I have two problems with them. First, less important - battery life is short, sometimes half a year, sometimes less (according to zigbee requirements they should last 2 years).
The second, is much more problematic. It often happens that the switch does not work the first time - only the second click is registered by z2m. On top of that they sometimes have “lag” and sometimes not.
The most frustrating situation is this:
I press the button, the light does not come on
I think to myself: ok, this is the first click that does not work
I press it a second time
the light comes on
I start walking up the stairs
…it turns out that the first one did work, but with lag, so the light goes out
Has anyone had this problem? Any idea how to fix it?
I should add that there are many different variants of the networking involved - some talk to the zigbee coordinator, some through routers.
It would be easy to say “cheap Chinese junk - you got what you paid for.” But I’m not sure that’s fair. I’ve bought similar “junk” and had it work just fine.
In my experience, the two symptoms you’re reporting could be due to a weak Zigbee network. Of course I have no idea what your network looks like, but I’ve found that sticking mains-powered routers half-way to the poorly-performing devices can improve things. I’ve got Zigbee smart plugs with nothing plugged into them, just doing their repeater job. The end devices with a noticeable lag often turn out to be the ones on the fringes of the network.
You’re absolutely right However, the problem is that I did not buy them due to costs - there are simply no remote zibgee panels and switches on the market that work in EU and look like regular wall switches. I don’t want those “glass-plate” stuff, I want my switches to look like regular ones. So I went with something like this for the powered ones and for far-end traveler-switches I used something like this - because it looks the same. If I knew how crappy those remote panels are, I would go with zigbee relays (something like shelly) that you can put inside junction boxes - I didn’t because my house is quite old, so the boxes are very shallow - impossible to fit the relay into it.
One of the panels is literally 2 meters from powered switch that acts as a router and it still behaves in a flaky way
Maybe I’m adding them to ZigBee network in a wrong way? I’m always adding them while in a room with the coordinator, hoping that the ZigBee mesh will change the link to router once it notices that it’s closer to it (after I move them to proper location in house). Am I thinking correctly?
However - one thing that’s crazy is that I also have those kind of switches - and those are working correctly every time! Even if they are far away from the coordinator
Does this also happen if you physically switch the switch or does this only happen if switched through the HA app/Dashboard? And only when switched to “On”?
I have a couple of Moes Zigbee Switches and some of them are behaving similar: If switched physically they work just fine but if switched through the HA app/Dashboard or through an automation sometimes two pushes are needed.
When it comes to automations I simply let the action-part of the referring automations switch it two times with a delay of 1 second inbetween. Certainly not ideal but it works.
My issue is only with remote panels. ZigBee communication from HA/nodeRED to powered switches work OK every time. But with the remote panel, the first “push” sometimes is not recognized nor visible in HA z2m logs at all
Both short battery life and lag in response are commonly caused by interference or/and poor signal range due to not having enough routers, (due to messages having to be resent over and over again).
Zigbee can be very sensitive to interference and have poor range so depend on having many routers.
Be sure to following these general tips and best practices:
This thread was started two years ago - the information in it may be out of date. It might be better to start a new thread in which you can describe your own situation, with a link to this one to provide context if necessary.
However, the problem is that I did not buy them due to costs - there are simply no remote zibgee panels and switches on the market that work in EU and look like regular wall switches. I don’t want those “glass-plate” stuff, I want my switches to look like regular ones. So I went with something 
