Last year, I bought an Ikea Tardif smart plug that came with a battery powered on/off switch. I paired it with ZHA and everything worked like a charm. So last week, I bought two more. The plugs paired right away and everything is good, but I can’t for the love of god figure out how to get the on/off switches to work / pair properly. I’m using ZHA with a SONOF 3 dongle.
According to the instructions, all I have to do is hold the pairing button on the back of the on/off switch in order to get it into pairing mode. That doesn’t do anything. I tried at least 20 times for various lengths (1sec - 30sec). The only thing that works if pressing the pairing button 4 times. According to the documentation, that supposed to factory reset the switch. If I do that a red light starts to glow and the device is recognized by zha, but when I get to the configuring step in zha, the light turns off and it never gets past configuring. I managed to get past it by redoinng another factory reset during the configuring phase and then holding onto the button, but that works 1/4 of the times. Afterwards, the device is displayed in zha, but unlike the old one, there is no connected via info or firmware info. The entities and everything else is exactly the same as the old one (working one). The problem is that when I press the on/off buttons nothing happens. I checked the zha event listener and no events are registered when I press the buttons.
Does anybody know a way to fix it or are the newer buttons no longer compatible with zha? I have spent more than 6 hours now trying to figure out a way to make them work, everything that was suggested online didn’t work. If possible I would like to make these one works since in Canada they are only 20$ for the plug and the switch. The plug is sold for 15$ without it. The Aqara mini switch is 25$ for the switch alone and it only has one button.
Zigbee uses very low-power radios that are very susceptible to EMF/EMI/RMI interference and your description sounds like the typical symptoms of EMF/EMI/RMI interference. I highly recommend that you read and follow my collected tips here → Zigbee networks: how to guide for avoiding interference and optimize for getting better range + coverage (suggest beginning with connecting the Zigbee Coordinator adapter using long USB extension cable to a USB 2.0 port or via USB 2.0 hub in order to be able to move it away from all possible sources of EMF/EMI/RMI interference, and be especially sure that not connecting via a USB 3.x port or USB 3.x hub or even have it be close to any USB 3.x devices and cables to active USB 3.x devices)