is just the ZHA interpretation.
There are cheap Tuya Zigbee wireless switches/buttons out there that are advertised waterproof IP55 and seemingly compatible with ZHA/Z2M.
Just a couple of examples in the 5-10$ range on Aliexpress:
Single + Double Press
=> blakadder device page
Single + Double + Long Press
=> blakadder device page
The “no seam on front faces” design has me less worried than that of the frient (for example) as to the waterproof claim… but I don’t use buttons so I can’t confirm… we all know how vendors can be with adjectives. But then again, it all depends on the requirements of the environment… I’ve been using a 10$ Sonoff temperature sensor on an outside wall that receives the occasional “wind-pushed” rain for over a year without issues, and that thing is definitely not waterproof.
I’m using a Hue (zigbee) button for a doorbell. I have a porch overhang, so slight protection from elements. Button seems pretty sealed. It has worked well for over a year now, but the reported battery levels plummet when the temp drops below 10°C. It’s currently reporting 1% battery, but appears to be working fine…
Right, with ZHA I don’t get a remaining battery percentage with the Frient button. I don’t know if the button simply doesn’t support it, or if ZHA has trouble extracting it. Like you, poking around the clusters, I can get it to report values for the voltage but not the percentage remaining.
To me, the implementation as a binary sensor makes sense. It actually will stay in the “on” state if the button is held down, so some people might find that useful. It was very straightforward to link the “turn on” of the button to an automation, like for activating a doorbell relay and sending a smartphone notification.
Otherwise, we’ve had some good rainstorms by now as well as a couple weeks of snowy/icy weather, including a few days below -10º C, and the button has happily kept working through it all. (In my case, the button is very exposed to the elements, where it’s frequently subject to wind-blasted rain.) I’m rather confident it’ll happily chug along for the long haul.
Anyone tried these: Friends of Hue Outdoor Switch – Senic ?
Says it needs no batteries - movement generates enough power to connect and send.
My understanding is these green devices aren’t yet supported, it’s not regular Zigbee so they need to be in range of a compatible (basically hue) device and the coordinator needs to be compatible as well.
Haven’t looked into them in a while, maybe there’s been progress
Has anyone tried the Friends of Hue Outdoor Switch – Senic with HA?
If BLE would be ok: have a look at Shelly BLU Button Tough 1 Black – Shelly Europe
Jumped in and bought 4 Friends of Hue - Senic Outdoor Switchs for outdoor use, with the rubber covers on. Have them mounted on a patio, two under a covered area on the patio and two just stuck on some garden walls fully exposed.
They paired the same way as Hue switches with the Hue hub using the Hue app - you have to do a slightly different wake up sequence on the actual switch but the Hue app knew all about them and did it’s usual graphical walk through which was very simple to follow.
HA spotted them straight away, created all the right switches - I’ve got them configured to do things in the Hue app (cycle through scenes) and at the same time have some automations triggered in HA (turn off motion lights on the patio - as you have now selected a scene).
You get events on top left, bottom left, top right, bottom right:
Although I’ve struggled to get a meaningful single long press event to fire in HA (Hue hub works as you’d expect) - but all the others fire fine. It’s a reasonable pressure to press them, not too bad but it is a positive action to press them in - just brushing against them won’t activate the switch (unlike say a Hue remote).
Built well, do what they say on the tin - feel reasonably well protected for exposed use, but the main thing for me is no battery - so should work well all year.
So far they’ve been out and exposed to torrential rain (proper thumping Yorkshire rain 
), some 0C nights, fog and +32C direct sun - no problems so far - not gone through snow yet.
Should add that you can (as with any Hue switch) tell the Hue hub that they are configured in ‘another app’ and treat them as just four independent buttons - although I just like the fact I can hold them down as light switches and the brightness up/down works well in the Hue hub - and they ‘look’ like light switches rather than four buttons so people tend to treat them as light switches.
The rubber cover is reasonable quality and they just have four 3M sticky pads on the back to mount onto pretty much anything - as I say I’ve got two just stuck to a brick wall.
I picked them up on Amazon on a ‘deal’ day (25% off).
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