Help with ZigBee (ZHA) bindings

Configuration
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I could use some assistance with Zigbee groups & clusters (using ZHA and an EZSP). I recently got a handful of Sengled floodlight bulbs, and got a GE/Jasco Enbrighten dimmer switch (43080) to use for physical control via Zigbee groups. I wired the bulbs to always be on, and the switch has no load connected. I created a Zigbee group and added all of the bulbs. Control via the Zigbee group works perfectly. The switch is paired and working on its own.

Now, I’d like to be able to control the bulbs with the switch directly for on/off/dim. I went to the switch’s config in ZHA, then “Manage Clusters,” and in group binding I selected the group with the lights, checked all the boxes, and clicked “Bind Group.” I toggled the switch a few times, and nothing. Ran a Reconfiguration on the switch, and nothing. It just doesn’t do a thing to the bulbs. Am I doing something wrong?

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Maybe creating an automation that when you press the lower brightness button it reduces the brightness and the same to increase the brightness?

I turn my lights on and off with a Sonoff ZBMini switch through automation.

This my automation in yaml:

alias: Light control with Sonoff ZBMini
description: ''
trigger:
  - platform: device
    type: turned_off
    device_id: fff00a53e093410376XXXXbf78bafe55
    entity_id: switch.zbmini1
    domain: switch
  - platform: device
    type: turned_on
    device_id: fff00a53e093410376XXXXbf78bafe55
    entity_id: switch.zbmini1
    domain: switch
condition: []
action:
  - type: toggle
    device_id: 1a45ce97e88XXXX562ec105f85
    entity_id: light.dimmable_light_1
    domain: light
mode: single
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Yeah, I could definitely create an automation, but I was hoping to use Zigbee groups so it would work even if HA is down for some reason.

4

ZHA requires HA running.
I understand that maybe you want the devices to communicate with each other directly, right?, but I think this is not possible. So you will need to connect directly to not depend on HA

5

You might want to checkout zigbee2mqtt

6

Binding should work independent of Zigbee2mqtt or ZHA. Instructions will differ between them, but binding is a native Zigbee thing.

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You would think right? I don’t use zha so am not familiar with it, but I can’t find anything on binding in the official documentation on it, and it looks like it didn’t work for you when you tried.

Zigbee2mqtt seems to have a lot of users that have successfully configured binding Testing: binding · Issue #782 · Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt · GitHub and dedicates a page in the documentation to setting it up. Also, although binding is supported by the zigbee protocol, it doesn’t mean every zigbee device supports it. The zigbee2mqtt binding page specifically says “Not all devices support this, it basically comes down to the Zigbee implementation of the device itself”. Similar to zwave associations, the zigbee device must be capable of supporting binding itself. Zigbee certification is also much looser the zwave certification, which causes many devices, like aquara, to not be fully zigbee compliant, and impacts binding as well.

If your device supports binding, I agree it SHOULD work no matter what program you use to manage zigbee as it’s part of the specification, but it appears there’s more thought and programming around supporting it in zigbee2mqtt vs zha. In the end, if the software can’t figure out how to configure it properly, it doesn’t matter much whether it’s native to zigbee or not. And the software will matter.

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Have similar plans. Did you get any further?

Greetings Werner

9

FYI, the ZHA docs now have some basic information explain binding and unbinding:

https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/zha#binding-and-unbinding

For changing the existing docs and submitting a new PR with improvements see:

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant.io/blob/135275ac92bd5ccb97c05034495c77969a828818/source/_integrations/zha.markdown

Great if you guys could help improve the ZHA docs by submitting PRs like this:

https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant.io/pull/16336

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I agree on the need to improve the docs. But really, PR on 28 jan, approved on 22 oct ?

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Yeah, that is also partially why I closed Update zha.markdown with tips on improving Zigbee network range by Hedda · Pull Request #15789 · home-assistant/home-assistant.io · GitHub and created PR Update ZHA documentation with tips on improving Zigbee network range by Hedda · Pull Request #18864 · home-assistant/home-assistant.io · GitHub so get review as new:

Really few reviewers → https://github.com/home-assistant/home-assistant.io/projects/5#card-69311549

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How can you tell if a device supports binding? Is there an attribute for that which can be read by the Zigbee controller? When I open the clusters page in ZHA, the debug log displays a big list of “bindable devices” but I don’t know where it gets this information. In this case, I’m trying to bind a Tradfri on/off button to a Gledtopto bulb. The bulb does appear in the “bindable devices” list but nothing happens when I try to bind it. The log line begins like this, I’ve truncated it because it’s very long.

[homeassistant.components.zha.api] Get bindable devices: source_ieee: [cc:86:ec:ff:fe:f5:ab:38], bindable devices:
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