Help me make this work and I will send a gift in your name to the Center for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too.
I have spent precious HOURS of my life trying to get these stupid MCCGQ11LM Aqara sensors to pair using Conbee 3, RBPI4, Home Assistant - latest firmware/software on everything.
The first one in a 3 pack paired IMMEDIATELY. Then, I had the hardest time getting a couple of Aqara buttons to pair, but eventually succeeded by pressing the button millions of times while pairing.
I cannot for the life of me get either of the other two sensors to pair and I don’t know what else to do but run them over with a garbage truck, send them back, and tell Amazon they arrived like that…
I have tried:
Plugging the Conbee 3 into the USB 2.0 port on the RBPI.
Using a 20ft USB extension so that the Conbee 3 is VERY far away from ANY potential interference.
Holding the button down on the Aqara for 5 seconds until it blinks a bunch of times, implying it’s in pairing mode, then doing nothing else for the 3 minutes while Phoscon searches while it’s only millimeters from the Conbee 3 device with absolutely nothing else near it.
Doing the above but then pressing the button hundreds of times.
NOT holding it down for pairing but only pressing the button once
Not holding it down but pressing the button hundreds of times
New batteries on the sensor, removing and putting the battery back in and then immediately going to pair
Restarting Home Assistant
Restarting RBPI altogether
Restarting the Conbee gateway and then immediately trying to pair
Using the other USB 2.0 port on the RBPI
Looking at the logs to see ??? something that seems like it’s trying to pair and I get nothing.
Reading every single post I can possibly find online with this model number, this brand (Aqara/Xiaomi), Conbee 2/3/deconz/phoscon…
As far as I can tell, the only thing I haven’t tried is setting up a ceremonial fire, chanting in a circle, throwing them in the fire, and then trying to pair them. I’m sick of wasting so much time on something that should NOT be such a PITA when everything else about Home Assistant is fantastic.
I also have a Conbee 3 and some Aqara sensors. The Aqara sensors are notoriously fickle when pairing. I had a single Aqara motion sensor that refused to pair using deconz/phoscon, I switched to Zigbee2MQTT and have had no problems pairing stuff. It’s been rock solid too.
I definitely don’t blame Home Assistant at all!! It has been SO fast and rock solid - just can’t believe I waited so long to finally set it up.
But that is actually a big relief that switching fixed it - I’m completely willing to do that if it works. I’d like to get a bunch more Aqara sensors but I can’t spend THIS much time pairing them every time…
Aqara and Xiaomi (and Tuya) are all infamously known for making firmware that does not exactly follow all the Zigbee specifications and especially infamous for not working well with (some) other brands of Zigbee Router devices (mains-powered Zigbee devices paired/joined on your network that act as Zigbee repeaters/extenders).
To start with, best practice tip it is to upgrade firmware on your ConBee Zigbee Coordinator adapter.
I think the best tip from there is to at least not use " Zigbee repeaters reported NOT to work with Xiaomi devices" and instead only use " Zigbee repeaters reported to work with Xiaomi devices".
Another tip specific to Aqara and Xiaomi mentioned there is that Aqara and Xiaomi devices are infamously known for not automatically moving to a better Zigbee Router device if you add such later, so you will need to manually re-pair each and every Aqara and Xiaomi device after you added more Zigbee Router devices for them to connect via a closer Zigbee repeater/extender.
While it does not help, the saying “you get what you pay for” applies to Aqara and Xiaomi (and Tuya).
@MatthewFlorida You did also not perfectly clarify if you are actually using specifically using Home Assistant’s ZHA integration (the built-in native Zigbee Gateway), or using third-party Zigbee gateways like Zigbee2MQTT, or deCONZ (Phoscon), which is it? I suspect you are specicially using Dresden-Elektronik’s deCONZ Gateway (and their Phoscon App) since you mentioned it, but perfectly clear it is not, however it need to be clear becaise this “Zigbee” section in Home Assistant’s communulity forum is primarly meant to about Home Assistant’s native ZHA (built-in Zigbee gateway) integration → Zigbee Home Automation - Home Assistant (and using devices with it) as all third-party Zigbee gateways have their own communities which discuss stuff that is not Home Assistant specific. See example:
I’m using a sonof Dongle-E with ZHA and have a bunch of these sensors, all of which paired without any problems.
Just to rule it out, are you certain you don’t have interference on your zigbee network ? One way to look at this is by running an energy scan and looking at the values. If this looks ok, then I’d suggest investing the modest amount in getting another coordinator.
Post your scan results here if you need further help.
You can do your energy scan from here, and the results are towards the bottom of the file that gets generated:-
